Spangler Hills to Death Valley 1/28/22 through 1/30/22

[Kurt138]

Hey folks,

Anybody up for a 3-day weekend ride in SoCal? I am planning a club ride for January 28 through January 30th, 2022. Our base camp will be at the Wagon Wheel OHV Staging Area, which is near Ridgecrest, CA. To find it just enter “Wagon Wheel OHV Staging Area” in Google Maps or your car GPS – it is about a 6 hour drive south from Reno.

What sort of riding will there be? Well, if you’ve got en enduro-oriented bike Spangler Hills is a 57,000 acre OHV area, with good single track riding and hill climbs – both are superior to Moon Rocks. If you’re more interested in adventure we can do a two-day ride from Spangler Hills to Beatty, passing through Death Valley National Park. Hotel reservations are needed for Beatty, it will probably be too cold up there to camp off the bike. The adventure route will take us past the Trona Pinnacles and the ghost town of Ballarat, then going up Goler Canyon. There will be plenty of route options available.

Here is a sketch of where we could meet in Spangler Hills:

Rides: KLR650, KX250

[Kurt138]

Here is a pic of some of the nice single track that abounds in the OHV area:

Rides: KLR650, KX250

[Kurt138]

Here is a pic of Wayne from 2019 riding through some of the interesting rock formations near camp at Wagon Wheel:

Rides: KLR650, KX250

[Kurt138]

Here’s another pic from 2019 – it’s the entrance to Goler Canyon on our way to DV:

Rides: KLR650, KX250

[Kurt138]

So far I believe only Dave and I are in for this ride. I think Dave wants to go back because he was the king of the 5 mile ‘dry’ lake we crossed in 2019, but I guarantee you we won’t be crossing it in 2022, ha.

Rides: KLR650, KX250

[Kurt138]

I created a GPX file and a Google Maps HTML file for the first leg of the adventure ride from Spangler Hills through Goler Canyon to Beatty. This route is mostly offroad, and has a short cut to Goler Canyon to avoid riding all the way up to Ballarat. The total trail distance of this route is 150 miles. Gas is available in Furnace Springs at mile 104. The route passes Barker Ranch, the Geologist’s Cabin, the abandoned Warm Springs Resort and Chloride City on the way out of DV. I will make an alternate route to get back to Spangler Hills so we don’t have to retrace our path.

The GPX file is too big to attach here due to site restrictions so both the GPX file and the Google Maps file are in the attached SpanglerHills-GolerCanyon-Beatty-Files.zip archive instead.

Rides: KLR650, KX250

[Kurt138]

Dave and I booked hotel rooms for Saturday, January 29th in Beatty. So we will be doing the adventure ride on Saturday and Sunday. Friday the 28th will be trail riding in Spangler Hills for those that get in early.

Rides: KLR650, KX250

[Kurt138]

I created an alternate route for the return to Spangler Hills from Beatty via Titus Canyon. The route passes the ghost towns of Rhyolite, Leadfield and Ballarat and also passes by the Trona Pinnacles close to camp. The total trail distance is 184 miles, and there is gas at Stovepipe Wells 60 miles in and in Trona. A pic of the route is below and I attached the GPX file:

Rides: KLR650, KX250

[Dave G]

Just to confirm, I will be at Spangler on Friday, probably not too early. I don’t have an enclosed trailer so I can’t lock up any spare bikes. Right now I’ll be riding my DR650 since it has heat and range. Furnace Creek to Beatty can be cold once the sun goes down.

[Kurt138]

I hope we can get into Beatty before the sun goes down…that should be doable with no major mishaps.

Rides: KLR650, KX250

[Dave G]

If we skip the mud we should be fine.

I’ll be in a Silver FJ Cruiser with a small trailer. I’ll look for you on Friday somewhere at Wagon Wheel.

[Dave G]

I found the easy trail:

[Kurt138]

Fun! We should find out where that is so we know where to send the new club members, ha. ;^)

Rides: KLR650, KX250

[Kurt138]

We’re still a week out, but Yahoo Weather is forecasting 68 F next Friday in Ridgecrest with 0% chance of rain. I can live with that!

Rides: KLR650, KX250

[Author]

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