August 2014
Yesterday’s adventure was actually very positive. I rode the BMW up to the Brazos high country to scope out campsites for the Labor Day weekend. This is a vast area of wilderness on the New Mexico/Colorado border, of mixed conifer/aspen forest and high meadows ranging in altitude from about 8,000-11,000 feet. Except for a few private in-holdings, there is no one who lives up there.
Annette and I have enjoyed the peace of camping there, mostly miles from the nearest neighbors, no noise except for the wind and coyotes, starry nights and blue sky days. I’ve come to know it fairly well over the years and am always on the lookout for the perfect campsite. We reach these campsites in the big truck and the best ones are always at the end of miles of jeep roads, locked down and crawling in 4WD. But that’s slow and I need to find them all. 
The mos
t difficult part of this country is the west side of the Cruces Basin. All the tracks are beyond the ability of a car, but they are on the forest service maps. They promise awesome country and — according to the maps — a way to get across to the pavement in Colorado. So what better way to scout out the country, than a day trip on a motorcycle that can cover ground fast? Yeah, right.
Cardinal rule #1 of riding by yourself in the backcountry is “don’t ride into anything that you can’t ride back out of. Turn around and don’t do it.” This got me into trouble yesterday.
I had come across a couple mountain bikers who were
doing a multi-day crossing. They said the road is passable and the only place to worry about was a loose rocky descent. One of them said “I don’t know what your skills on that thing are, but you’ll be descending anyway.” They had had to climb it and push on foot. That should have raised warning bells, but I was so intent on getting through that I ignored it.
The descent was barely ridable, but as soon as I got into it, I knew I could not climb back out, so I was committed to going forward and finding a way out on the Colorado side.
Little did they tell me about the Pinos river crossing ahead. They had obviously waded and carried their gear, but I had to ride the beemer across. Needless to say, I crashed in the river and drowned the bike. When I finally got it pushed out of the water and dried out, I crashed it again the on steep ascent up the embankment and was stuck. I had to walk out and find help. Fortunately this was very close to the route of the Cumbres and Toltec Steam railway and there were people at a maintenance station, who drove me back down to the river in big old Dodge truck and towed me up the bank.
The ride home was uneventful, but I thought about what I had done all the way, violating the cardinal rule. This is remote country and I had seen no one for hours. It turned out well — except I need an oil change again — but I could have been stuck out there. Lesson learned.