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Willy Boy, 2 TW's, a Good Samaritan, and a Helicopter.

5K views 19 replies 7 participants last post by  JS5owner 
#1 ·
First, a bit of history:



"Willy Boy" was a local Paiute Indian, and the subject of a 1909 manhunt. It was later the story line for a movie entitled "Tell Them Willy Boy is Here" starring Robert Blake and Robert Redford.



The generally accepted facts of the case are that he attempted to "steal" a bride, and killed her father in the process when the father attempted to intervene. Other accounts say that he executed her father in his sleep, then kidnapped the girl. He later killed his unwilling fiance' when she became a hindrance to his efforts to elude a posse. Eventually he also shot members of said posse, and in the end took his own life by shooting himself in the head by actuating the trigger of his Winchester with his toe as the posse finally closed in.



Locally this is a topic of much controversy to this day. Predictably, The Modern White Apologists, legitimate latter day historians, local Indian lore and the first person accounts and news articles of 1909 all present conflicting versions of the story depending upon which group has the podium, though most seem to concede the above are the basic facts.



I'm not gunna weigh in on one side or the other, but having been a semi-ardent student of the events surrounding the Willy Boy manhunt, what has always impressed me most was the fact that he successfully evaded a posse of some of the best qualified law enforcement, citizens and trackers of his day, ON FOOT, with a presumably uncooperative and far less physically capable woman in tow, over hundreds of square miles of some of the most waterless and brutal terrain extant. For that, the man gains my undying admiration



So I thought I'd finally pay my respects to ol' Willy in person.....
 
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#2 ·
"It began like any other day........"



Purple at the trailhead. It was a cold, cloudy and fairly unphotogenic day in the dez, so not many pics were taken:







We only encountered two people all day. One was The Good Samaritan (more on this later), the other a dirtbike rider who forced me down when he hit my rear wheel coming around this curve. It took him about 100 yards to stop his bike, he then looked back to make sure I was dead, and blasted off again. Jerkweed.



Here's Purple again, waiting for me to clean my shorts at the spot:







Most of the riding was loose, off-camber soft stuff. Endless, though not particularly difficult.



This was at the end of the trail. Willy Boy was cremated by his people on the spot where he fell. In more recent times someone commissioned a headstone and placed fencing around the site:







A nice, easy ride to see something I'd long postponed. It's only 3 PM, and we got plenty of time to explore a bit before dark.



From here, things got a little weird....



If you look carefully in the upper right corner of this pic, you'll see the faint outline of what appears to be a goat trail.....



"



Being that we had this surplus of time on our hands, I decided we should have a look at that goat trail, which was at the bottom of this:







As we all well know, pics of a gnarly, dangerous ascent never appear all that gnarly. What you can't see is that this piece of trail is over solid ledges of off-camber granite and quartz, interspersed with loose D.G., with a garnish of soft sand. This is me after riding/walking Purple's bike down it. After the first 10 yards I realized my mistake, but I was already committed, and there was no way a TW was gunna go back UP that hill. Every foot of it was covered in skid plate scars and motor oil from others' attempts. I could swear I even saw bloodstains on the granite




So I decided to leave Purple and her bike there while I found an alternate route by which we could extract her bike. Unfamilliar with the area, I set out on several deadend canyons all of which appeared as if they would connect with the goat trail. Not a crisis situation by any means, but darkness and sub-freezing weather were definite on our short list of immediate realities. We had the situation in hand and all the emergency gear we'd need if anything went south. Purple and I have been in some tight spots before and I can rely on her to act calmly. rationally and logically on her own behalf if the situation warrants such. This was not yet one of those situations.





Enter The Good Samaritan. While I was searching for alternate trails I happened upon this woman who was riding a quad. In passing I related the situation, and asked her if she knew of a connecting trail that might lead to that spot. She said that she too was unfamiliar with the area and had actually been looking for Willy Boy's gravesite unsuccessfully all day.



Trying to be helpful she suggested that I sound my horn and that Purple would then sound hers as sort of a locating system, and that way I would know I was on the right path. I assured her that we had the situation in hand and thanked her for her suggestion, (which was a pretty good one)... but Purple is deaf.



We said adios and I thought nothing of it.



Eventually I found a way in. Predictably Purple had assessed the situation and had secured the bike and moved to higher ground in the event that she needed to solve her own problem. The route out was beyond her skill level, so I left my bike in the canyon and we rode double on her bike to the main trail. I sent her on her way back to the trailhead and warm truck, while I walked a couple of miles back down the trail to my bike, then rode out.



Meanwhile, back in town The Good Samaritan (God love her, wherever she is tonight) evidently promply called 911 the very instant she could get a cellphone signal. Purple was met at the truck by county sherrif's officers and a helicopter had been dispatched to search for some poor missing deaf woman who had apparently been abandoned and left to freeze to death in some innaccessible canyon by her psycho boyfriend. It didn't take more than a millisecond for her to figure out that the "missing" woman they were referring to was HER.



Anyway, she quickly cleared up the misunderstanding, the helicopter was called back, I was spared a zillion dollar bill from the county for Search and Rescue services and everyone had a good laugh once I returned to the truck and the cops were satisfied I wasn't an axe murderer.



THE END
 
#4 ·
Lizrdbth (and Purple), WHAT a story... I'm glad you made it out OK. I wish I was with you guys. So, now that you know where to go, and where NOT to go, you've got to take me to Willy. Happy Holidays, -Jeff
 
#5 ·
Thanks for sharing your little adventure and pictures. Like many others, a little snow bound and it's nice to see someone posting a trail ride, though it may have been chilly. Although I vaguely remember something about the movie of Willy Boy, if I saw it I was too young to remember it now. Yours and Purple's goat trail experience reminded me of the pickle I got my wife and I in, on a ride a few months ago, minus the good Samaritan part. Like you, it took us a while to get out of it. I've had to dismount the TW to ride the wife or girls ATV out of some tight spots, but nowhere near 2 miles. Kudos to you and purple.
 
#6 ·
I found this Youtube of some guys struggling on part of the same hill. Trust me, this wasn't even the worst of it, and they probably had reapeated the same procedure over and over as they went along. LOL. Even in this video you don't get a real sense of the pucker factor of this trail. I mighta made it on my bike eventually, but there's no way Purple's stock tires and gearing would have made it before my arms fell off. The "trail" is really just a natural vein of granite and quartz.



Having friends who are better riders along to save your butt is pretty cool.



Having friends who put pics of your misfortune on Youtube.... priceless.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYsW0jZ4Uqw
 
#7 ·
Dude, that vid was interesting... And you guys went down! How did the trail you found connect to this one?
 
#9 ·
First of all, unless you go there with me, don't go by the internet coordinates to the gravesite, cuz they suck. True coordinates are:



N 34 17.510' x W 116 32.248



Kinda hard to explain, but really simple now that I understand the lay of the land. Dixie Mine Rd. heads south, then around elev. 4900 ft. the trail to Willy Boy branches west then north from from it in a large arc ending at the gravesite. None of this detail showed up on my software, so I turned the damned thing off. Somewhere in between the fork and the gravesite you can pick up the goat path, the entrance to which just looks like a place where a few bikes took off across the brush. It's no cakewalk, but it will bypass this nasty hill allowing you to do a loop back to 247.



Call me and we'll git r' done. We could do Nazi Rock via The Orbitron and Willy Boy in an afternoon.
 
#10 ·
DOOD,



If you can ride that hill with stock gearing, tires, 6" of travel, 13hp and the wheelbase of a minibike in less than an hour under your own power, straddling the bike and without looping it more than 5 times I'll buy dinner just to see how it's done.





Regardless of who ends up buying dinner, you'll be my first Youtube.
 
#15 ·
Seems many of us have similar quirks regarding qroups. Then as well, we seem (many of us) to be old enough to know, when you commit to a group project, you need to embrace the "WE" more than the "ME". I have a very tuff time with that. Seems that SJ5 does a great job in putting together the event. My thought is, this allows everyone to 'relax' and enjoy the get-together and not give as much thought to the how, when and where................ I think I would feel comfortable with you guys, however, it is just far enough to give me a good "excuse" to not participate. Gerry
 
#16 ·
I vote we all storm Gerry's house, force him to ride with us then hang out on his couch and drink all his root beer.
 
#18 ·
Hey guys, I'm all for it. . . Ronny, are you game for this trail? Get the gang together, Gerry, Russ, Jeff and whoever else can muster up the cajones. . Love the youtube. . . maybe we can make our own on how it's supposed to go! Jeff can video it (hopefully not catch our final demise)



Adam

(little ole dr650)
 
#20 ·
*** UPDATE ***



I rode with lizrdbrth and purple yesterday to see the grave... Here are my pics of the journey.



My link



The trail was FULL of deep sand due to the heavy rains we've had. Lizrdbrth said that this was new. It took us 2 hours to reach the marker whereas it only took them 40 minutes last time. Also, note the pics of the gnarly trail. Let me tell you that in person I would NOT even want to watch someone attempt the ascent. Ronnydog and Atam_Bomb, I'd hate to try and haul your broken bones (and bikes) out of this place!
 
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