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

"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

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

JS5owner said:

Dude, that vid was interesting... And you guys went down! How did the trail you found connect to this one?

Click to expand...

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.

805gregg said:

Finally just gas it and go. I think the TW would do better, easier to touch the ground, and e start.

Click to expand...

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.

ronnydog said:

Lizrdbth and Purple, I Think this is a good hill for a camo 225TW with a 3" exstended swingarm, 9" tire and a Dog to ride it! You film I ride.

Great story, ride and rescue!



Ronnydog

Click to expand...

My bike has a RIDER problem. Yours does not. LOL.



But if it'll get you up here I got no issue with you making me look like a prissy little schoolgirl on Youtube



One thing for sure is that I'll never own another stock-tired TW. If it weren't for her munchkin stature her bike would be set up as a lowered and lightened version of mine.



She'll prolly be outriding me pretty soon, anyway. Then you'll have some competition.



MSF kept her after school and invited her to become an instructor.



She rawks.

*** 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!