We had ridden dirt bikes all over northern Baja. Thousands of incredibly remote frontier miles
committed to memory. In fact, we were to
the point where another weekend ride of 300 miles was becoming a milk run of
sorts.
Perhaps a little
history and I will keep it short. When
we moved to San Diego in 2000, I gradually bought enough dirt bikes so that my
two boys and my daughter could ride as a family. We headed out to the California desert and
had many good times camping and riding.
The Markey family down the street had a son named Bob who was my son’s
Matthew’s age. Stu Markey, the father,
had bought Bob a bike while they lived in Monterey CA. The boys were classmates so eventually Stu
and I met and shortly became friends. After two seasons of riding, the boys
grew better than the California desert could dish out. We all would ride the 60 square mile park
quicker than it took to drive out there.
Stu Markey mentioned that one of his friends knew all these trails down in
Baja California, Mexico. From the age of
13 to their 20’s, we started to ride miles and miles of dirt roads and trails all
over Baja. As the boys grew, so did the
size of their dirt bikes. Starting out
on Honda 70cc engines, they graduated to 100 to 200cc class of motorcycles but
quickly ruined those. Ironically, the
Japanese are very good at building exactly what was needed based on the average
rider. Obviously, the 70cc bike was for
beginner kids (not adults), the 100cc bikes were for young adults. However, our young adults were at the point
where they rode the bikes exceeding the “average” rider in the form of jumping
and technical sections at a decent speed.
Matt, my son, kept coming back with broken spokes on his moto. Since forever, I have never had a moto with a
broken spoke so at first, I assumed it was a defect. After installing a few new spokes and seeing
those break, I still thought something was wrong with the bike. As it turns out, the bike was just doing what
it was designed for and it was the rider that pushed the bike beyond its
limits. Matt was literally pounding the
bike beyond the design point. Thankfully,
young boys don’t break as easily. When I
finally got tired of replacing broken spokes, we decided it was time to put the
boys on the 400cc class of moto’s. This
was more than just another uprate as I was riding a 250cc bike myself so it
really was a milestone of passing up the dads.
At first, I tried to keep up using skill and old man tricks. For the most part, in tight or technical
trails, there was no appreciable difference but then when the motos hit a sand
wash or a long stretch, the power of the 400 was no match for a 250. So I had to upgrade to a 400 also.
Bob’s 400cc The
Racehorse of Dirt Bikes
Yamaha, Suzuki, Honda, KTM, at one point, we had them
all. These bikes were tall yet still
nimble enough to quickly scramble up rocky hills. The power was frightening. Out of the factory, the manufacturer had to
meet certain standards to sell in California.
Everyone knew that the manufacturer also sold a “closed track” kit. It would raise your eyebrows to find out that
a new factory bike only allowed the throttle to be opened about a third of the
way. A third throttle with such a quick
motor was plenty. In fact, my used
Yamaha was sold to me because the previous owner said the bike was too fast for
him to ride. The “closed track” kit came with a new throttle stop screw which,
as you guessed, gave you access to the other two-thirds of the wide-open
throttle. Throttle 0 to 33% was like
flooring it in your car. Throttle 33% to
100% was like flooring it in a fighter jet.
The kind of acceleration you can feel in your face!
You’ve heard the expression, “With familiarity breeds
contempt.” Well… in our case, familiarity bred speed and danger. The more we knew the trails, the harder we
would ride racing each other. We started
inviting friends to our remote Baja but this usually ended in the friends
getting hurt as they got tired.
To keep it fresh, we started looking for something new to
explore. While Bob and Matt were away to
college, Stu and I had a chance to run a pit stop for the Baja 1000 offroad
race down past Bahia de Los Angeles. Bay
of LA, as we called it, is way down into Baja some 600 miles from San
Diego. Everyone always wishes for the
“Good ole days”. The awesome thing about
Baja is that the farther away from the USA border you get, the quieter and
calmer Mexico becomes. We called it “Old Baja”.
For every 100 miles south, you could go back 10 years in time so at 600
miles, electric lights became nearly extinct.
The paint on the highway was extinct or never applied. The road was marked by a cement post pegged
into the dirt about a meter from the pavement.
Being off highway however did not prevent the posts from being knocked
down. If the posts weren’t run over,
they were corroded away from low quality cement used to make them. Forget about guard rails either. Essentially, I don’t think they every really
thought people would drive this narrow road at night and neither should they.
We once stopped to give a Mexican a ride who was clearly
walking into town. He declined our offer
because he felt he would arrive too early.
After all, he was paid a day’s wages to care for a horse corral out of
town. Arriving early would cut into his
pay. The best part headed south is the
people became so friendly. It was like
everyone was family and perhaps they were.
Bay of LA was not even on the main Mexican highway headed
south. To reach Bay of LA there’s a 40
mile two lane road that wanders away towards the Sea of Cortez side of the Baja
peninsula. 4 kilometers out of town,
there is a view point that always gets first timers to stop and take a
picture. The view point punctuates the
end to endless sage brush and a spectacular view of the Sea of Cortez and the
surrounding islands. The town there is
very simple. One of somethings: one gas
station, one grocery store. A few of
others; motels, restaurants, and homes.
But not a lot of anything except blue ocean.
Bob, Stu and I started to plan a trip. A trip to drive all the way to Bay of
LA. Maybe go fishing. Maybe go dirt bike
riding. Maybe just hang out by a pool or
should I say the pool. The pool at the only
hotel that had a pool. This plan may
just be the new thing we were looking for.
Meanwhile, Bob was brewing up his own plan. To Bob’s credit (and the internet), Bob
started reading all the social media posts from a variety of riders. I am sure that this was a past time Bob had
developed while away at college when anything looked more interesting than
studying for a class.
While there were very few riders that knew Baja the way we
did, it turns out that there is an even smaller group that lived to cut new
trails in Baja. Sure, they probably
started out bored of riding the same trails like us but now they spent months
even years inventing new trails. They
live and sleep to make these trails.
They see it as a legacy program to others. They often sleep overnight right next to the
trail and then continuing to map out game or cattle trails until they have a
continuous trail from point A to point B. Since Baja is an unpopulated 1200 mile long
peninsula, there certainly are many areas that never see humans. That as it may, the whole area is a nature
conservancy merely by the fact that very few people visit the area since the
Spaniards showed up in the 1700’s. So
these “trail cutters” as I will call them, seek out remote areas and slowly map
out a lone trail across miles of Baja frontier.
Now lest you worry about environmental impact or that this group is spoiling
these areas, oddly enough, the Trail Cutters like to keep their new trails
secret. Ironically, to make a trail even
visible for anyone to follow, at least two dozen riders must traverse down the
same little line. The Trail Cutters
would not want their trail spoiled by anything with three wheelers or four
wheels so the Trail Cutters only invite their best riding buddies down to join
them and cut the trail. As I keep
saying, it is a struggle to find a few dozen that would even consider it fun
riding so remotely.
Back to Bob’s idea.
Bob was interested in riding one of these secret trails. I remember him telling me about all these
cool Trail Cutters and the mystique of being a loner and riding in Baja. Honestly to me, I pictured these guys as
jobless and pretty much ‘trail bachelors’.
A cool remote trail would be a grand experience but I had no ambition to
ride along the edge of a cliff or someplace requiring me to push my bike over
rocks. But who was I to detour Bob’s
dream.
So we know a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy. Or specifically, Stu, Bob’s dad, knew a guy
from work called Seve (not Steve). Seve
was a bachelor (note the pattern). Stu knew him from his Navy days. We knew Seve from the fact that he would ask
us to pit occasionally for his moto race team.
Seve was uhm… er…..’dedicated to riding Baja’ is a way to put it. In the offroad Baja communities, Seve was
well known. Seve was the guy who first showed
us the remote trails of Baja. He was
bigger than life on his moto. In fact,
at first, we would not let the boys ride with us when Seve was showing us Baja
because it was a hard ride to keep up and if you didn’t keep up, you were LOST
and there were no cell phones, no GPS, not even a stinking little sign at the
hundreds of turns we took. When Seve
first showed us Mike’s Sky Ranch by moto, it created one of the most memorable
stories ever. See my story titled “Andy
Spec Memorial Ride” where we get caught up with 40 other moto riders and riding
in the dark to reach safety.
Not only was Seve a dedicated Baja rider but he really did
know the variety of trails and could tell you from memory step by step how to
navigate them. We would tease each other
by mimicking Seve because he had this habit of finishing a sentence with
the word “OK”. It was a normal
punctuation point for Seve. HOWEVER when
Seve said “OK” more than once at the
start of a sentence, it meant “Pay attention this is dangerous” So if he said, “The trail turns and goes down
a hill. OK.” He was just making sure you
heard him. But if Seve said, “OK, OK.
The trail turns and goes down a hill that you probably cannot ride back
up.” That meant you were in for a very
hard hill.
So Bob set up a “let’s have a beer” meeting with Seve, Stu,
and myself. I knew that Bob wanted to
pry one of the secret trails near Bay of LA out of Seve. It had been at least ten years since we first
met Seve. Let’s just say he no longer
looked bigger than life anymore. It was
more like visiting the Godfather and the conversation went that way. Eventually Bob got around to asking Seve. Seve’s response was like a scene out of the
Godfather. With a tilt of his head and a
sideways glance Seve says, “So… you want to ride a cut trail somewhere around
Bay of LA?” He thought some while he
took a sip of beer. “Ok. OK. So I know a
guy who knows a trail near there. I cant
remember if I have actually ridden this trail but I think I can get you the GPS
track.”
I blurted out, “Seve. We don’t want a trail that required
heroics, no rocks, no cliffs, and no hills that we cannot go back up.”
Seve didn’t shift a muscle or change his glance. “Ok. I know so and so.” He said an iconic name that I am sure made
Bob’s eyes light up. “He will give me
the track and I can give it to you.”
We left the meeting thinking about all that was said and
about Seve. I wondered “Is this where
old Baja racers go when they are old?”
In my gut, I didn’t have a good feeling about this secret trail but I
could tell Bob was stoked about being on the inside circle of the Trail
Cutters. I am sure that his imagination
did not match the same picture that was in my imagination.
Our plans to go to Bay of LA progressed. We would go in early December. Only one other of our moto friends was brave
enough to join us, John Holmes. John was
a little younger than Stu and myself but that is not saying much. All of us were class A riders. You had to be to survive Mexico. It would probably take volumes to write about
how each of us reached the skill level needed for these extreme rides. Bob was excited to proclaim that he had the
Trail Cutter GPS tracks. I was excited
to find out that the whole trail was 12 miles long and started about twenty
minutes out of town. How bad could 12 miles be?
Even if it was terrible, 12 miles should be an hour’s ride and I could
be sipping a Tequila over dinner, bragging about our being on the inside circle
of a cut trail.
The weekend trip finally arrived. We loaded our bikes into the back of a truck
and drove the whole day down the narrow two lane Baja road that followed the
Sea of Cortez. We stopped in San Felipe
for a taco lunch and then continued.
Historically, the road was a dirt road the last 250 miles from San
Felipe to Bay of LA. Over the decades,
Mexico paved sections at a time. The
days were short in December and the sun set around 5 PM. Ominously, the pavement we were on stopped
right after the sun set but ahead we pushed.
Like a scene out of the movie Mad Max, we came up on
a few flickering flames in cans along the dirt road. In Mexico, they fill a can with diesel fuel
and use a old rag as a wick. The good
news is that this ‘bomba’ will burn all night long and pretty much in any
wind. The bad news is that it was one,
maybe three candle power so not very bright.
Despite that, the night was so dark that the flames cast enough of an
omen to get any driver to slow down. As
we came over the bluff, there, in the dark, was a few excavation diggers and
dump trucks solemnly trying to remove some rock hill so that the new pavement
could take a straighter line. It was
like they were unstoppable grave diggers.
Kilometers from nowhere. The machinery
slaved away at the rock. 
Thankfully it was not long before we reached the other
pavement and highway leading down into Bay of LA. Uneventfully, we found the
one hotel in town and settled down by the pool for a night time beer
After a good rest, we were stoked to have some fun. Not wanting to take too much risk so far from
anywhere, we decided to ride down a little dirt road about 30 miles to a
location on a remote beach. As
mentioned, we had been there once before as one of our pit stops for the Baja
1000. The road was fast and fun. Everyone taking their turns kicking up dust
and going too fast. We stopped at a remote pristine white
beach. That day there happen to be some locals
at the Palapas selling cold drinks so we enjoyed a few. We turned around and headed back to
town. Other than the distance, speed,
and dirt and rocks and sand, it was not very technical. We were able to twist our throttles 100% wide
open and found our motos trying to rocket out from underneath us but in the
time it takes to bust a bronco at the rodeo, we held on and the moto once again
became tame. We got back to the hotel
around 2:00 PM. Dusty, hot, tired and
ready for lunch.
Bob Itching to Go on his Secret Trail Cutter ride
Bob was itching to go out to the secret trail. Stu had already taken some of his gear off so
there was no talking him into going out again.
John and I were itching for more fun so we said yes. “After all, how hard can a 12 mile trail be?”
We headed out of town on the pavement, in a few miles, our
turnoff appeared on the GPS. Anytime the
GPS line matches what the eyes are seeing, there is a little relief that we had
a good navigation route and not just being led someplace like lemmings over the
cliff.
The turn off put us on a two-lane wide graded road. “ok not so bad.” I thought. Oddly even curiously, we started passing people
walking. Two’s and three’s, all walking
back towards Bay of LA. The heat was not
angry hot, just passively hot. Afterall,
it was December so it had cooled down to the mid-80’s. I got on the radio that we use to communicate
with each other, “Hey. Let’s keep our speed down so we don’t dust these folks
out.” So we slow rolled the first few
miles. Finally , our curiosity couldn’t
take it anymore. We stopped and found
out that 100 of them were on a “spiritual walk” from the Pacific to the Sea of
Cortez. This should have been an omen
but I have lost track of how many things should’ve been an omen by this
point. Perhaps the reader has a score
card going?
Thankfully (or so we thought) the GPS line turned off the
main dirt road onto this little jeep trail.
We couldn’t get going much faster because the trail was so small and
kept turning. As should have been
expected, our trail turned off the jeep trail onto its own little single track. Single tracks are something to be sought out
by motorcycles…usually. However, this
track followed a sand wash. A loose sand
wash. A loose sand wash with Cholla (aka
Jumping Cactus).
I know this sounds bad but let me explain just how bad this really
and truly was. Nearly horrible in
fact. The single track made all these
abrupt turns. Littered on each side of
the turn were Jumping Cactus. Jumping
Cactus got its name because the spines have barbs and the cactus breaks off so
easy. The lightest brush will find the
victim decorated with little cactus balls.
Our big 400cc motos were built for 40 mile an hour roads, not 5 mile per
hour sand. We were working up a sweat
twisting and turning. The motos were
starting to overheat without the needed airflow to the radiators. The jumping
cactus were starting to collect on anything facing forward including our thick
moto boots and pants. ‘So… this is what
hell is like.’ I thought to myself. It
had to get better right?
With some sign of relief, our little single trail left the
sandy wash and abruptly climbed up a hill onto a mesa. Lest the reader pause to take a drink, I will
explain that this is not the happy ending of the story. As it turns out, the range of mountains that
make for the fantastic view back at KM 40 run north to south. The spine of Baja. Adjacent to the hills, the timeless erosion
has produced a mesa with gullies and wider arroyos cutting through the
mesa. Our ‘fun’ secret trail,
essentially now was running south to north, sprinting across the mesa for
perhaps a kilometer then dropping off into the arroyo for another kilometer of
sand and cactus. This ‘fun’ repeated
itself over and over and over again.
Resulting in a reasonable ride on the mesa, and then back to first gear
in the sand in the arroyo. We kept
hoping that the secret trail would magically give up on the arroyos but it’s
fate was sealed as long as we travelled south to north and not east to
west.
The sun was starting to grow weary in the winter sky. Heading quickly for another long siesta of
its own. Our wild ride had managed to go
from somewhat horrible to somewhat tolerable yet still very challenging. I don’t know why anyone would have to hide a
trail like this since it was essentially the equivalent of a Triple Black Diamond
ski trail. Any rider would have turned
back within a quarter kilometer of leaving the road. As irony would dictate or script itself, one
of the scrambles from the arroyo up to the top of the mesa not only was sandy,
but in the middle of the 300 meter scramble, the trail ducked around a few
rocks before continuing its skyward trajectory.
I was in “sweep” with John in the middle and Bob “on point’ following
the GPS track. Bob stalled on the hill
at the rocks but somehow got it restarted just in time to get out of John’s
way. You see, it’s a survival game on
sandy hills. The only way to live is to
maintain momentum with plenty of throttle so if your buddy corks the trail it’s
a choice of running him over or stopping.
Usually running him over wins because the chances of restarting momentum
on a sand hill is less than a squirrel running through a shooting gallery. Skilfully, there was no collision and John
made it past Bob to the top. From the
bottom of this arroyo, I was watching this tragedy play out. Over the radio, John explained about the
devilish rocks midway so I had some warning.
Even with the warning, I started my scramble from a dead stop with
cactus and turns all trying their best to abuse me as I picked up speed. I stopped almost in the same spot Bob had
just before. I got my moto restarted,
revved the engine and dumped the clutch in second gear. The second gear start was a little trick that
the engine hated. In first gear, all the
torque in sand just digs a hole. In
second gear, torque is converted to power but the engine knocks, bucks, and
pings madly trying to get the RPM up.
It’s a good way to ruin both the engine and the clutch but we were in
what you would call “Battle override mode”.
The trick worked and almost got me to the top but the trail again was
not kind to Bob and he had dropped his bike.
Not wanting to run over Bob, I cut my throttle and succumbed to gravity
and sand all at once. We were sweating
and snorting trying to get the nearly 300 pound bikes to make it to the safe
ridgeline. Once we all were out of
harm’s way, John being the most rested, got his moto running and started down
the trail. Bob who should have been in
first position was still starting his moto.
However, in solidarity to the sun going dark, Bob’s headlight decided
now would be a good time to go dark too.
I got on the radio and let John know we had a problem.
If you have ever heard that it gets dark in the desert fast,
I can tell you it gets dark even faster.
On the hill behind us five minutes ago, I could see to the top. Now, it was so dark, I couldn’t even see my
handlebar buttons to push the starter!
On a dirt bike, when the engine stops, the headlight shuts down. Gratefully, the red taillight remains on
sustained by a tiny battery that is good for a few pushes of the electric
starter. I could see Bob’s taillight but
I couldn’t see my own handlebars.
To list the problems we have fixed would be another few
pages. When we are hundreds of miles
from home, its inevitable that we have to fix flats, radiator leaks, and so
many other breakdowns. A burnt out bulb
was not something we were going to fix.
We had to come up with another plan.
Zooming in and out on the GPS, we tried to establish where we were
relative to where we should be. This was
an almost laughable exercise since it was so dark we couldn’t see our
hands. With God’s grace perhaps, in the
distance we detected a car driving down Highway 1 confirming that a road was
three miles west of us. Our little GPS trail continued for another four or five
miles heading due north and into the inky darkness before hitting the cut over
highway to Bay of LA. So..what would you
choose? The shortcut over to a known
highway but going a direction that nothing has gone before (We call this Booney
Bashing) or driving farther down a devilish little ‘known’ trail towards the
endpoint we should have reached two hours ago?
Time’s up! We chose
continue forward on the trail because our GPS’s had faint illumination and we
could at least know we were not wandering in circles in the dark. We agreed to have John on lead point, Bob in
the middle, and me in sweep. We also
agreed where possible, Bob would follow close to John and use his headlight and
I would follow Bob closely so he at least had some light. Our fun trail sank to a new low. There is only one thing worse than riding a
big moto slow in sand. That is riding a
big moto in sand really close together.
Bob and I were both getting covered in sand from John’s rear tire
clawing in the soft spots. I stared
intently at my GPS when possible to get an idea of how far we had to go. In the dark, 5 miles felt like 50. Even in the good spots, the trail seldom had
a straight run, it was as if the trail cutters were drinking tequila and zigzagging
around as many bushes as possible. This
probably was fun during the daytime. It
was more like playing a mean game of Crack the Whip since all three of us had
to ride wheel to wheel.
Sizing up the situation as we plodded forward, I realized
that there was another significant problem.
Significant but not life changing perhaps. Communication. If Stu was with us, technically, we could
stop. Start a fire and camp out overnight
in the desert. It was plenty warm and
the stars were thoroughly enjoying the dark sky. However, Stu was not with us. He was back at the hotel. Also, only Bob and myself had GPS tracks
indicating where we are. So doing the
math; all Stu knew was that it was a 12 mile route. We were overdue by two
hours. It was impossibly dark. He didn’t know even where to start if he
jumped in the truck to go looking for us.
As a dad myself, I know that there is a ginormous difference between
three of your buddies missing and two of your buddies plus your son
missing. Somehow, when it’s your buddies
you think, “Eh they can work it all out.
At least they are all together.”
When it’s your son you think, “How am I going to explain that my son
went missing and the other two buddies are wandering around running out of gas
looking for him?”
With pluck, we finally made it to the pavement leading into
Bay of LA. However, as best as we could
tell from the GPS, we were 30 miles or about 45 minutes away from the
hotel.
As mentioned if youre paying attention, it was warm up on
the mesas. But the roads tend to follow
the arroyo going eastward. The cold air
settles into the low spots. If you were on a stroll, you may need a long
sleeve shirt. However as we started
buzzing our way towards town at 50 mph, the windchill made it feel like 40
degrees. Bob and John kept dropping off
behind. I stopped to let them catch
up. Perhaps it was the cold. Perhaps it was that we hadn’t eaten. Perhaps it was exhaustion of our two hour
trail turning into a four hour ordeal.
Either way, Bob and John said they couldn’t go any faster. I explained that Stu must be going bezerk
waiting back at the hotel for us. I had
to push forward and get word to him that we were alright. We agreed to split up and I would head the
last 25 miles into town ahead of them.
I got rolling again.
My headlight is really bright and the dark could not knock it down. I was able visually ride at any speed I
wanted. However, 70 mile an hour
windchill was impossible. 60 mile an hour was torture but I could put up with
it for nearly a half hour. It was a long
half hour. There is ‘really cold’ but
you know when your jaw muscles hurt, that is ‘damn cold’. I was damn cold. I tried to hide from the air by hunching down
onto the tank of my moto. Occasionally a
swirl of heat from the engine would waft across my legs and it would feel so
good but it was gone again. As I rolled
into town and headed down the last mile of dirt road to the hotel, I could see
a lone figure walking. As a started to
scrub off speed, I could tell it was Stu walking in the dark. I realized that a single light coming into
town might be worse than three lights.
So I waited to the last moment and stopped as fast as I could and
blurted out, “Everyone is ok!” I think
Stu turned and started walking back to the hotel then turned back to face
me. I went into a brief version of why
we were late as the truth is always not as miserable as a father’s
worries. Stu was surprisingly calm and
said one of his famous lines, “Well, that must have been sporty!”
Indeed. Sporty
indeed.
As my hands started to rewarm, I started to feel my fingers
again, John’s light flashed on the horizon signaling their arrival into
town. Time again sped back up and in a
few moments, they were off their bikes and we were all telling tall stories of
the amazing adventure that the secret trail played on Bob. It lived up to and exceeded all the stories
he had read about these cut trails including knowing why the trail cutters
often sleep in the desert and start their progress again in the morning.
We had a well deserved dinner and a few beers. Reliving the stories and laughs, the danger
faded. On a relative scale, the danger
was back down to the excitement felt after riding a huge roller coaster. Plenty of adrenaline but any real danger,
after the fact, was simply a manifestation of our imaginations. Now we could place ourselves in the annals of
the infamous secret trail cutters.
Post Story
The next morning after a really good night’s rest, we ate
breakfast, packed and headed out to load the truck. Upon seeing our motos, we were shocked like
kids seeing their Christmas stockings for the first time. We stood there, mouths a gasp.
Finally, Bob said, Look at my boots! “
I said, “Look at the front of my bike!”
Both our riding boots were peppered with cactus. On my bike, I have two saddle bags to carry
spare tubes. They hang over the gas tank
and are knee high. They were also
peppered with cactus. Before we could
load the bikes and boots, we had to get pliers to safely pull the cactus away
from the gear. The thought sent a shiver
through my mind if we did not have all this safety gear it wouldn’t have been
fears from our imaginations that would have tortured us at all.
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