Tuesday evening we load Brian’s bike so we can get an early start Wednesday. At our gas stop in Nevada we find out that Pietro has a crisis at work and won’t be able to join us. Brian picks up food for his dinner in Big Pine. We arrive at the slow washboard section of Eureka Valley by 5:30pm, then watch the Eureka Dunes creep towards us for an hour and a half going 10-15 miles an hour.

Thursday we head off on the motorcycles. Surprisingly we have cell reception at Crack Shaft Crossing. From there we take a detour into Nevada. Lunch at Ubehebe Crater.

Next we ride up to Chloride Cliffs/City, where there are lots of paths to explore. One that wraps around the mountain to a mine shaft is paved with shiny rocks.

We descend down the other side to the Amargosa Desert in Nevada. It takes us a while to sort out which road goes to Echo Canyon. All the bouldery sections we go up seem too small to be the rock step I’ve read about. We finally find the ledge on the downward side.

Brian walks his bike down, which looks even scarier than riding down, so I take the plunge and ride down instead. In the video Brian takes it look so much less scary.

By the time we find the Eye of the Needle, we’ve missed the light for a photo with the sun behind the Eye. Mid afternoon would have been better. We camp beside it, where I find an LED light wedged in the rock above a rock fire ring.

Friday we gas up at Furnace Creek, then take West Side Road to Warm Springs Canyon. A couple miles from the Striped Butte, we notice that Brian’s license plate has broken off. He turns around to look for it while I continue to the Geologist’s Cabin for lunch. We see a lone black burro as we leave.

Mengal’s Pass is longer than I remember. My rear clips a rock going up a steep uphill and I tip over. It’s tricky mostly because of all the rocks the 4×4 people stack. Water runs down Goler Canyon and the rock step we remember isn’t there. Brian last came through just two weeks ago. Apparently Goler Canyon can change quickly. I start to get a heat headache and need to rest at Panamint Springs before continuing to the South Pass. We stay at Boxcar Cabin, a long wooden cabin surrounded by Joshua trees. Gray clouds cover the sky and it’s very windy.

The wind blows all night. I definitely have a slow leak in my sleeping pad. At 4:30am I blow more air into it. The morning is chilly and windy, though the clouds are moving in the opposite direction. Maybe the wind on the ground is local. We head up Hunter Mountain. The air is brisk, but more calm.

Riding through the Hidden Valley on the other side I come to a long section of silt. There’s a motorcycle down in the road and a man dressed in beige to the side. I’m confused as to where Brian is — Brian is wearing black. Then I realize that man is Brian and he’s covered in silt. I duck behind my windshield as he inadvertently sprays me with a dust cloud while moving his bike to the side. Riding through several hundred feet of footpeg-deep silt, my knees, boots, and rear luggage have a thick layer of silt by the time I’m through.

There are a couple Jeeps at Tea Kettle Junction repositioning for a photo. Brian is a little sour. He’s got silt in his pockets, gloves, hands, and face. We pass the Racetrack and head to Lippincott for lunch.

Two motorcyclists from Colorado are riding up. They’ve come from the Saline Hot Springs and report that the pools are open. Lots of loose rocks on Lippincott. My front wheel flips up a flat rock as I ride over it and it lifts my engine guard and bike as it passes over – an odd feeling. When we reach the Saline Valley floor, Brian has a flat. We find a puncture and plug it with his new plug kit. The kit is tiny and so are the metal-tipped plugs. As he pumps air in, he still hears a leak. There’s a tear at the base of a knob. We plug that one with one of my plugs, which are bigger. We go a few hundred feet and his tire is flat again. My plug is holding, but his isn’t. We decide to continue riding and fix it when we reach the springs. We miss the turn and need to double back. The white sand is glowing in the sun and I ride blindly into the white since I can barely see the road and can’t see the contours of the road surface. I make it to the springs without any mishaps.

We make camp at the farthest end, near the road we will take back to Eureka Dunes in the morning. Frustrated with his new, highly-rated tire plugs, Brian uses them all, but none work. Then we put one of mine in. As Brian tests it, I go to one of the tubs for a snack and to rinse the silt off my luggage. I had hoped that the washboard would vibrate it off. Unfortunately that was not the case. Every time I open my luggage my hands are covered in dust again. At the pool I meet a man from Redondo Beach who knows John. Apparently they met at the springs a couple years ago and went riding together. He recognizes me from John’s Facebook photos. We join Dave and his family after dinner for a fire.

Sunday Brian is up early. He wants to get on the road or perhaps just out of his silty clothes. We set off at 8am up a never-ending wash to Steele Pass. At the top is a plateau with Joshua Trees. The dirt turns orange as we descend into Dedeckara Canyon. People have piled up rock ramps to obscure the ledges. We ride down easily.

The sand isn’t bad. I tip over in a deep silt rut and get dust on my recently cleaned luggage. At Eureka Dunes Brian is impatient to load up. Once we start driving at 11am, he seems to relax. The world moves slowly as we crawl down the washboard. BBQ in Big Pine for lunch, then back to Nevada for gas. Arrive at Brian’s in the city a little after 9pm.

Tracks for trip here.