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Ride Home
Riding Home
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\r\nBy Pete Vordenberg
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\r\nOn my return trip from Seattle to Park City by dual-sport motorbike, the fun officially wore off on the eastern side of the Steen’s in southeastern Oregon. My path south to Nevada began on a beautiful 65mph smooth dirt and gravel road. This changed as the tire tracks got narrower and narrower and the wind stronger and stronger. Before long I was riding in a strong and steady gale in deep, loose gravel. The fun was officially gone and ahead of me dirt and sand skittered across the road in waves, clouds and mini-twisters for as far as I could see. The wind was from the right. On asphalt I would just lean right and hammer down, but leaning at all in the gravel sent the bike into a skid so I kept the 340 pound bike upright, put all of my weight on the left foot peg for maximum traction, and all my body over the right side of the bike to counter the wind. The road went on and on and the wind did not relent.
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Fearless Pete, looking like he probably needs a shower. Steen Mountains.
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\r\nI rode like this for an hour at 40mph. To my right was Steen’s mountain, a surprising range of snowy peaks in the desert. To my left the desert itself. I hardly got a good look at either as all my attention was on keeping the people parts up and the rubber parts down.
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\r\nFrom there I hit pavement and took it into Nevada. Next stop on my tour of unlikely mountain ranges was the Ruby Mountains south of Elko.
\r\nAs I filled up the tank in Winnemucca I recalled hiking up the peak directly south of town with Nathan Schultz and Cressy Rice to do some snowboarding in an untracked powdery bowl.
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\r\nWe were on our way from the Gold Rush at Royal Gorge in California to Sun Valley, ID and spring series. We stopped to camp in Winnemucca in route. The bowl which is clearly visible from town and starts from the top of the peak empties into a little gully which was also snow filled and finally turned into a little creek that ran right to our camp spot.
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\r\nIt was many years ago we carved down from the peak into the gully to the creek took off our boards and hit the road for the last ski races of the season. Nathan (www.nsavage.com) and I are still involved in skiing and Cressey is living in California working with troubled kids and skateboarding.
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\r\nOut of Elko I set up my little tent in a dust bowl – but a dust bowl with a view of the Ruby’s and a fierce thunderstorm. To the east I watched the sun setting over sage hills.
\r\nJust before finding my campsite I witnessed a buck charge across the road, up a steep embankment and leap a barbwire fence back light by the sun.
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A majestic evening in under the Ruby Mountains.
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\r\nAnd so after ten hours on the bike I happily nestled down in the dust for the night. It was quiet save for a distant cow mournfully mooing. It was a lonely, questioning sound, a lolling noise, like mom? Mom? Moooom?
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\r\nA week and a half previous I was in Park City helping Wendy Wagner, Justin Freeman and Zack Simmons with some intervals. I had to leave in a hurry because my grandma’s health had turned for the worse. I arrived at her house a day before she died. Coming from all over the world almost the whole family had gathered around my grandma. She led an enviable life raising four kids and seeing a fleet of grandchildren grow into adulthood and she even lived long enough to play with two great grandchildren. She traveled the world with my grandpa as he climbed peaks and taught and lectured and when she died she died an enviably peaceful and painless death surrounded by her family.
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\r\nInside my tent I lolled back at the lonely cow, and for a period of time long enough for me to fall asleep there was silence.
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\r\nIt is worth mentioning, if for no other reason than spite, that Delta would not waive the change fee so I could fly back to see my grandma, and that after the fact I asked again if they would refund the cost of the change fee, and that they again declined to do this. So if you have a choice, fly something other than Delta.
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\r\nThe salt flats are a shocking expanse of desolate white when you first see them and an interesting expanse of desolate white for the first half hour riding through them and a down right depressing wasteland of desolate white for the remaining 100 miles. To occupy myself I alternated putting all my weight on the foot pegs for a mile and then all my weight on my butt for the next mile. I did this for 20 miles before my legs got too tired and I just sat all the way home looking dead ahead. 120 miles of flat, straight desert and growling engine.
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\r\nI finally pulled into upper ironhorse drive and went to bed with the phantom roar of my bike’s engine buzzing in my ears.
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On the road, passing throught the Alvord Desert.
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\r\nTeam Today is a non-profit organization run by, and for, the athletes of the US Cross-country team. The USST is run on a shoestring budget, and our increasing success at the international level is making for increasing demand on our ever-limited resources. To find out how you can join Team Today, visit www.teamtoday.org, or contact Andrew Johnson bode1978@yahoo.com, or Pete Vordenberg pvordenberg@ussa.org. With your assistance, we will be THE BEST IN THE WORLD!
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Written By: petevDate Posted: 6/23/2004Number of Views: 329
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