“Matt, quit fucking with the map. We gotta go.”
It was at that exact moment I began to think that Steve Kamrad was panicking.
I was late to the adventure Thursday night. Driving through the desert on my way to Beatty, Steve and Josh were already out scouting the easy routes, while Cait explored the pavement only routes on her trusty Moto Guzzi. At 7pm, rolling into Beatty, I could sense the slight concern in Caits texts about not hearing from either Josh or Steve in several hours. Now that I was with them in the same scenario, I could only imagine how close she actually is now to calling search and rescue.
“Steve, we need to text Cait” I said, remembering the lesson I learned from my dad growing up: Aviate. Navigate. Communicate. I reached for my Garmin, knowing there was no service in this snowy valley.
My answer comes in the form of Steve’s bike starting up. I shake my head, stow the garmin, start my bike, and fight my way higher up the mountain, and farther from the unpassable snow covered trail, following Steve’s tail lights into a thick layer of sage brush.
How the hell are we supposed to get out of this valley before we freeze to death if we’re following Steve as he flails around on this hill?
Steve high centers his GSA1250 on a bush. I blast my tiger through a cluster of branches, thankful I haven’t run over my own skidplate yet, and help Steve as Josh catches up, our eyes straining in the mix of headlights and darkening tree lines.
The task of scouting all day for the upcoming Taste of Dakar 2020, up until that night, had been a fun, but tedious adventure. Lots of dead ends, trails that looked like trails from satellite images, but turned out to be nothing at all.
So there was Steve Kamrad. Yes. THE Kamrad Actual, breaker of press bikes, Marine, Conqueror of Canada, bender of rims. Then Josh Jones, Rawhyde Coach, GSA Wrangler, Coast Guard Badass, RV life aficionado, Rally Racing vet.
Aaaaaaaand then Me: Sailor. Tiger rider.
Judging by my resume alone, I felt so outclassed, it was almost like me getting invited to tag along with these guys was secretly facilitated by the Make A Wish Foundation.
I see the silhouette of Josh in Steve’s headlight. Clouds of steam rising up out of the top of his coat against the creeping dark, signaling rapidly sinking temperatures. I realise I’m wearing nothing on my upper body but a sweat soaked jersey, body armor, and a WLF vest. The outside temp on the tiger’s display says 38. Funny thing, I don’t feel cold. At all. Adrenaline? Yep. My body know’s whats up. There’s no time to worry about the cold.
Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. Rules I learned from my dad back when I was a kid, watching him follow his dreams of becoming a pilot.
After punching through a frustrating string of dead ends earlier that day, only to discover a fantastic sand wash leading into Goldfield, we decided to hook up with the Nevada BDR and cruise south into Goldpoint to meet Cait.
“Goldpoint in an hour, right?”
Hell yea. This part of the BDR is cake. Chill 2 track. We got this. We spent probably 35 straight minutes of 6th gear at highway speeds on a gravel road.
And then, we hit snow. Where there wasn’t snow, there was mud. Soupy, wet mud.
At first, it was a fun little challenge. I hit a patch of snow, completely crossed up, and managed to pull out of it upright.
Its a skill I seem to have.
It was fun to see how far into it we could get. We’re on the north side of the mountain, maybe it’ll dry out if we just slip past it. Its just a little snow, after all.
At one point, my luck takes a break, and I end up off the trail trying to keep it upright.
I look back, hoping to see that Steve got my spill on the Gopro. I laugh as I see 2 giant BMWs on their sides, the other two laughing at our simultaneous bad luck.
We laugh, we take pictures. Record “content.” Steve does a classic “face down Steve” pic. We’re all “siiiiiiigh, I’m tiiiired”
Three hours later, though, our little challenge to see who would call it quits first got us trapped in a valley with the sun sinking behind the mountain, followed swiftly by the outside temperature.
You see, we manhandled three 550+ pound adv bikes uphill through the snow. Because Arrogance. Also…. because we previously walked to the top of the peak (marked with the black arrow) saw the trail was bare on the south side (where the sun shines during the day) and we guessed the trail led straight down into Lida, which was a paved road.
“Oh we’ll totally be in Goldpoint in an hour”
One by one, we got all three bikes “passed the snow”
Or so we thought. The high fives, the snack time, the posing on top of the bike in a victory pose, would quickly become a giant red banner of irony.
What we just did, we realized later, was trap ourselves in a valley that looked no better than the hill we had just struggled to get up.
Except now the sun is going down. And Cait has no idea where we are. Or in what condition we’re in.
Aviate. Fly the aircraft. Maintain safe altitude, airspeed, and keep the engine running.
We get to the bottom of the hill and realize Josh’s….everything… was starting to cramp up. He can’t get through the snow more than a few hundred feet before his WarPig takes a dive into the snow. Steve and I decide to go off trail into the sage brush to maintain momentum, because the snow was just too deep to ride through. Steve sets off ahead to find a path, while I go back to help Josh get up to where we are.
Navigate. Point the aircraft in the direction of the best place to land. Closest, safest, intended destination, wherever gets you to fuel. You can’t aviate without fuel, and every minute you’re in the air, you’re losing fuel. Find out where you are, and find out where you need to go.
The sun was still just above the ridgeline, and before we split up, I see real fear in Steve’s eyes inside his helmet:
“If I don’t come back to get you guys, Don’t Leave Me Out Here.”
No more fun. No more making “content.” The only camera that was still running was Steve’s Gopro. He was now recording “evidence.”
We didn’t need to be in that valley. The path we were forcing ourselves uphill through snow and mud and cold was already an established branch of the Nevada Backcountry Discovery Route. Had there been no snow, we would have passed that entire area in maybe 10 minutes. 4 of those minutes would have been deciding to go left or right at the bottom of the valley. Both of which lead us down to route 266 in Lida.
The safe bet would have been to stop when we hit snow. Maybe that first time we all dropped our bikes. Backtrack to pavement, find another safer way. But we didn’t stop.
We didn’t stop, because we knew there was nothing on that hill, that would keep the 3 of us from making our destination.
We didn’t stop, because we were tired of being told by countless dirt bike people that ADV bikes are nothing but touring bikes with dirt tires.
And lastly, we didn’t stop, because we simply refused to. The three of us had enough of being told where the limit should be, instead of finding it for ourselves. We just wanted to keep going until WE were done. Not anyone else.
Josh and I meet back up with Steve after losing his trail for about 5 panic stricken minutes, and then force ourselves up and across the north side of the valley, where we sacrificed a snow covered flat, smooth riding surface for traction and forward momentum.
Our bikes took a beating as we scraped, smashed, and slid past tree line after sage bush after log after another tree line. BMW, Triumph, Klim, Revit!, Icon Raiden, all the products we spent thousands on earn every penny we spent on them and more. Afterwards, we all shudder at the horror of how close we were to hooking an ankle on a tree root, or dropping a 500 pound bike on our legs or feet. This was serious riding, and mistakes here would not be forgiven.
We must have bypassed about a quarter mile of snow, to the next trail junction, where it was back up another snow covered hill on the south side of the valley.
At this point it wasn’t a game. It wasn’t a fun Adventure ride. We were tired of being out here. The soft snow was starting to freeze into ice. It became work, almost industrial. Ride- crash- lift- repeat.
Our feet were wet, and they was starting to freeze as well. Everyone was out of water. And the only way out, was up.
It turned out the same strength, teamwork, and perseverance that put us in that valley, is exactly what got us out of it. We all refused to quit. We helped each other, picked up each other’s bikes, and in one form or another, we made it clear to each other:
we’re all getting out of here. On our bikes. Tonight.
The hill was composed of patches of snow, broken up by mud. These patches of snow offered 2 unique riding challenges in a matter of a few yards: you hit the soft mud, and there was traction, but only if you were heavy on the throttle, as your wheels sunk into the mud. You hit the snow, and your front tire blazes a trail for your rear tire, but ultimately doesn’t have traction, as the tires float up onto the snow. It took almost no effort to tuck the front wheel into the snow, and send me over the handlebars in one case. Stepped off into the snow in most cases. I lost track of how many times I had to lift my bike up out of that snow.
We got up.
We crested the hill. Break in the snow. Dry trail. We regrouped. Checked for broken bones. Steve had enough cell service to text Cait and tell her we were alive.
Communicate. When you are confident that you are in the air, know where you are, and headed in the right direction, talk to your people.
The hill we found ourselves on looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it….
We climbed back on the bikes. Just like it had hundreds of times before, my tiger confidently fired up, as did both of the BMWs. We headed down the hill, praying the majority of the snow was behind us.
For the first time in almost 5 hours, I reached a speed high enough that the wind suddenly reminded me what the temperature really was.
37 degrees
37 degrees, is what the temperature really was, in case you were curious. My thoughts immediately went to the jacket in my saddlebag.
“Bottom of this hill, wherever it ends up going” I told myself, as I flipped on my high beams, and I saw it.
Emily’s Foot.
See, the tragedy of Emily’s Foot is that during Taste of Dakar 2018, our group was the last to leave the start line, and poor Emily was at the back of that group, which included me, some other newbie rider, and Emily’s brother Kelly. Emily had a tiger she just wasn’t tall enough to ride well, loaded with camera gear, and recently suffered a left foot injury trying to do the Rawhyde thing, that hadn’t quite healed yet.
We set out that day from Gold Point, made it to Lida, we crossed a paved road, and started climbing up a hill, until we came up to a somewhat sharp switchback. Poor Emily got into her own head, didn’t add quite enough throttle, and the bike goes down.
On her injured foot.
The pain was too much for her. The decision was made rather quickly that Emily was done for the day.
Her little Taste of Dakar ended a mere eighth mile from pavement.
One eighth of a mile. From pavement.
Which is exactly why I’m screaming for joy in my helmet as this little switchback comes into view….
We escaped the valley. Fingers let go of the panic button, as we all realized we were done with snow and ice, sage brush and mud.
All 3 bikes stop 10 feet from sweet, sweet route 266 in Lida. Josh’s legs decide to breathe a sigh of relief as well, and he’s unable to keep the War Pig upright. We all laugh at the Rawhyde coach as he uses every wrong method in the book to pick up his bike, arm’s length away from tarmac. Back to level 1 for this guy….
Me: “Hey Steve. Does that Gopro still work?”
Yea, whats up?
“Record this….. Hey guys, sorry if I’m blinding you all with my high beams, as I haven’t needed to buy any aftermarket lights at this point BECAUSE I DONT…..
LIKE…..
RIDING OFF ROAD….
IN THE FUCKING DARK!!!!!!
My voice cracks when I say fucking dark. No one laughs.
Thats probably not gunna make it into Steve’s video.
<it didn’t.>
We raid Josh’s stash of hand and foot warmers while I break out my DKR jacket, and prepare for a very wet, cold hour ride straight back to Beatty. I loan Steve a neck gator, and we all make jokes about the dirty dirty things we’re all gunna tell everyone he had to do in the snowed-in Nevada forest in order to get it.
Cait meets us halfway home with the truck and trailer. We attempted to tell her not to come, but she never got the message, and I was gambling on the accuracy of my “distance to empty” gauge for fuel, so I was ultimately grateful she brought my gas can with her.
To credit Steve’s amazing editing skills, he made a pretty awesome video out of the “evidence” that you should absolutely go watch.
The rest of the night looked kinda like this:
I’ve wrestled with that night for a while now. Was it a poor choice being there? Should we have exercised better judgement and went around? Maybe.
I enjoy being challenged, and tested, and finding my limits. I really do. But was that too far? Big risk for little reward?
I joked earlier about being in over my head, riding with THE Steve Kamrad and THE Josh Jones. Some images of Steve’s friend Sam laying on a dirt road in a previous adventure with a busted ankle he got “just following steve into a ditch” comes to mind as a hazard of riding with someone with Steve’s skills and sense of Adventure, but without Steve’s gift of luck.
But while we were scared shitless in the bottom of that valley, minutes from pressing SOS on our Garmins, someone said this, and I’m not sure if it was sarcasm or not:
“You know, guys? I literally cannot think of anyone else I’d rather be trapped down here with.”
Maybe I’m not in over my head. Maybe I was exactly where I needed to be that night, testing my luck, skills, resilience, and determination with people who are exactly familiar with these experiences, and were there to help me, and needed my help.
We tested ourselves, and pressed our luck.
We passed. It took every ounce of everything everyone brought to keep us upright, moving, navigating, and communicating.
And most importantly, out of a helicopter ride.
So I guess I should update the resume:
Aaaaaand me. Sailor. Tiger rider. Doesn’t know how to quit. Won’t leave anyone behind.
And always carries a spare neck gator 😉
-stand on it.
Stand On It 