Colorado Backroads: Offroad Trails Map Update

Actually, some time ago I spent what seemed like a year one month completely going through the Colorado Master Map and updating it to include the trails in the book "Colorado Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails" by Charles A. Wells and published by FunTrecks.

The book contains descriptions for trails through colorado's most scenic areas so I was excited to see how they traversed the actual globe. I quickly began experiencing difficulties almost around every corner. Wells sometime used, lets say, "alternate" road and area names – at least different than I could find in any of the databases.

I could see that the book had only sparse GPS coordinates but most of the time with even just a few you can follow Google Earth satellite images along the trails – not to be. Colorado is covered in snow much of the year and a canopy of green the rest of the time so trying to follow trails from the outer atmosphere is maddening.

So, even though it was updated months ago, and I decided to go ahead and publish what I could to the server; I, none-the-less realized people would need some explanation about the different format these trails required and planned a blog post. Which post, I'm sad to say, got delayed… until now.

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Offroad: Gold Butte - Devil's Cove, Horse Springs

The 2011 winter offroad riding season in southeastern Nevada, well at least the Mesquite area, has been an unusually - read frustratingly - wet time especially for all our ATVs held hostage under tarps and in garages. Don't get me wrong, we're happy for the all the citizen locals who are out dancing in the street for the dust-quenching moisture. Just sayin' …

Gordon and I braved the dark clouds in the morning, perhaps believing that: "if you go it will stop" or some such erudite sapience, and saddled up the CanAm and Yamaha to head for "The Butte." After all, one needs to ride it as often as one can before the Reid/Holecheck coalition closes it all off to seniors.

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NEW: Bryce Canyon Trail System

You know, with age, I find it increasingly difficult to do two things at once. I learned a term in my youth, back when things called computers were invented – it's called "time sharing." Afterwards, the womens movement claimed the prior discovery rights to the activity; they said it had been inherent in the gender to "multi-task" since the time of Eve.

I used to be able to do it like a whiz, you know: drive and read a map, listen on the phone and continue reading mail, dictate a letter and drive to work, walk and chew gum… I used to be able to juggle navigating an ATV over a single-track, watching a GPS trac, scanning for photo ops, listening to a CD and pointing out items of interest to companions all at one time. Well, I still can do the "gum" thing but it's difficult to both work on building trail maps and write blogs at the same time.

However, have I got a deal for you today! A rider from southern California named Randy began communicating with me several months ago about some rides he had taken up in Utah, around the Bryce Canyon area. Over the last three or four months, we've been communicating about the area and he has been able to send in three great GPS tracks for those of you who want to ride the area with your offroad machines.

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Salazar Backtracks On His Land Grab - For Now

Offroading Home has just received word Wednesday morning that Secretary Salazar will back off on his "Wild Land" grab … at least for now. The letter we received from USA-ALL is included after the jump.

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Life's A Musical - Only In New York

What do YOU know about New York? Have you visited? Have you lived there? I have! What do you think of when a friend tells you that they met someone from New York? A pleasant, happy go lucky individual who will go out of his way to help?

It's true that most consider New Yorkers as a bit stand-offish, and I can tell you that, for the most part, it's earned. After all, you don't hear the challange: "got a problem with that?" said very often anywhere else in the world – unless maybe France. But, there is Central Park, and Macy's and Gimbal's and about the highest concentration of difference-tolerant carbon-based organisms found anywhere in the galaxy!

I mean, there was a reason that the "Men In Black" story could only have its setting in New York – it's the only place in the world where the story would be believable! I mean, alien creatures living completely unnoticed amongst the population? Really… they were aliens not wizards like in England.

So, what would happen in, let's say, Salt Lake or Mesquite, if you were in a food court and literally everyone except you broke into a chorus of Handel's Messiah? Or, broke into an opera about passing them a napkin? … Would YOU simply fake it and join in so you weren't the only one left out?

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Godspeed Endeavour

Finally, after several delays, the spaceship Endeavour left the Cape Canaveral starting blocks for its final voyage to the International Space Station. Its 16 day journey to outfit the Space Station with the long awaited Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer began with a lunge toward the clouds upon the command of the Auto-sequencer which controlled the thousands of "double-checks" and switch-throws necessary during the last nine minutes before the sparks started flying.

The six lucky astronauts' families watched from the roof of the launch control center as the clouds swallowed the ship mere moments after the launch, leaving them stunned silent from the site. Congresswoman Gifford (the commander's wife) made her second trip to the cape from her rehab hospital stay in order to participate in the event and said "Good stuff… good stuff" as her husband flew toward the stars.

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Offroad: Gold Butte - Jumbo Creek Mine

It's plain to see why the "old-timers" decided to put in so much effort exploring around the Jumbo Creek Mine area. Quartz has always been known as a harbinger of precious metals because the same geologic forces which produce them produce quartz as well. And there's a lot of it, at least on one outcropping.

We've been there several times but we've never been able to find any thing left of the once "Jumbo Creek Mine" besides the white post in the middle of a quartz tailing's pile so attesting to its name. No mine entrance. No left over mine equipment. Nothing!   [A free Google Earth file of this route is available at: Offroading Home.]

In fact, there is no mention of it on either our GPS maps, our topo or other paper maps or even the official USGS "US Features" file which lists every registered landmark and geological feature in the CONUS. To make the enigma a bit more of a mystery, we stumbled across several BLM "mine-type" officials on our way down the Gold Butte Backcountry Byway who had come to The Butte to blow up some dangerous old mine entrances.

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The Wilderness of Gold Butte

For some time now I have had the BLMs map of their proposal for turning Gold Butte (and Bunkerville Flats) into a WILDERNESS AREA, glaring at me from the middle of my desk top, not knowing what else to do with it except look at it and shake my head in disgust.

Frankly, as a useable map for making an assessment leading to meaningful comment, it is completely worthless; there, I said it. It is nothing more than an enhanced clone of the map the Las Vegas BLM field office foisted on us when they went through and systematically closed close to fifty or so trail segments a couple of years ago. That map was completely worthless to the public, and so is this.

Absolutely NO geo-location marks! Absolutely no latitude or longitude markings! No road names. For the most part NO readable, meaningful labels! All this leaving even the most basic understanding of where things are, woefully complex and time consuming; beyond what most reasonable people are either able or willing to undertake. Then there's obsessive-compulsive me.

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Offroad: Mesquite - Noodling on North Flats

Probably one of the easiest ATV, SUV trailheads to get to in Mesquite is up the Mesquite Heights Road, most know it as the "road to the dump." There is quite a large staging area for the trailers of offroad vehicles just to the left before you arrive at the land-fill, a testament to its popularity and frequency of use.

Most of the use is from all forms of carry-alls of motorcycle's. The sandy wash banks and trails make for favored two-wheeled riding and we have never failed to see a group of cyclists whenever we have been there ourselves. This day was no exception, there were five in a "sleeper-van" who were spending the day offroad down from St. George. Actually, they were back at their trailer taking a "break" when we arrived.

It had been one of the ubiquitous rainy days this season and quite chilly; when, the sun coming out of the clouds triggered one of our genetic responses to "swim upstream" and get out in the air. Late in the day, there is really only one place to go offroad from Mesquite and that's North Flats.

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Google Earth: Present and Future Tense

All indications are that Google Earth is about due for another Richter 7.0 shake-up – at least if you can believe the scuttlebutt at "Where 2.0" last week. I wasn't there myself, but lurkers in the "blogosphere" sure are all a-buzz about it.

"Where" is the massive conference started by Google last year to showcase their product and draw "groupies" from all around the globe who want to learn about and show off and network their projects that they are developing – notably those that use Google Earth and Google Maps. Using their familiar nomenclature, this, the second "version," is 2.0.

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Offroad: Parashant - Savannic Mine

Little did we know that this snowbird riding season the Parashant Grand Canyon area would be the most interesting rides we would take… several times. And we would go again in a heartbeat.

We've seen it on our maps, and we've always intended to "run over to Arizona and see the mines"; but, it's a long way over there from Whitney Pockets, our usual staging area of choice. Just to Tassi Springs, which we wrote about last year, and back takes a very full day. The Savannic Mine - and others - are farther than that.

However… there is only one other ride on "The Butte" which rivals it for sheer grandeur! The ride over through Pierson Gap and down into Cottonwood Wash looks over the "Hell's Kitchen" area and is Magnificent. The ride along the shelf road, past Pigeon Canyon, is truly breathtaking, in more ways than one.

Of course there's the "breathtaking" grandeur of a Kodak-worthy photograph which even Photoshop cannot improve; then, there's the strangling-tightness which slowly creeps into your chest and makes your heart race for anyone even the least vertiginously challenged!

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GEO-tography: Forced Perspective

In our continual quest to make the photographs we take look more like the places we've actually been, I thought we might take a peek at something called "Forced Perspective."

We all (at least those of us who haven't been living under a basket) have seen the technique at work; but, may not recognize the accurate name. Forced perspective is the technique Peter Jackson (I guess we have to call him "Sir Peter Jackson" now) uses to make his Hobbit's look realistically small next to Gandalf.

Basically, it's using your camera's settings to obtain the great depth of field and focus necessary; then, aligning two subjects precisely - one closer to the camera than the other. (huh?) Look, take one subject and put it closer to the camera. Then, align a second object further away from the camera so that it looks like what you want in the view finder. Then do what you need to bring them BOTH crisply into focus at once.

Objects can appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than they actually are, and you don't need to use Photoshop or Gimp to do it. It just takes a little creativity with the placement of the subjects in the shot and the camera angle.

Still don't get it - well a picture is worth a thousand words. Twenty-eight of them to be exact.

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Pinyon Nuts

As kids, much more so than now, we used to enjoy going "pine cone hunting" in the fall. Not every fall; because, as it turns out, the little fellows are a capricious lot – not un-similar to those Joshua Trees. They don't seed (or bloom) every year – and they pretty much keep their intentions and motivations close to the vest.

Once in awhile you might hear an old timer say out loud: "'S lookin' like it'll be a good yar fer pine nuts!" But just let those trees not produce a crop this year, and that same codger is just as likely as not to give you a disgusted look like: "you must be nuts" when you remind him about telling you that later on if it doesn't happen.

Of course, even though most call them "Pine Nuts," it's only the specific Pinyon Pine which produces the nuts we are talking about. As nutrition goes, they are full of it. No wonder they were the dietary staple of the Paiute tribe as well as most other Native American groups throughout the southwest.

Indigenous peoples ate them both raw and roasted, and they often made Pemmican by mixing ground pinyon nuts with animal fat to make a calorie rich, nourishing and easy to carry "trail mix."   [See other information and photos at: Offroading Home - Resources.]

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Offroad: Gold Butte - Jumbo Mine, Historic Baylor

This was the fourth ride for the Kokopelli ATV club in the 2010-11 riding season. It seemed like there were more new faces each time we rode and that everyone was getting side-by-sides. Some who rode single rigs last year were trading them in for "double wide" and bringing their wives along.

And this ride was a great place to be. It finished a previous club ride around the lower Gold Butte-Treasure Hawk Mine area which was cut short, due to some mechanical failures that required a bit of towing – yet one more reason not to go alone out on "The Butte." Especially on such a seldom used trail as this.

Almost directly on the other side of the mountain from the historic town of Gold Butte (east), is the historic town site of Baylor. Now only a dusty wide spot in the trail, people once lived there while working the area's mines in. Who knows, for a vacation they might have gone to the "big city," Gold Butte, of a weekend.

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GEO-tography: Infrared

Anyone who has spent any time at all watching television has undoubtedly seen examples of the use of infrared. "Night Scopes" are all the rage, the isles at Home Depot are decked with infrared heaters and many of your home security motion detectors are actually "detecting" infrared.

It's nothing more than a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum of energy with wavelengths just a scosh longer than visible light. Human eyes can't see it but snakes (and Voldemort) can.

However, with a special lens, some cameras can photograph in that spectrum – and what a site it is! All you have to do in order to show up in an Infrared photograph is be warm blooded! (or have some kind of body heat). You put off heat – you show up, it's that simple. And the more you put off, the "whiter" you appear in the picture; the less, the darker.

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