2021 Pashnit Touring on a Hayabusa
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Every apocalypse movie I've ever watched as a kid had one thing in common. The retreat into the hidden valley. The apocalypse arrives and the townspeople all head back into the hills where the baddies won't find them and they can live a peaceful existence singing kumbaya and holding hands living off the land with one another in perfect harmony.
My moment was Red Dawn, when this film came out in 1984, as a 13-year-old kid, Red Dawn was so scary of a movie, I had to cover my eyes and peer through my fingers. While other kids were traumatized by Jaws (my wife refused to swim in pools), mine was Red Dawn. The movie by itself isn’t scary, rather, it was the idea of a WWIII that made it scary at the height of the 80s Cold War. Under Reagan, our arch nemesis was the Soviet Union, who our president called an ‘Evil Empire’ one year prior in 1983. In Red Dawn, the Soviet Union (along with Cuban and Nicaraguan allies) invades the United States by parachuting into Colorado. Our intrepid heroes, led by Patrick Swayze, retreat to the mountains and fight the Evil Empire in guerrilla warfare. The theme fit nicely into a popular genre of the time. That same year The Terminator was released with similar themes of WWIII and nuclear annihilation (this time at the hands of killer cyborgs). The Day After also gets added to my super scary list.
Where would the townspeople go when the nuclear apocalypse arrives? Kids, I found your valley. Put a gold star on your map and start prepping. Known as California Hot Springs and Pine Flat, this mountain valley is surrounded on four sides by mountain ridges, with one road in and out of the valley. The first time I went looking for this road in and out of this valley, I got lost, disorientated and instead stumbled onto The Road with No Name, better known as Forest Road 23S16.
Back in the olden days of paper maps and terrible directions, once you rode off the edge of the map, you were on your own. I missed this valley by a country mile and rode right around it. Such occurrences are long gone due to whatever mapping program you're using, but it's not likely you would have any reason to ride Parker Pass Rd, also known as Mountain Road 50.
My moment was Red Dawn, when this film came out in 1984, as a 13-year-old kid, Red Dawn was so scary of a movie, I had to cover my eyes and peer through my fingers. While other kids were traumatized by Jaws (my wife refused to swim in pools), mine was Red Dawn. The movie by itself isn’t scary, rather, it was the idea of a WWIII that made it scary at the height of the 80s Cold War. Under Reagan, our arch nemesis was the Soviet Union, who our president called an ‘Evil Empire’ one year prior in 1983. In Red Dawn, the Soviet Union (along with Cuban and Nicaraguan allies) invades the United States by parachuting into Colorado. Our intrepid heroes, led by Patrick Swayze, retreat to the mountains and fight the Evil Empire in guerrilla warfare. The theme fit nicely into a popular genre of the time. That same year The Terminator was released with similar themes of WWIII and nuclear annihilation (this time at the hands of killer cyborgs). The Day After also gets added to my super scary list.
Where would the townspeople go when the nuclear apocalypse arrives? Kids, I found your valley. Put a gold star on your map and start prepping. Known as California Hot Springs and Pine Flat, this mountain valley is surrounded on four sides by mountain ridges, with one road in and out of the valley. The first time I went looking for this road in and out of this valley, I got lost, disorientated and instead stumbled onto The Road with No Name, better known as Forest Road 23S16.
Back in the olden days of paper maps and terrible directions, once you rode off the edge of the map, you were on your own. I missed this valley by a country mile and rode right around it. Such occurrences are long gone due to whatever mapping program you're using, but it's not likely you would have any reason to ride Parker Pass Rd, also known as Mountain Road 50.
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Nearby is a backroad favorite - Forest Road 23S16, one of the most remote unknown mountain roads in the Southern Sierra. And it's paved (sort of). I skipped that for another day.
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Sand and Hayabusa don't really go together but not too far
I think I'm the only one here
You have to be reminded to not throw rocks at climbers.
Kind of like when you buy a car battery and the instructions remind you not to drink battery acid.
I think I'm the only one here
You have to be reminded to not throw rocks at climbers.
Kind of like when you buy a car battery and the instructions remind you not to drink battery acid.
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Evidently, stacking rocks (cairns) is a thing some people get really worked up about.
But it was now snowing, so protocol says gotta leave and change elevations.
Last ride season, different mountain top, led the tour group into a bit of a white out at 6000 ft.
But it was now snowing, so protocol says gotta leave and change elevations.
Last ride season, different mountain top, led the tour group into a bit of a white out at 6000 ft.
2020 was one of the worst fire seasons we've ever had. Here in California, they have lightning storms that come in off the Pacific. In the literal sense. Very little rain in these events, but hundreds of lightning strikes in a short amount of time, commonly called Dry Lightning.
This was the storm that produced all this lightning in August 2020. When I took this photo, you could see the lightning strikes hitting the ocean in the distance.
I rode out of this storm away from it. But lightning set a lot of stuff on fire and a lot of the roads I covered all burned the very next day.
This shot was a month later after my ocean storm pic near Lake Berryessa on another ride covering the same roads the day of the storm.
This is the aftermath of the SQF Lightning Complex Fire near Sequoia National Park (south of the park) in August 2020 once this storm made it across the state and reached the Sierra Nevada Range. There were also huge amounts of lightning in the Santa Cruz Mountains along the ocean that set everything on fire.
I don't cancel planned motorcycle tours due to the fires, just route around or away from them. But the smoke they produce does suck. This is the 2020 Creek Fire at that same time last year. I had a tour planned that was headed straight for this region below and had to route away from this to other side of the state.
This was the storm that produced all this lightning in August 2020. When I took this photo, you could see the lightning strikes hitting the ocean in the distance.
I rode out of this storm away from it. But lightning set a lot of stuff on fire and a lot of the roads I covered all burned the very next day.
This shot was a month later after my ocean storm pic near Lake Berryessa on another ride covering the same roads the day of the storm.
This is the aftermath of the SQF Lightning Complex Fire near Sequoia National Park (south of the park) in August 2020 once this storm made it across the state and reached the Sierra Nevada Range. There were also huge amounts of lightning in the Santa Cruz Mountains along the ocean that set everything on fire.
I don't cancel planned motorcycle tours due to the fires, just route around or away from them. But the smoke they produce does suck. This is the 2020 Creek Fire at that same time last year. I had a tour planned that was headed straight for this region below and had to route away from this to other side of the state.
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