45 Days on a Gen3 Hayabusa - 2023 Pashnit Touring

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See that crack in the range ahead - we're headed for that narrow canyon

Kern Canyon. Wiggle. Wiggle.

 

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Kern Canyon is fast, and twisty. The river is running fast and furious beside the road.

Lots of flooding just up the hill in Kernville last couple days.

Kern Canyon also has all these giant rocks overhanging along the ride.

They had a landslide in here just a few days ago that closed the road. Kept staring at all those house-sized rocks.

 

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But the goal is to avoid the main highways as much as possible. Halfway up the canyon we split off onto Kern Canyon Rd, no center line, climbing the canyon wall high above the river, super twisty, watch out for sand in the road.

 

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The snow line doesn't seem that far away.

You were saying about landslides?

 

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Pretty sure it says in the contract, I have to feed the fellas. There are a lot of Mexican restaurants around these parts. Well, actually, just one.

But just up the street in Bodfish is the M-48 Patton Tank we always like to go check out.

 

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One of the fellas pointed out the barrel was threaded on the end. Suppressor?

I had to look that up. I guess he was right. Maybe our tank is missing a few bits & bobs.

 

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We had been there a few minutes when the group started to notice the debris everywhere, that's odd

 

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This is the flooding we missed from a few days ago. This whole area was a lake a few days prior.

Water came over the top of the road, and somehow didn't wash out the road. This new trench the water dug was several feet deep.

This used to be a parking lot

 

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Headed south out of Bodfish, we kept seeing Road Closed signs, would this be #5?
The GPS said road closed ahead but we always ignore those warnings. Turns out road was open and no issues.

Caliente-Bodfish Rd gets progressively more narrow till it's one lane over the pass.

The snow line on the adjacent range didn't seem too far away. That's 7100 ft Breckenridge Mountain up there.

 

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We came over the pass and saw this foreboding cloud. Looks like rain. We have to ride around the base of that range ahead.

 

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Maybe this is why were were seeing the road closed signs. So much rain in the mountains, it flows onto the roads and made the roads into a river.

There was so much sand on the road, road crews had simply plowed the sand to the side to get the road open. Crazy.

Several nearby residential dirt roads were covered in over a foot of sand. Locals were just driving over it.

 

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But other side of the range, things improved

Fences? We don't need no stinkin' fences

 

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It was clean when I left. I swear.

 

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Trains

Caliente is not a town, little more than an intersection.

What makes it unusual is the hairpin turn for trains. This squiggly line is not a road, that's train tracks. Train buffs come to Caliente to photograph the trains as they climb up and over the range through the s-curves and tunnels. On some random dirt road, you'll see a vehicle parked out there and some dude standing next to a tripod & camera just waiting.

 

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Caliente-Bodfish Rd flows through a short canyon and connects to Bena Rd