45 Days on a Gen3 Hayabusa - 2023 Pashnit Touring

[pashnit]

Headed up to the 7600 ft level. Very cool canyon. If you just stay on the main highway that runs north-south along the base of the Sierra Nevada Range, you would never ever know about these canyons into the mountains.

Round the bend and we could see the mountain. Very cool. Inside that peak is the upside down mine.

What an upside down mine looks like. This is inside that mountain over there. We're at the base of the mountain.

 

[pashnit]

But denied. We couldn't get any closer.

 

[pashnit]

Old mining stuff

We're riding dead end roads all day, it's chance to get off the bikes and kick tires a bit. No hurry to be anywhere.

But that mountain, very cool! And Cathy checking out the Gen3, but she's perfectly happy on her Z900.

Good article about the Pine Creek Tungsten Mine

Sierra Nevada - The Story of the Pine Creek Tungsten Mine

Sierra Nevada - The Story of the Pine Creek Tungsten Mine

www.mtnmouse.com

 

[WuzzaCBXRider]

Fossil Falls is 23 miles south of Olancha & 11 miles north of the Nine Mile Canyon / Hwy 395 junction.

View attachment 1677036

Wow, that (is) south. I always get a kick outta the name ‘Dunmovin’, as though the first residents came outta the desert, saw the Sierras and exclaimed, ‘we’re dunmovin’.

 

[pashnit]

Back tracking to the main road.

Super awesome shot, one of my favorite pics of this entire ride season.

The scale of it all. Top of that peak along Wheeler Ridge at left is 12,400 ft.

It's 6000 ft above us.

 

[pashnit]

Hana & Cathy thought that was a pretty cool road.

Counting bikes. We got everybody? It's a big group of 18 bikes.

Peaks overlooking Round Valley.

 

[pashnit]

On to the next spider road & mountain canyon

Highway 168 leads out of Bishop into the Sierra Range (again), this time to Aspendell & Lake Sabrina.

A lot of these (spider leg) roads either head up to mountain lakes or trailheads.

 

[pashnit]

Little bit of rain. Mountains create their own weather. All you have to do is wait five minutes & it'll stop.

These are dead end roads. They were never connected over the range like the passes we ride to the north.

 

[pashnit]

 

[pashnit]

Our dead end road leads up to Lake Sabrina at 9200 ft. The peaks are all around 11-12,000 ft in the distance.

Rovana at top left is where we just came from.

Aspendell is a tiny mountain community surrounded in... wait for it... aspen trees.

 

[pashnit]

Like to fish? There are mountain lakes everywhere!

I've read the forest service will stock all the lakes, even dumping fish out of planes into the mountain lakes. After years of stocking the lakes of the Sierra Nevada using pack animals, the California Department of Fish and Game began using airplanes in the 1940s. Many of the lakes previously had no fish. See Aspendell at top right & Highway 168 leads up to Lake Sabrina.

No paved roads anywhere on this map except the one we're on to Lake Sabrina, just miles of mountain wilderness.

If you're going to take pictures of your bike, you might as well go all in. As in, IN the lake.

 

[pashnit]

Ich survived, and got his shot.

These two, Hana & Cathy, have been riding with me on these motorcycle tours for over 15 years.

Hana has ridden all over the world, from South America, South Africa, to India & the Himalayas.

She keeps coming back to me for some reason.

 

[WuzzaCBXRider]

It’s surprising that the NP system, King's Canyon for example, didn’t grab some of that Aspendell/John Muir area wilderness. There are 3-4 mountain leaks with elevations around 14,000’.

 

[pashnit]

We were about to leave Lake Sabrina at 9200 ft for our next adventure, when I looked back & riders were pointing.

Pointing is never a good thing. At least when they're pointing at another bike. Everyone was geared up, all bikes started and idling, ready to move.

Cathy on the Z900 had a flat. Always when you least expect it. How many flats have I fixed this year? Quite a few I think.

Peel all the gear off, and out come the tools. Every time I fix a flat, the tour participants get an impromptu class on how to plug a hole with a Stop-n-Go kit & a mushroom plug.

Nope, can't ride with that in there.

 

[pashnit]

Class is in session

Not a bad setting for a tire repair class though.

Few moments later and we had a mushroom in place.

 

[pashnit]

Pumped the tire up, but we couldn't get a good seal with the mushroom, maybe the hole was at an angle plus the puncture was in the tread, at the thinnest part of the tire.

Always carry both kits. We popped out the mushroom and went to Plan B, inserting a worm or some call it a rope or even "On the Wheel" Rubber Insertion Strips. Whatever, they also work.

 

[pashnit]

Mark sets up the worm into the plunger. He lubes up the worm with the rubber cement included in the kit.

It's not uncommon to need two, if it's a big hole, or worse, a cut.

Bit of brute force is needed to insert the reamer tool, putting rubber cement on the worm helps get a good seal. Shove it in and then give it a good yank backwards, the worm folds in half and the tool pops out sans worm.

 

[pashnit]

That worked, we got a good seal & pumped up the tire. No, none of us carry or use CO2 canisters, we've all migrated to the battery operated air pumps. They are cheap, small and reliable. And you can buy them anywhere on line.

Cathy can easily ride on the tire all weekend plus head for home & get a new tire.

Making sure the tire holds air. Suit up, let's ride.

 

[pashnit]

Leaving Lake Sabrina behind

I've been wanting to bring riders here to our next stop for a long time. Several years actually. Awhile back, I was working on an article about the White Mountains and at the base of the range, the OVRO, the Owens Valley Radio Observatory. Very similar to the VLA, the Very Large Array in New Mexico (although not quite as impressive as the VLA). This tour group, we're finally in the region of Big Pine and riding right past it.

Super cool place to visit. Whether it's open to the public isn't entirely clear. Probably not, but there's a paved road to reach the huge radio telescopes and nobody around to say get lost.

So cool!

 

[pashnit]

The closer you get, the bigger they are.