CK Chapter Three

I was down to a T shirt, sweat dripping from my hair down my forehead, stinging my eyes like acid rain... my back was soaked, my hands were sticky inside my gloves.

Crown King stretched out before me, I could see glimpses of the trail for miles. 

I was glad to be doing this today... when it was reasonably cool.  Days before it was a hundred degrees.  Summer temperatures can hit 120 out here.

It was desolate, and I mean desolate.

Behind me, off in the hazy distance, you'd catch a familiar glimmer of Lake Pleasant now and again, and beyond that somewhere out of sight, the northern suburbs of Peoria.  It was barely 50 miles, but you would have sworn it was ten thousand!

It seemed I had left civilization behind, and not just in miles.

Sometimes I wonder to myself, 'Why do you do this Frank?'

 

Out here... you are in the desert and truly on your own.

It's like having something go horribly wrong with the transporter beam, and ending up on another planet...

"Cap'n... I canna get him back"

"Scotty... we need more power!"

 

Having ridden many years in the wilds of Baja California, this was no different.  I was used to just such isolation.

There hadn't been another person since I'd passed a yawning Ranger an hour ago riding by on a quad, headed south.

When you ride like this, anywhere on the planet, you cannot help but feel utterly alone.  It's like some bizarre science fiction movie with you as the star actor. 

 ... the only actor.

Rarely in our increasingly urban lives do we experience this singular existence for any length of time.  The sky above your helmet, the earth beneath your boots, a million square miles of wilderness, yet you are totally and completely on your own. 

There is no sound, save for the ticking of your engine. 

Not a cricket, no splashing of water, no thrashing of traffic, not even the buzz of a bumblebee.

The only evidence of man here on the Crown King road, were occasional spent shell casings, some crushed beer cans, a contrail or two in the sky and the road itself. 

I passed by several small herds of free range cows. 

These guys weren't near as emaciated as I'd seen in Baja during my rides in the lower peninsula, those were practically see through bringing new meaning to the term "lean beef!"

Nevertheless, you could not call any of these examples, well fed and certainly not 'fat.'

I'd been steadily climbing for an hour now, the altimeter bar graph showing a continual rise. 

4900' and moving inexorably upwards towards the heavens.

Not so oddly the temperature was dropping, although I had been working so hard and the rock face radiated so much heat, I was sweating profusely.  You spend much of your time on the bike standing on the footpegs. 

You're using body english to navigate uphill, down around obstacles... constantly taxing your muscles.  Tiring you every yard of the route.  I stop frequently to have a drink, take a rest, any shade I can find.

There was no doubt though that here in higher elevations, the air temps were cooling.

I would welcome the refreshing coolness in the next hour.

You see, Crown King was about to get a whole lot meaner...