January 27th-31st, 2010 pt.3

Mike and Alyssa were planning to hike in and around Ernst Basin and invited us to tag along, which we did.  We broke camp and had ourselves a little breakfast.

Compliments of Mike & Alyssa

Mmmmm.  That really hit the spot.

Nature calls.  Amanda hiking up over the hill for a #2.

Alyssa: An aficionado of rocks

The start of our hike

Terrain's not too bad.  We should've ridden our bikes in...

...then again, maybe not.

Something tells me hiking in leather on a day like today is a bad idea.

Rock formations were extraordinary

I wonder how long it took for water to carve a hole like this.

These boots are NOT fit for the job.

There were some tricky spots we had to maneuver in order to proceed; nothing the 4 of us couldn't handle.

Uhhh...yeah.  We definitely don't have the skill to get our bikes through here.

Lunch break!  Mike: A sunflower seed aficionado.

Mike & Amanda feeling adventurous.

Anything living in there?

Ok...maybe it's not a good idea to continue ascending.

Yay!  You made it, but how are you going to get down?

It took a while, but eventually Amanda made it down.  The descent was a lot harder than expected.

If we were caught in a jam, this would be the perfect spot to sleep in.

Hahahaha.  What are you doing silly girl?

Mike & Amanda up to no good again; thought she learned her lesson already.

We got back to the vehicles and parted ways.  Mike & Alyssa were heading north to explore while we were heading south.  Eventually we would meet up again at Mariscal Mine.

Racing to get to our campsite before sundown.

A short jaunt on pavement.

We came across some dicey terrain that required us to go around it by riding off the beaten path.  Thank goodness we got those foot pegs.  Standing up on them really helps. 

Plop!  We come across a muddy area and I stop to see which line to take that would be the easiest to cross.  The next thing I know I see Amanda zooming by me, she takes the middle line between two ruts which was super soft, lost the back wheel, heads straight into the mud and towards a thorn bush, whips the bike around into a hard left to avoid the thorns, then into a high side crash to complete the performance.  “I’m ok! I’m ok!”  She yells almost immediately.  What a show!  After helping Amanda get the bike back up, I chose not to take the centerline and opt for the side.  Amanda shook her head as she watched me ride across so easily and unscathed. 

This shot will give you a better view of what went down.


We were beat.  The sun was down and we had nothing left in us.  We didn’t make it to our campsite so we opted for the closest one instead which was Solis 1.  Luckily no one was there.

Getting our tent set up.

Late night dinner and bear spray at the ready in case we encounter undesirables.  It wasn’t just the animals we were afraid of.  We’ve been told that drug trafficking and illegal immigration do occur in the park.  Is this high adventure or what? 

33 hard km

Hiking in leather.

The fellowship is broken.

Hurt-free high side crash.