Friday, March 13, 2020

Uraling to the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge

I rode Fiona, my '99 Ural Patrol Sidecar Rig to the nearby town of Quartzsite for a grocery run.

Not wanting to get on the I-10 Super Slab to traverse the seven miles to town, I instead rode on a BLM trail that paralled the highway, on its north side.  Much bumpier as its pretty rock strewn but I could run at no more than 30 MPH instead of running 55 on a highway where every cager and semi-trailer truck thinks the posted speed limit of 75 is the minimum!

Got to town in about 25 minutes with no issues, gassed up and then before going to the grocery store; headed south on AZ 95 towards the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. 

The riding was less traffic than the super slab, and I could ride along at 55 mph with plenty of opportunities for cagers to pass me as they caught up to me.

23 or so miles south of town, I got to the poorly marked entrance to Kofa NWR's Palm Canyon.  It's a dirt road that winds its way to the big rock formations one can see from the highway. 

Lots of spots before the NWR sign which I took to be the border to the refuge and the highway for boondocking sites.  Cell signals seemed very good for downloads but I kept getting errors on my upload tests.  Weird.

Got near the big rock formations in which Palm Canyon is ensconced and started working my way back to the highway, checking sites as I found them for connectivity.




I might spend a night or two at this NWR on my way to Yuma, we'll see.  There's space, I just wonder if there's enough riding trails to amuse me while there.

Got back to Quartzsite and the grocery store and stocked up on essentials. 

Got back to the campsite with no issues, this time using the super slab as I was a bit tired from fighting the wind on the way down to Kofa NWR.

Rested and read the rest of the afternoon away, it became mostly cloudy and a bit on the cool side due to the wind.

Sunset tonight was a bit tough to photograph, lighting was tricky and the clouds didn't light up  as I'd hoped.  It also didn't help that I forgot to bring along the tripod for the low light levels involved!




2 comments:

RichardM said...

Had you stayed at Kofa NWR before?

Too many YouTubers there uploading their videos?

redlegsrides said...

I’ve not stayed at the Kofa NWR RichardM, I take it there’s a bunch of YouTube videos?