Home / Mojave Preserve and Desert bikepacking trips / Fall 2011: Route 66 bicycle-camping—Cady Mountains, Sleeping Beauty and Kelso Dunes Wilderness / Day 3: Mojave Desert bicycle ride from Sleeping Beauty mountains to north side of Kelso Dunes Wilderness 23
Beautiful, sunny morning. The inside of my thighs feel bruised from yesterday's short, steep hike. 24.9 bicycle miles, with about 1200 feet of elevation drop. A fun and easy ride with a stop at the Ludlow Café for home-cooked lunch. This is vacation!
First order of this sunny morning is to dig a desert cat hole since I don't have access to a toilet out here!
From my campsite on the Sleeping Beauty foothills, I can zoom in on a long freight train down by the freeway
I'm almost finished packing up the tent and its contents; good-bye Sleeping Beauty!
All packed up, I start riding down the hill away from my Sleeping Beauty campsite
Off in the distance below, a puff of dust hovers
Oh, a stray balloon on the side of the road leading down from Sleeping Beauty!
I'm just far enough down the dirt road now to have a panoramic view of the Sleeping Beauty peaks behind me
Sleeping Beauty road crosses a gas pipeline
After 2 miles of dirt road from Sleeping Beauty, I ride 8 miles, mostly a bit downhill, to Ludlow, for lunch on old Route 66
After 10 easy bicycle miles, I reach the Ludlow Café and have one of their famous breakfast plates
Full belly, I leave the Ludlow Café and head down the nearby dirt road toward Kelso Dunes Wilderness
I slowly ride along Crucero Road toward Broadwell Dry Lake, a slight downhill
On the way down to Broadwell Dry Lake, I stop briefly at the junction of a powerline road that leads into the Bristol Mountains
Also along Crucero Road is this BLM Kelso Dunes Wilderness sign
When Crucero Road reaches Broadwell Dry Lake, it forks to make two separate northbound roads
An old sign announcing a proposed toxic waste dump here at Broadwell Dry Lake has been appropriately well shot-up
The clay soil on Crucero Road as it skirts the shore of Broadwell Dry Lake has big cracks
With sunset approaching in half an hour or so, I'm starting to cast nice long shadows on the edge of Broadwell Dry Lake
Broadwell Dry Lake at sunset
Crucero Road north of Broadwell Dry Lake gets a bit sandy again
As the sun disappears, I ride past another BLM Heart-of-Mojave sign at the junction of Crucero Road and the Cady Mtns powerline
OK, it's getting dark for real; I'll ride a couple more miles on the powerline road while looking for a campsite
Elevation profile of Sleeping Beauty to Kelso Dunes Wilderness bicycle route