Death Valley
Mammoth Lakes, CA to Las Vegas, NV (314 miles)
Mammoth Lakes is at almost 8,000 feet elevation, so our ride started out a little chilly as we headed down highway 395. It was absolutely beautiful with wide open plains surrounded by mountains. Not at all what I expected from Death Valley. We stopped at a bakery in Bishop, less than an hour into our ride to get coffee and shed some gear as the weather quickly got hotter as we descended down the valley.
Highway 395 was a double-lane straight road, but that quickly changed as we took CA-168 to cross over to Nevada and highway 95. In 60 seconds, we went from wide roads to tiny canyon roads without a divider. No service for 56 miles! Turns out, there was no service at 56 miles either. The scenery changed from canyon twisty desert roads to just straight desert road and scorching heat. Finally, after 207 miles since our last refuel, we made it to Beatty just in time before the tank was empty. 207 miles is my longest one-tank ride on this bike ever. My average miles per gallon was 48.4, also a new record (despite all the twisty roads and hill climbing early on).
In Beatty, we took a long and well deserved break and even got ice cream. A big contrast from 100 miles earlier. Even more of a contrast, later that day we arrived in Las Vegas. A big city in the middle of the desert, where people come to play and bask in exuberance and excess. Today has got to be one of the most interesting rides I’ve ever done. We finished the day with drinks and a meal at the Harley Davidson Cafe on the Las Vegas strip.
Petter on his Ducati Multistrada 1100S