June 7, 2019
One day after the Grand Canyon, we came to California.
Or if you want to see it in motion…
We still had more elevation to drop before we started riding.
The plan was to unicycle in Death Valley. We knew it was going to be hot, so we got there as early as we could to avoid the heat. Danelle helped us find a route that didn’t have too many elevation changes. Plus with a name like “Mustard Canyon”, it had to be awesome. She and Sonora dropped us off at the trailhead. We looked around the Harmony Borax Works for a bit and then decided to take off. Its worth noting here that the day before, we were uni-cycling Arizona around 8,700 feet of elevation. Today, we would be riding at -250 feet of elevation. I had no excuses for having enough oxygen if we did come across a hill.
The ride was much harder than we expected. Mustard Canyon Drive is one way and quickly turns from packed gravel to loose gravel. Fortunately for Corvin and I, it isn’t super long. While we walked the road that I wasn’t able to unicycle on, the views were spectacular! Eventually, we got back out to Highway 190. From there, we rode away from the Furnace Valley Visitor’s center to get some video on the rolling hills. After a bit of video, we had to ride into 30 mph headwinds back to the visitor’s center where Danelle and Sonora were waiting for us to finish riding.
Its worth mentioning here for a second that we had two different unicycles with us. For the first 8 states, we had a 24″ unicycle I bought from my brother, and a 29″ that used to be my primary unicycle. The seat on the 24″ wasn’t very good and the wheel wasn’t true, so it was a bit of a challenge to ride. Lucky for me, Corvin spent most of his riding on the 24, but we did trade off.
Unfortunately for me, one of the trades was into the wind headed back to the visitor’s center. Corvin took off, but it was only fair.
Corvin’s journal entry
Our Strava entry.
Our map of completed states.
Stats:
Total Trip Miles: 19.84
Total Moving Time: 4h 31m 01s
Total Elevation Change: 813 feet
Total Hogan UPD: 5
Total Corvin UPD: 1
Hogan Haake