Hualapai Mountain Road, Where the Desert Quits
Fourteen miles out of town the desert quits. That is the only way I have ever been able to explain Hualapai Mountain Road to anybody who has not been up it. You leave Kingman at the light by the tracks with the heat still coming up off the asphalt, you start climbing, and somewhere around five thousand feet the creosote gives out and there are pines standing where no pine has any business standing. Same county. Same tank of gas. Twenty minutes.I went up late in the day with the light already going long across the valley. The Glide is not built for that road and I am not going to pretend otherwise. It is fourteen miles of switchbacks with a wall on one side and air on the other, and a bagger wants a wider line than the road is willing to give. Second gear most of the way, the big twin luggi...