Saint George – Callville Bay – Las Vegas – Pahrump – Death Valley NP – Aberdeen – Bishop
Because Interstate-15 is not a road you want to cycle on and there are no alternatives, Todd drops us off just after it. After some groceries we drive into the Valley of Fire, beautiful surroundings but the temperatures are so freaking hot that it’s hard to leave the airconditioned visitor center. The Valley of Fire is beautiful. We make some pictures of the landscape and see Bighorn Sheep next to the road. Then we circle back to the 169 taking us further south. The air is so dry that we need to drink water just to moisture our throats. I can feel the sun taking all the energy out of my body. We filled up the 10L water bag again for today. If the heat isn’t bad enough, a terrible headwind is taking another beating out of us. After 65km we are already pretty exhausted. Once again we pull out next to the road, taking out our phones to check our option. There are camping possibilities everywhere so that’s not the problem. Once again water is our biggest concern.
The creeks are dry and there are no sources of water on the 169. We could go to Echo Bay, deviating 8km from the road and pretty close from where we are now, but that means tomorrow will be a killer ride. Or we could go to Callville Bay, but that’s still 55km to go. We choose the latter. Headwind, another flat tire, the heat, the unexpected long ride: we are completely worn out at the end of the day. We drive next to Lake Mead with the sun setting, the last 20 kilometers we have to cycle in the pitch dark with our lights on. It has something magical. We drive all the way down to the marina and lay down on the wooden deck. We almost fall asleep. We choose not to jump in the water to wash ourselves because the water looks gross. We drag ourselves to the Calville campground, refill all our water bottles, make dinner and sleep like babies.







I wake up, sit upright in my tent and a drop of sweat is making it’s way down from my neck down to my belly button. It is hot already. Today is Jacko’s birthday and we planned out to celebrate his 31st in Las Vegas. Today should be an easy ride but we notice that the heat and yesterday’s beating have left their marks. We drive into Las Vegas, but this means we still have another 20km to go to reach our hotel. We have dinner at Inn’n Out Burger, it’s high on our list of fast-food chains we still want to tick off.
Check-in time is 3pm and we promised each other to make full advantage of the hotel amenities, so at 3:15 we are dipping into the pool. At night we cycle into the city, it feels mighty to drive around this city on a bike. Cars left and right rushing past us, majestic TV billboards rise up all around us, buzzing crowds in the streets, music from every corner. We park our bikes on the streets for an Oyster birthday meal.



When we get back to our bikes my back-light and Jacko’s raincoat are stolen from our bikes: welcome to the big city boys. We meet some girls that turn out to manage one of the bars on the Strip. They take us along and provide a constant flow of fancy cocktails, shots and pizza slices. Then they take us along to one of the famous Vegas-shows. Of course they are allowed to skip the line and we get to tag along. The show is called Opium and held at Spiegelworld and it is truly amazing!
The acts range from acrobatic stunts to a bubble-blowing-artist and is wrapped in a funny and flamboyant ambiance. It’s mind blowing. After the show we try to experience the real Vegas by gambling away 40 bucks at the roulette, but we never experience the fun Vegas at these tables. The tables are mostly occupied by people looking serious and trying to minimize the damage that they probably already caused to themselves.






We rest in Las Vegas, read a book, swim in the pool, sleep. We cycle into the city for some food and immediately get overstimulated by the city. At night we buy a sixpack of beer and just sit along The Strip and watch people. It’s a show by itself.
It takes us a long time to get out of the city. A long and boring stretch. We have to climb over a mountain and cycle a 30km (!) straight road to reach Pahrump. We already picked a park in Pahrump and are sitting on our chairs already when we get a message on the Warmshowers-app that we are welcome to stay with Arika and her family.
Another half an hour in the opposite direction, but a shower is worth it. It’s a busy ensemble that we stumble upon: brother Bill, and four other family members occupy the messy house. We may lay our pads in the home office that night.
We are asked to write a message down in their guestbook and I read a funny and very true message from another cyclist: “The most useless object I took along on this trip? Condoms for sure. Getting laid is something for rock climbers, not for bikepackers.”






Cycling through Death Valley in the midst of summer has not been our brightest idea. Many people have declared us to be crazy. However it’s the shortest way to get to San Francisco and we also think it would be a nice challenge. So we decided to just do it and see.
From Pahrump we first cycle to a town called Death Valley Junction. Google maps says we should be able to fill up on water here, but the town is a ghost town. The only operating hotel/theater doesn’t let us fill up our water bottles and makes us pay for bottles?! We are astonished. All this time every gas station/house/hotel/whatever has let us fill up on water and in the middle of the desert hospitability suddenly is hard to find. We begin cycling towards the Death Valley and cross the border into California. We’ve been cycling in hot temperatures already before but this beats everything. It’s like cycling in an oven, my eyes hurt from the dry air, my mouth is beyond dry.
Most of the way is downhill and still we are getting worn out quickly. We drive into an oasis called Furnace Creek (what’s in a name) and the palm trees and green grass makes a great contrast with all the dry desert surrounding it. We rush into one of the two hotels here to catch a breath and to be cooled down by the air-conditioning. The hotel also has camping spots so we decide to pay for accommodation. Not only because we don’t have energy left to go back out into the heat to find a (free) dispersed campsite, also because this means we can make use of the pool. We put up our tents and make dinner. We cannot stop sweating. The rest of the night we spend in the pool. The hairdryer temperature makes the use of a towel unnecessary. Sleeping at night is hellish. The temperature barely drops. We are just lying and sweating. Jacko does not sleep at all. When we wake up at 04am our sleeping liners and pillowcases are drenched in sweat.











So we decide to wake up early to beat the heat. We are on the bikes when the sun starts rising and cycle without shirts. The heat is still immense but the rising sun makes the scenery around us magical. We get to Stovepipe Wells around 09am. It’s one of the other points in Death Valley with basic amenities. In total there are three: Furnace Creek (where we slept), Stovepipe Wells (where we are now) and Panamint Springs (50km and 1600m elevation gain further up the road). After Panamint springs it’s another 60km and 1000m elevation gain out of Death Valley and to the next water resupply point. In between these points there is nothing.
With all the elevation gain and the unbearable heat we would be dependent on cars to resupply us with water. We decide that it’s too dangerous and to hitchhike out of Death Valley. It takes some time but after a couple hours we meet Venessa who is willing to take us along in her nice campervan. She brings us all the way to Lone Pine and during the ride we see the two killer climbs that we would’ve taken otherwise and we are relieved we didn’t. It is still relatively early so we decide to cycle another 50km with a nice tailwind and milder temperatures. We find a nice camp spot in a town called Aberdeen.








We wake up to a spectacular show of nature with clouds hanging low and trying to catch on to the sides of the mountains. Little did we know that this would be the most interesting part of today. Not every day can be outstanding or meaningful or filled with adventures.
We cycle to Bishop and we aimed for something further than Bishop, but Jacko doesn’t really feel it today so we decide to hang out here.
Entering 8 NP’s without paying
In the beginning it just happened to us, but after that we purposefully tried to not pay for National Park entrances.
# | Name of National Park | How’d we skip paying for the park? |
1 | Jasper & Banff | Justin brought us into the park |
2 | Yellowstone & Grand Teton | Computer broke down, so we could just continue |
3 | Capitol Reef | Smiled and waved 🙂 |
4 | Bryce Canyon | The official bikepath was going around the pay booth?! |
5 | Zion | “You guys are together with that other group?” – “Uh, yes?” – “Alright, carry on.” |
6 | Valley of Fire | Smiled and waved 🙂 |
7 | Death Valley | No booth |
8 | Yosemite | Smiled and waved 🙂 |
Mooi verhaal weer pik! Vooral t balanceren tussen de uitdaging aangaan (toch DV ingaan) en verstandig zijn (laatste stukje hitchhiken) en de overwegingen die jullie maken vind ik mooi om te lezen. En foto’s van Jacko blijven prachtig! Uitgevers opstellen in rijen van 2 voor de verhalenbundel
Thanks maat!! Foto’s zijn inderdaad geweldig!
Genoten! En ik sta in de rij als het boek, met prachtige foto’s. Wordt uitgegeven!
Wat een lef om toch door Death Valley te fietsen en wat een moed om liftend eruit te vluchten
Je zou zeggen dat jullie bijna niks opmaken behalve dan in Las Vegas , maar daar moet je ook je geld laten rollen
Mooi verhaal weer xxx