Camping with the V-Strom is Exceptionally Easy

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Day 27 of my 22′ Rocky Mountain tour. Planning to try new campgrounds, I end up at familiar territory.

Seeing if a reservation was open at two new campgrounds just east of Santa Fe, I see warnings that campground water was not working, and you’d have to bring your own water in.

I can boondock with no services on the bike, but typically an evening and morning sees me using about 3 liters of water, which is all I have in my water bladder. I’d have to fill it just before entering camp, and I don’t like paying the extra state park fees for no amenities (it’s just water, I just want water at camp). So I decide to detour to Los Alamos where I have been before, refill at the grocery store, and see if Bandelier National Monument has spots, which it does!

New camp, new place, same tent and motorcycle

Bandelier is a fantastic national park / monument, with excellent hiking, ACTUAL thousand year old Native American history, and bathrooms, bear cans, and water. It’s hot and sunny, but I put on my lightest long sleeve attire, sunblock up, and decide to hike down into the main canyon to check out the gift shop.

The mesa above the canyon
Perspective, but this is nearly straight down off a ledge. Notice the tiny tiny footpath down in the canyon.
Looking southeast down the valley

I make my way down a ton of switchbacks and hit the lower trail.

Switchbacks for daaaaaaaaays
The view from where I cam from. The patchy holes in the rocks used to be old Native American dwellings.

I get some small, small, packable gifts at the gift shop, drink about a gallon of water at the water fountain, and start to make my way back up. You’ll have to click the gallery below this photo to zoom in, but I barely out of the corner of my eye caught a young Short Horned Lizard trying to make its way in the world.

ADORABLE, and adorably endangered 🙁

I get back to camp, and decide to use my 10L portable camp shower. I fill it up and carry it, with my toiletry bag, 25ft of parachord, and a carabiner, into the woods finding a private spot. Any kind of shower after 2+ days of riding and backcountry camping is glorious. I get back to my tent clean, and make an English breakfast for dinner from the grocery store run earlier. Canadian bacon, beans, fried bread, sausage, and a hard boiled egg (motorcycle stable!) made for a filling meal.

This is actually sunrise from the next morning, but shhhhh it’s sunset shhhhh
Goodnight sweet moon

Tomorrow I’d break out of New Mexico, return to a normal elevation, and battle the heat and wind of West Texas.

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