Biking Bruce County & Beyond: Route 66 Day 4 (Part 3): Sitgreaves Pass to Oatman

Now, from my perch on Sitgreaves Pass at 3,550 ft (1,082 m), I look west. Primary direction of travel: Down. I am about to plummet almost 1,000 ft (305 m) in less than 20 minutes.

Check brakes. Secure helmet. Wish for parachute. Review life insurance policy. (Would this be considered suicide? Some might say so.) This might be the longest and steepest and fastest and twistiest ride I have ever taken.

Within minutes of tipping my bike wheel west and over the edge of the summit pass, I confess to myself I am a little nervous. The brakes on my bike are in top notch condition, but even with full application I'm moving too fast. And my hands ache from the clamp down. Don't think I can tweak my braking efficiency. I can and do however stop and readjust my handle bar angle so as to make the squeezing a little easier.

As much as I love downhill riding, I do not wildly enjoy this short but intense nose-dive marathon.

But 20 minutes and many twists and turns later, fairly near the bottom of these steep slopes, yet another famous Route 66 town appears -- Oatman. I can see just down the road the 1902 adobe motel that has served and continues to serve travellers on this well traversed road. This building is now one of the oldest two story structures in this part of the country.

The real action for Oatman began here in one day in 1915, when two prospectors were pickaxing away at this desert dirt and literally struck a jackpot goldmine that over the next few years would yield $10 million in gold. That obviously changed everything. Within a year, the population grew from a handful to over 3,500. The Boom Town boomed for nine years.

Oatman wasn't always Oatman. At some point the name was selected in reference to the "rescue and return" to this place of a young girl from Illinois named Olive Oatman. The historical facts are still disputed. But the general account describes how Olive was "kidnapped" around 1850 supposedly by the Yavapai Indians and "forced" to be their slave. The credibility of the "kidnapped" and "slave" notion isn't universality shared. At any rate, the Yavapai supposedly traded Olive to the Mohave Indians. The historical record does confirm that the Mohaves actually respectfully "adopted" Olive and honourably integrated her into their lives and culture. They even gave her, as was the custom, a cool facial tatoo that would be the envy of many high school students today. But in 1855, Olive was discovered by some US Calvary soldiers and "liberated" and returned to this settlement.

A fire in 1921 actually burnt down most of the original town. But new buildings went up. For a total of 9 years the earth shared its precious metal. But in 1924 the major mining company shut down it's operation. Residual mining continued. But the glory days had departed.

But, remember, in 1926, Route 66 was just starting to offer its kicks. Oatman became an essential and favourite stop on this stretch of pavement linking America. Of notoriety, Clark Gable and his new bride, Carole Lombard, spent part of their honeymoon here after their marriage in Kingman. A person can stare in wonder at their motel room which has been preserved as it was when they slept there in March of 1939. Gable took a real liking to the town. Over the years he would return here many times to play poker with the miners who were still working the dirt looking for the big vein that must have been missed.

This town survived boom and bust days of mining and a national economic depression. But World War 2 eventually delivered the biggest blow. In 1941, the United States Government ordered the shut down of the few remaining mines. The reason -- Mining equipment and expertise were required elsewhere for the extraction of other metals vital to the war effort.

But Route 66 traffic kept some local businesses thriving. If a traveller were going to get from Needles, California, to Kingman, Arizona (or the other way), he or she had to stop for food, gas, rest, etc. in Oatman.

But times were a-changing. The next hit came in 1953 when Route 66 was realigned through Yucca, Arizona. Travellers not crazy about climbing up and down the Black Mountains opted for the new route. Now Oatman was located between, well, nothing.

Yet Oatman stands before my eyes. Once again I am back in Knott's Berry Farm, California, as a kid. The Knott's Berry Farm of the 1960's when there were no fences, no admission tickets, and no Puke Producing Thrill Rides. Just a few dusty streets and a handful of gift shops and restaurants. Old frontier town covered wooden walkways on both sides of the street. Salon doors that swing apart in the middle of the door frame. And, don't forget the chickens running around everywhere.

Except Oatman has significantly upgraded the wildlife department. No puny chicken. Oatman has animals wandering the street that really kick ass. Literally. Burros. Wild ones. Descendants of the old miner's burros. And somehow now protected by the United States Governement. A first they appear a charming novelty. But upon closer acquaintance, they make a much diffferent impression.

Here's how our's was formed. It is lunch time. We're hot and tired and hungry. Someone selects one of the eating establishments. It is air conditioned inside. That's all that matters to me. We study our menus and place our orders. I am trying out an Oatman speciality, Navajo Taco. (Which turned out to be a huge piece of bread with the stuff of tacos dumped over the top. It was OK. But I'm not making a special trip back for another one.)

Just after our order is placed and we are cooling our heels, sipping on our ice teas, a man with a rather heavy German accent comes in the front door, scans the dining room, and focuses on us. He asks, "Are you riding bicycles?" We nod. Then he explains, "The burros are eating your bicycle bags!" We dash out of the restaurant. The man was right. About four burros mill around our bikes, chewing at different parts of them; spokes, frames, cables, etc. But Bryan sees one of the creatures dragging his bike bag off his bike frame and into the road. (We later learn that an apple was in the bag.)

Bry persuades the burro to release his bag. And they seem to disperse. We hurry back into the restuarant and finish our meal, pay our bills, and then rush back to what we hope are still non-digested, functional bikes. And they are. With burros returning and sniffing around, we gladly prepare to leave. (I think someone changed another flat at this moment as well.)

We leave town with no real desire to return. For me, a drive through the town, slow enough not to hit a burro (too hard) would have been sufficient.

The Real Owners of Oatman

Burro chewing on my spokes.

The maskng tape on Burro's nose says, "Do not feed."
But maybe if this guy were fed, he wouldn't be chewing on my tire.

An interesting music machine. You've heard of a player piano? This is a player guitar. A scroll with holes punched in it activates the "fingering" on the frets and plucking of the strings, etc.

Famous Oatman Hotel. Full of history. Someone told me the rooms upstairs actually have bullet holes in the floors created by some wild Saturday nights many years ago. Probably the oldest building in town. Being adobe, it didn't burn down as most of the town has done several times over the years.

Bryan and his new friend, who is not very happy with Bryan for taking away his bike bag that Mr. Burro was trying to eat.

This guy really like the flavour of my bike. Maybe it is the taste of a Japanese bike made in China that he finds attractive.
A real hankering for foreign food.

Catching our breath and cooling our brakes after a gravity powered descent into Oatman.

Preacher Tom lives in Oatman and performs "Cowboy Weddings."
Members of our expeditionary force were quite taken by his likeness to me.
James actually found his office in town and was hoping to get a picture of he and I together.
But the Preacher wasn't in.

This Guy is not giving up on my bike!

A picture is worth a thousand words. Ben and James bubbling with the enthusiasm that can only be generated after four days of desert biking and spending an entire morning climbing several thousand feet up the side of a mountain in 90 F (32.2 C).

The path of our initial descent from the Pass to Oatman.
Notice the heavy machinery. Some kind of pipeline is been build up one side of these mountains and down the other.
I think its presence may detract greatly from the beauty of this place.