FOR THOSE WHO GO OFF THE Beaten Path : Russells’ Sidekick Maps Make Those Hard-to-Find Spots Easier to Reach

In southeast California, there are tank tracks where U.S. Army troops prepared for desert combat.

Those soldiers never heard of Saddam Hussein. Their minds were on German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel; their commander was George S. Patton.

“General Patton was in that area a lot when he was training his troops to go to North Africa,” said Marilyn Russell. “There’s a Patton Museum off (Interstate) 10 at Chiriaco Summit. There are remnants of the barracks, the airfield.”

A wide dirt trail called Tank Road bisects the area. For nearly half a century, it didn’t have a name--until Rick Russell came along. Russell charted it as the main feature of one of his Sidekick off-road maps, which start where the Automobile Club of Southern California leaves off.

“The road was too wide for normal vehicles,” he said. “I talked to a guy who saw Patton blow up water holes. He was so strict with the troops that he wanted them to get used to going without water.”

The desert hasn’t changed much, but it’s a more enlightened world. Anybody venturing into the desert is advised to take as much water as he can carry. When the troops now in Saudi Arabia trained in the California desert, they slept in air-conditioned tents.

While man can adapt to the desert, the desert is not as flexible. Abuses endure. That’s why some desert lovers would keep off-highway vehicles (OHV’s) off the desert and out of the wilderness entirely. They are already banned in federally designated Wilderness areas.

This is in the Russells’ minds when they prepare one of their maps. They are working on their 14th--all except one detailing remote Southern California sites, most in the desert. Their intent isn’t to turn loose an army of environmental terrorists but to enlighten users of OHV’s on how to pursue their hobby responsibly.

Rick Russell said: “There are areas with few roads, few trails, which should be designated as roadless areas and closed out. There also are areas riddled with trails that are pretty remote--Stoddard Wells, south of Barstow (for example). The Bureau of Land Management has designated it as an open area, and you don’t even need to stay on the roads.

“Then there is the in-between land that I like to use personally . . . the limited-use areas. You can go in, but you have to stay on existing roads. There are plenty of existing roads that provide the kind of recreation we like.”

Russell has been an off-road enthusiast since the mid-1970s, when he bought a ’56 Jeep. Two years ago, he and Marilyn brought their first map to the SCORE show at Anaheim, were swamped by the response and a business was born.

Marilyn soon abandoned her career in corporate administration to handle the marketing, advertising and office chores. This year, Rick, a specialist in bar codes, quit his executive job to concentrate on making maps.

Marilyn said: “With four kids and the fact that we like to go camping, we just decided to downscale our lives and do what we wanted to do.”

No other maps offer such detail of areas away from the pavement. Some BLM and U.S. Forest Service stations sell the maps alongside their own, which are often limited and outdated.

“For the Arrowhead area, we collected six or eight maps, and none was totally accurate . . . trails that had moved, roads in the wrong place,” Marilyn said. “People were getting lost.”

The Sidekick maps, printed in color on heavy stock, are created to scale from a computer-aided design program. Russell uses a compass, an altimeter and an odometer and will soon have a Loran electronic self-locating device. The Russells get a lot of input from locals and incorporate history, such as the location of the ranch near Death Valley where Charles Manson was arrested.

They tap into local knowledge. Rick Russell once met a denizen of the desert known only as Uncle Snuffy, whose Jeep had broken down. Uncle Snuffy said he was 84 and a retired surveyor. Russell towed him home.

“And I met his wife, who was five years older than he was,” Russell said. “He was taking a nitroglycerin pill and chasing it with a beer. He really knew the desert. I think people are interested in mines, old buildings or foundations of old buildings.”

Such sites are noted on the maps, sometimes with written directions on the back. In some cases, to find unmarked turnoffs, “you have to count electrical poles,” Marilyn said.

Sometimes Russell will charter a plane. When he did the map for the Little Rock Recreation Area, south of Palmdale, he checked first with a local Forest Service ranger, as he usually does.

“I understand there’s a fence at the top of Alimony Ridge,” Russell said.

“That’s what I hear,” the ranger said. “I’ve never been up there.”

Russell drives the trails himself, not only to check directions and distances but to rate them for difficulty.

“I meet a lot of people who really aren’t prepared for the kind of terrain they’re in,” he said.

So, on his maps, a trail marked with an “easiest” symbol means it’s negotiable by a two-wheel-drive vehicle with a high center clearance. “More difficult” means four-wheel-drive is necessary; “most difficult” means only an experienced four-wheel-driver should try it.

One day, Russell was re-exploring the Little Rock area to update his map. His yellow, custom-rebuilt Jeep, which he once rolled over during a nighttime sandstorm at the Imperial Sand Dunes, is a mix of technology.

“The front end is out of a three-quarter-ton Chevy truck,” Russell said. “The transmission is out of a one-ton Chevy truck, so it has a granny low.”

The V-6 engine was turning 2,500 RPMs as Russell crawled through Santiago Canyon--a dry riverbed of boulders as big as beachballs--at 1 m.p.h. on knobby 35x12.50 tires.

The “monster” trucks with the giant, tractor-size tires are impressive but impractical for sidehill stability.

“Thirty-five inches is as tall as I’d want to go,” Russell yelled over the roar of the engine. “Even 33 inches will clear most rocks.”

Conversely, the ideal off-road vehicle is unsafe for street driving because it will roll over too easily.

As the Jeep pitched and rolled down the canyon, Russell said: “In order to be a good off-road vehicle, you want to be as narrow as you can and as tall--and as you can see from this trail, the narrower I am, the better. You get these big tires on there and you get it tall, it’s not going to be as stable (on) the highway.”

Later, after he leaves the canyon for sand, Russell will deflate the tires from 35 to 10 or 15 pounds for better traction.

Russell usually tows his Jeep to the sites. Of course, many OHV owners have no intention of ever leaving the highway. They just like the image.

“You can look at the paint job and determine (who they are) real quick,” Russell said.

One thing a new OHV owner must understand, Russell said, is that “you haven’t been four-wheeling until you’ve been stuck a few times.”

That’s why he advises carrying tools, including a shovel, and traveling in pairs or trios in particularly rugged terrain. Hauling up a 30-degree hogback road to Alimony Ridge, the Jeep overheated, sputtered and clanked, so Russell shut it off and set the brakes. Flexing of the engine had caused the fan to chop into the radiator, causing a leak and bending one blade.

He got out his tool box, bent the blade back straight, poured some water in the radiator and was able to climb to a spot to turn around and head down.

“Over 18 years, there aren’t many parts I haven’t broken,” he said. “The U-bolts that hold the axles to the springs, I probably break two a year. So I carry extra U-bolts. They cost five bucks. If something breaks on my vehicle, I try to make it stronger.”

It’s a tough world beyond the pavement, with a few tough people. Russell once was exploring roads west of Barstow when he met a miner who had been looking for a lost gold cache for 25 years. Legend has it that a miner with a load of gold buried it under a marker when his burros died, but also planted three false markers.

“The guy I met had found the three false markers and was down to looking for the real one,” Russell said. “He spends his weekends and holidays driving the roads looking for that marker.”

He might want to buy a Sidekick map. The marker is probably on there.