90.36 mi / 5:59:15 time / 15.0 mph avg. / 36.0 mph max. / 2374 ft. climbing
Staying at Lees Ferry Campground

The Numbers: 58, 34, and 100

58: The temperature when I woke this morning, at 4am.
Yes, 4am…I wanted to get an early start, but I also wanted to catch the sunrise, which due to Arizona’s wacky Daylight Saving-hatred, happens at 5:21am. The night didn’t seem quite as windy as the previous, but I guess enough of the hot air from the Canyon had still swept its way up to keep the campground warm. I managed to make it out to Bright Angel Viewpoint just a couple minutes before the sun cracked the horizon. The small group of people there were peacefully and quietly enjoying the view, such that you could actually hear the muted roar of the distant Roaring Springs, which I had hiked to the day before. I’m not sure if I waited long enough to see the perfect light, but I had a lot of riding to do, even if it was mostly down the giant hill.

34: The temperature five miles north of the campground.
Apparently the Canyon depths really do warm the edge of the rim, but a 24 degree temperature change (and this after the sun had been up for a while) is quite shocking. After feeling that, it’s easy to understand why there are still patches of snow around and they don’t open the highway until May 15th. On the way down, I talked with another touring cyclist going the other way (who reminded me of Steve Manno, even before I knew his name was Steve), and he told me that the Marble Canyon Lodge had rooms for $35, and since staying there instead of the campground I was planning on would cut 10 miles off my trip, I was totally going to go for it. Back at Jacob Lake, after I finished my rare 3rd-breakfast of the day, I talked with yet another tourer who said he paid $55, and the rates had probably gone up with the opening of the North Rim. Still, by then, the idea of staying there was embedded in my head, and $55 still sounded like a decent deal.

After doing 2000 ft. of climbing over the “flat” 44 mile section back to Jacob Lake, I finally hit the downhill, but as is often the case, it was tempered by headwinds. Still, the section of juniper/sagebrush between the high pine forest and the low desert went by extremely fast, and then I was on a long straight road heading through a red blasted land, with the Vermillion Cliffs rising to my left. The road, US-89A, was total garbage, with no shoulders, and a very bumpy and rough surface. The surface type literally changed every quarter mile, but amazingly it never got better or worse, it was just garbage the whole way. Still, I believe this is the first time in the whole tour that I’ve mentioned road quality, so it just shows how good everything else has been.

100: The temperature at my final destination, Lees Ferry, 5000 ft. lower than my start point.
When I got to Marble Canyon Lodge, it was full. Crap! I guess I would be heading for the campground after all. Even though that had been my original destination, my mind had been so set on the motel that it was a real mental effort to accept the redirection. Much of the problem was the fact that it was brutally hot, and it was only 2pm. I had envisioned a relaxing afternoon in an air-conditioned room, but now I would have to figure out how to avoid frying at the campground until the sun went down. I filled some time by eating lunch at the gas station, but didn’t want to wait too long to do the final 5 miles to the campground, since I didn’t want to find that full too!

Luckily when I showed up, I found the emptiest campground I’ve seen in weeks, set amid barren but beautiful red rock buttes and cliffs. Even better, the sites had big curved shelters over the picnic tables, providing shade (though I had to augment it by hanging my tent fly as well). And, to cool down, there was the Colorado River beckoning down the hill. That quickly, something I had been dreading turned around into something I would have been sorry to miss.

I walked down to the river, and waded in, finally getting into contact with the water that has been the main theme of our trip. I had managed to put a hand in on the second day, but this time I could really let it wet me down. This was the river whose headwaters were forming from the snow as our train passed through the mountains of Colorado, the river who we crossed too many times going in and out of Moab, the river that divided our epic 109-mile day into two halves, and the river that carved the incomprehensible canyon I had just been at the top of. It was the last I will be seeing of this river, and it will be forever bound to a lot of good memories. Oh, and it was cold, too!

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 17th, 2009 at 3:05 pm and is filed under 2009 Bike Tour, bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.