Here!

109.19 mi / 7:46:57 time / 14.0 mph avg. / 39.5 mph max. / 4715 ft. climbing
Staying at Whispering Sands Motel, Hanksville

As if Dennis and Pat sharing their site hadn’t already conferred enough advantages upon us, it also meant that we would be able to see some Natural Bridges! So that’s what we did early in the morning, after getting some tips from our hosts who had done the big hike around all three bridges the day before. For us, we unloaded the bikes and rode the 9-mile loop road, walking down to two of the bridges. And I’m really glad we did, because they were way better than I expected. The bridges are sort of like arches, except they’re formed by water rather than wind. This means that they form a “bridge” over a river (or a dry wash in this case), and the area at the bottom is green, filled with birdsongs, and becomes an oasis of peace and comfort in the harsh, rugged land. So both the atmosphere and the scale was quite different than the Arches. Also, as is normal when we do our early-morning explorations, we had the whole area completely to ourselves.

We were able to ride the extra 9 miles and do a couple miles of strenuous hiking because we knew today would be an easy day. From 6700 ft. at Natural Bridges, we would roll down a 45 mile hill and cross the Colorado River once more at 4000 ft, at the point where it begins to turn into Lake Powell. We were able to confirm at the Natural Bridges visitor center that drinking water would be available at Hite “Marina”; that was a godsend, because this secion would be nearly impossible to complete without that oasis.

The downhill was fairly gradual, and we had a bit of a headwind, so Dennis and I set up a nice rhythm of exchanging the lead every two miles and letting the other person draft. This allowed us to keep a fairly constant 20 mph average, something that would have been impossible to do alone.

Halfway down, we stopped to make a brief attempt at “canyoneering”. We scrambled under the bridge at Fry Canyon and hiked a small distance until we could lower ourselves into the narrow slot cut through the sandstone. Only a few feet wide, and 20-30 ft. high at that point, the walls wind and snake just as the multi-colored layers of sandstone do, forming a beautiful and secluded hideaway. It’s too bad we didn’t have the time or equipment to explore more, but it was great to get a taste of this emerging “sport”, and we found a nice shaded sandstone bowl in which to relax and eat some Twizzlers, M&Ms, and apricots.

Then we completed the final downhill to Hite, with the red bluffs getting taller and more dramatic the closer we got to the river. Hite used to be an active marina on Lake Powell, but the lake level has dropped so low that the boat ramp now sits far, far away from the water, so all that’s really there is pay-at-the-pump gas, an intermittently-open ranger station, and an intermittently-open store. I knew this stuff from the Internet, but getting specifics is difficult. What does “intermittent” mean, and does something written in 2006 still hold up in 2009, or has the area been completely abandoned since then?

Well, not only did they have drinking water, the grocery store was open too! (10am to 4pm at the moment, fyi) And what a glorious place it was. Despite the fact that we tried to stock up on two days of food a couple days before, it seemed that our stomachs were bigger than our eyes had been. So at Hite we chowed down on some Hot Pockets, a can of peaches, cheese, and ice cream, and Gatorade, and bought a whole ton of granola and candy bars to keep us fueled over the next day until we finally reached another town. Dennis also found a small box of Q-tips that he had been looking for, and I picked up a much-needed nail-clipper. I tell you, this store was perfection! We spent over an hour and a half there, until it closed at 4pm, which also allowed us to escape some of the brutal heat down there in the river valley.

Then we had to ride a mile out back to the main road, and cross two rivers, first the Colorado, and then the Dirty Devil. That meant a lot of winding and some big hills. The fact that a road bridges this chasm is an amazing feat in itself, so we couldn’t complain too much to the builders for all the ups and downs they had to put in (I think the only other road crossings of the Colorado are over 100 miles up- and down-stream, at Moab, and in Arizona!)

My original plan for the day was to stop just on the other side of the Dirty Devil River for a short 55 mile day. But Dennis was nervous about the 80 mile day that would leave us for tomorrow, so I decided that we would go 10-15 miles further on this day, shortening our next day by that much, and find a spot to wild-camp off the side of the road. The whole day we had been on SR 95, and the mile posts were counting down the distance to the next town, Hanksville. After we crested a brutal hill that finally brought us to the gradual upward slope of the North Wash that we would follow out of the valley, I saw the 40 mile marker and jokingly said “heck, let’s just blow out these 40 miles today!”

When we stopped at the Hog Springs rest area (only a vault toilet, a picnic shelter, and no water, but the finest facilities in 100 miles along this road), I found that Dennis had actually been thinking seriously about that idea! This, from the guy an hour earlier at Hite was still nervous about making the next 10-15 miles to a place to camp! It initially sounded crazy to me, because it would mean a 108 mile day, twice what we had planned, and even worse, it was already 6pm, so we only had a couple hours of light left to cover 35 miles. I figured it would be easy to recite some horrors of a ride like this and scare the idea out of Dennis, but suddenly that didn’t work at all; while he would defer to my experience, he still wanted to give it a shot! So I brought out the computer to do some analysis of the distance and climbing, and it seemed doable, though it would be painful and slightly crazy. But my main thought was this: if we can pull it off, this will give Dennis the confidence to believe that he can complete any remaining ride scheduled on this trip. And with the idea and decision largely being his own, it would give him some ownership of our planning, rather than having to simply follow whatever I had planned, and that would surely give him some confidence too.

So off we went, and for the first few miles, the slight incline and slight tailwinds made it seem like a reasonable idea. The canyon we were riding up was incredible, with the towering red walls much larger and closer than those we saw on the descent to the river on the other side. Soon the wind turned around though, and slowed us down a good bit, but we pressed on, again using our alternating-drafting technique to conserve energy, this time silently communicating the lead changes whenever one of us would feel stronger than the other. So together we made it to our peak elevation, 1200 ft. above the river, just as the sun was setting.

There were plenty of good areas to camp on the side of the road where we could have stopped if we needed to, but still we pressed on, this time down a slight downhill, though still with a quartering headwind. As it got darker, Dennis turned on his blinking taillight, but luckily there had been almost no traffic on this road the entire day (we almost saw as many cows on the road as we did cars), and the road surface was pretty good.

We had one final uphill to push through, and we made it to the peak just as the final remnants of orange glow in the west equalled the light from the moon in the east. When we saw the twinkling lights of Hanksville down below and 4 miles away: elation! We’d done it! We rode/coasted down the final hill, and turned into the first motel we saw, just after 9pm, tired but happy and proud. For Dennis to have done his first century ride (100 miles) fully-loaded, over such terrain, was quite an impressive feat.

There was a burger joint just down the road that was luckily still open ’til 10, so we chowed down on a bunch more food, including a big ol’ chocolate shake with our burgers. The funny part was that we had lugged two days worth of dinners with us on this segment that are still unused! The connected gas station had a couple of good beers for sale individually, so of course we had to get those, and enjoyed them together sitting outside our motel room much later than usual, knowing that we’d have a short day tomorrow!

68.10 mi / 5:50:12 time / 11.6 mph avg. / 39.0 mph max. / 4551 ft. climbing
Staying at Natural Bridges National Monument Campground

Once we finished writing our computer stuff last night, we went back to our campsite and found that the ferocious winds had thankfully died down quite a bit. There were also several other tent campers that had found spots out on ledges like ours. Even if it had been windy, once my tent pegs are hammered directly into the sandstone (we actually broke some hammer-rocks in the process) and all my gear is strategically laid out on the floor inside, it ain’t going anywhere. Before bed we sat on some rocks and ate Oreos and Nutter Butters with the shadowy hulks of the Mitten monuments looming before us. (that’s another great-to-have Dennis along item: how have I lived for 32 years without being acquainted with the exquisite beauty of Nutter Butters?!)

I kept my the door on my rainfly rolled up so I could see the monuments all night, waking right when the sun rose behind them, and got pictures along with just about everyone else in the campground. I got to use some of my toilet-paper stash since the porta-potties in the high-class campground didn’t supply any, yay!

Once we hit the road, Dennis was pushing hard, partly because he had some doubts about being able to survive the day. I felt bad for that, and would like to be able to give him complete reassurance that we’ll make it through just fine. But that day up to Dead Horse Point didn’t just put doubts into him, it put them into me as well. Due to my experience, I thought I had a much better idea of what we can handle in a day, but my experience counts for little in this canyon country, and that scar from Dead Horse does make me less confident that we are biting off chewable-sized pieces.

Well, the first part of the day wasn’t anything to be concerned about for either of us. It was a mostly-downhill backtrack to Mexican Hat, where we made it by 10am in time for second-breakfast at a cafe we saw on the way out of town the day before (one nice thing about backtracking: you know every place in town by that point). I got an enormous green chili breakfast burrito, which was awesome, along with some more fry bread, since we were still in Navajo Land. Our server was a goofy but very amiable older character with a cane, who almost seemed like he might have a mental deficiency. Only found out later how much I had been judging a book by its cover when he said he would love to do a ride like ours, and that he used to run the Salt Lake Marathon every year, until he got hit by a drunk driver. The Navajo Nation is pretty clear about not allowing any alcohol on the reservation, but judging by all the cans and bottles on the roadside, this is unfortunately an oft-ignored rule.

Then it was back to the Mexican Hat Shell Station/Food Mart, which is surprisingly weak as food marts go, especially since it’s the only grocery store in town. We spent $41 there stocking up on two days of food, because we’re really heading into wide open spaces, where food and water will be tough to come by; we’ll see no real towns for more than two days.

Then it was time to begin the section that Dennis feared, and I simultaneously feared and looked forward to: climbing on top of Cedar Mesa via the Moki Dugway. It would take us up 2400 feet from the San Juan river in 13 miles, most of the climbing in a three-mile stretch of gravel switchbacks rising straight up a 1200-foot cliff face. I knew that if we made it, the views and the experience would be awesome, but what if we didn’t make it? As it turns out, we survived pretty well, with Dennis leading the whole way. The gravel was a little loose and washboard-y, but we could dodge the worst of it, and although there were certainly sections of 10% grade, there were also sections that were lower, and some of the corners of the switchbacks were even paved to make things easier. The only reason I can guess as to why they don’t pave the whole thing is to keep it from becoming a popular shortcut for commercial traffic. The views were astounding (especially looking down at the long, snaking road that we had come from), and the feeling of accomplishment from conquering such a beast is hard to beat, so it put us in just the mood that I had hoped.

Once we were on top of the Mesa, we were in a different world, which included cool temperatures, and trees. The final 30 miles of “flat” riding still took us up another several hundred feet, until we finally descended to Natural Bridges National Monument.

Upon arrival, we found that the campground was full. Crap. The guys in the Visitor Center suggested that we go back out and wild-camp on open BLM land, which actually didn’t sound like all that bad of an idea. The only problem was that it meant we would probably have to skip seeing the Natural Bridges, because we wouldn’t want to come back in for them. Oh well, I actually had never been terribly interested in this particular Monument anyway. So we went to fill up all of our water-carrying devices (really the main reason for stopping here!) and prepared to head back out. But then a couple pulled up from nowhere in a truck-camper and asked if we were looking for a spot. Why, we certainly were! They said they weren’t using the tent pad at their site, so we were welcome to it. Well wasn’t that just darn wonderful? The Visitor Center guys had actually also suggested asking around the campground if anyone wanted to take us on, but I’d have a hard time imposing on someone like that. So we were so grateful that Pat and Dennis took the initiative to offer to share their site with us. Not only that, then they shared their food with us, including a great pot o’ beef stew and days-old cookies that tasted as if they were fresh from the oven, given the circumstances under which we received them. But supreme generosity wasn’t their only gift; they were also great people and fun to talk with over dinner.

So a day that started out with some doubts ended with a restoration of faith in ourselves, and in the kindness of strangers. It was a pretty great example of why I love bike touring.

49.53 mi / 4:12:45 time / 11.7 mph avg. / 38.0 mp max. / 3635 ft. climbing
Staying at Wildcat Primitive Campground, Monument Valley

Today started really crappy, with me being unable to locate my wallet. We tore the room apart (thanks to Dennis for all his help, patience, and ideas), asked a lot of people, and looked everywhere we could think of, but no luck. All I could figure was that it fell out of my pocket while I sat in the motel lounge the night before, but it seems strange that someone would actually take it. All it contined was my driver’s license, one credit card, and exactly $1. In reality, it probably isn’t an enormous calamity; Dennis has money, there were no charges on my card, and I think I’ll be able to pull off the flight home without an ID. But it sure made me feel like shit. Combined with the flat-tire nervousness of the day before, I was really hitting a low point.

But then, as I’ve experienced many times before, days like this can turn on a dime. Today, that dime was a car and a couple of motorcyclists passing us on the road as we climbed, all of them giving us cheerful and encouranging toots of their horn. At that same point, the surroundings were just beautiful, and there were some cows for me to moo at, so suddenly a huge smile broke out on my face. Yes, this bike touring thing is fun, and crappy stuff can’t keep me down!

So today’s ride took us immediately up a big hill, and from the top of that hill we could already see the Monuments in the distance. Giant red buttes rising up against the horizon. The rest of the ride showed us many perspectives of those buttes, with the final perspective being the classic shot in Monument Valley that I posted as my inspiration for this trip in my first entry.

Here in Monument Valley (part of the Navajo Nation) they have apparently demolished the normal campground and replaced it with a hotel, so we were left with the primitive/overflow campground. That meant we could set up our tents anywhere on the bluff overlooking the valley floor. The great part of this was that we could give ourselves a world-class, front-row view; the bad part was that it was crazy-windy, which made setting up our tents very challenging, and made it impossible to keep the fine red sand from getting into everything.

Though the view is fantastic, the idea of preparing our dinner at that site didn’t seem to appetizing, so we rode back over the horrible rock-and-sand road to the new hotel/restaurant complex for dinner. It was another great opportunity for local eating, as they served several Navajo specialties. We each got a different type of stew, which along with the Navajo fry bread was quite tasty and filling. Once again we had a front-row view of the three famous buttes, as our table was right up against the window in a prime spot. Then we discovered WiFi in the brand-new, classy and comfortable hotel lobby, and since we made it in relatively early, had time to sit and write journal entries amidst the soothing Navajo flute music. So a great end to a good day that started out bad. Well, provided our tents haven’t blown away yet!

36.29 mi / 2:01:07 time / 17.9 mph avg. / 41.5 mph max. / 491 ft. climbing
Staying at Kokopelli Inn, Bluff

Today was something new, we actually went through two towns in one day, a first for this tour! We also didn’t climb any hills. Crazy, huh?

We did have to wait out a whole bunch of rain though. It rained lightly through the night, then stopped in the morning long enough for me to go out and eat breakfast under a spacious ledge/cave in the rock, which would have been a perfect place to try some tentless camping, even in the rain, had we discovered it earlier. But then before we could pack up, it started again, heavier, keeping us holed up in our tents until after 10am. We packed up our wet gear (yuck), then rolled down the hill to Blanding.

There, we made great use of their fine visitor center, using their overhangs, power, bathrooms, Internet, and even patio area to dry out our stuff when it got momentarily sunny. But then a heavy storm came through keeping us holed up there until nearly 4pm, with only 10 miles in the bag.

Once we finally got going again on the road towards Bluff, the skies cleared up enough, and after a bunch of 25-30mph cruising, we were suddenly dragged down by the flat-tire demons. Three of them in ridiculously quick succession! Two for me (both the rear wheel, and both different from each other and different from yesterday’s) and one for Dennis (on his trailer wheel). I have no idea if it was just a really crappy highway, or a really crappy stretch of luck.

Anyhow, that ruined any chance of us making it to our planned destination (Goosenecks State Park), so we pulled into a motel in the tiny town of Bluff. It’s a beautiful town though, situated in the San Juan River valley, and surrounded by, well, Bluffs. Dinner was at the San Juan River Kitchen, which is a fantastic place totally unexpected in a town as small as Bluff. It’s almost an art-gallery type building, and in fact there were some pretty great works of art from a local artist hanging on the walls. And then they make a lot of local food, and have a note on their menu saying that their cuts of meat vary from night to night because they only buy one cow at a time. We split a roasted-grape/toasted-walnut/pancetta salad, and I had some fantastic enchiladas. Bluff is very close to the Navajo Nation, so there is a bit of native influence as well. Combine that with the classic diner lunch we had in Blanding (where we talked with a Mormon woman who noted that her touring-cyclist husband could always keep up with his group even though he could not ride on Sundays like they did), and it was a good day full of local color. That helped even out all the rain and flat-tire crappiness.

I fell asleep listening to Tiamat’s “A Deeper Kind of Slumber”, and had a nearly-religious experience. I’ve always loved the album, but this time, in my half-dream-state, I was envisioning enormous sandstone bluffs, flowing and changing and growing along with the music. It told me that this trip is really hitting my subconscious, or, the chef at the restaurant put something funny in my enchiladas!

Click here to go straight to the new photos

And sorry about the invisible updates, I forgot to tag some posts. Should be there now!

66.85 mi / 5:10:44 time / 11.6 mph avg. / 33.0 mph max. / 4690 ft. climbing
Staying at Devil’s Canyon National Forest Campground

The free breakfast at the Best Western was impressive in scope, but I didn’t take advantage as much as I normally would, due to the all-i-could-eat last night. I had couple slightly sore hiking muscles, but the biking muscles felt just fine after the easy day, so by 9am we had made our final stop at the Moab City Market and said our last goodbye to that town.

Today’s ride was the first of the trip that didn’t include any state or national parks, so it was pretty much just a normal day of bike touring. Well, if finishing more than 3000 ft above where you started can be considered normal. Luckily the winds were mostly non-existant or favorable (until the last 15 miles) so we tackled the hills without undue difficulty.

There is basically nothing in the 54 miles between Moab and Monticello, (besides nice views of the La Sal and Abajo mountain ranges, and Wilson Arch on the side of the road) so we made it to Monticello in good time with lunch on the side of the road being our only major stop.

Perhaps the most “exciting” part of the day was when my chain fell off my rear sprocket. Dennis was right in front of me when it happened, but by the time I realized I needed him to stop, he could no longer hear me yelling against the wind. An oncoming car even beeped at him to alert him to the crazy guy jumping and shouting 80 yards behind him, but of course its rather difficult to divine meaning from a beep. Luckily I was able to fix the problem myself, and fifteen minutes later I caught up with him after he made the surprising discovery that I wasn’t on his tail. So we learned that I need to spend less time riding in his blind spot (where he reasonably assumed I was the whole time) and we need to do more checking for each other.

At the first gas station in Monticello we bought some Gatorade and ice cream, then some breakfast supplies, then some Subway sandwiches for dinner, and finally some drinks for our fourth transaction.

The decision not to cook in camp turned out to be a fortunate one, because although the campground was supposed to have water, it would not be tested until Monday, so it was recommended not to use it for drinking. The leathery old campground hostess gave absolutely no consideration to our situation, but we figured we’d have enough water to make it to the next town in the morning.

We got a cool spot in the nearly empty campground, backed up right against a small sandstone cliff, which might provide some shelter if the predicted rain got nasty. At the 7000 ft elevation, we’re surrounded by tall Ponderosa pines, which is quite a change from our previous campsites, where the desert vegetation was rarely taller than 10 feet.

Then I discovered the first flat of our trip, on my rear tire, from a piece of wire. Flats are annoying, but there’s no better place to have them than in camp when you have plenty of time and daylight. So fixing it was fairly easy, and in the process I discovered that my cassette lockring was loose, which may have contributed to my chain-jumping problem, so, the were two dead birds.