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!

~5 mi / 9.4 mi hiking
Staying at North Rim Campground

The noise of the wind made sleep a bit difficult, but the good news is that once again the tent held up very nicely. I wanted to be up and out fairly early, since I was going to hike a bit down into the canyon today, and they give all sorts of warnings about dying if you start too late.

So I made it to the North Kaibab Trail by 7:45am, hiked half a mile and down several hundred feet over 15 minutes, and then realized I’d left my water bottle at my bike. D’oh! I’d definitely die without that, so I had to turn around and go back to get it. A little annoying for a trail that I’d already be backtracking over!

As I went down, I kept thinking to myself, “Man, I really should have put my bike on the TransCanyon Shuttle, hiked down to the river and back up the other side in a day, and continued the ride from the South Rim.” Instead, I stopped at Roaring Springs, 4.7 miles in and 3000 ft. down, and turned around. On the way back up, I kept thinking to myself, “Yeah, that through-hike would have been a really terrible idea!” I actually do a lot better on the uphill than the downhill, but by then it had gotten quite hot on the trail, so spending all day out there doesn’t sound nearly as appetizing as it did in the shade of the morning.

On the way down, I even got passed, for the first and only time hiking on this whole trip. By a girl! I was going to offer to marry her as her reward, but I was never able to catch her. Poor thing. My center of gravity and knees and footwear just aren’t prepared to do the running-downhill bit. I’m much more suited for the uphill, because then I just put the cardiovascular engine into “Go All Day” mode and pump away exactly as if I was on the bike. I even bettered the group of ultramarathoners on the way up! Oh, ok, they were doing Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim in one day (insane!!!) so they win automatically, even if I beat them to the top.

Overall there was some cool stuff on the hike, and it gave some additional perspective on the canyon, but still the scale of the thing is just too huge to comprehend. The worst part was the stupid mule rides. First, because they leave their piles of fly-attracting, stinking shit on the trail that nearly makes you gag when you desperately want some clean oxygen. And second, because the mule trains and their Wall-E-like human passengers clog the trail. Luckily they didn’t start down until just before I made it back to the top, but for people starting later, or for the Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim-ers returning to the South Rim, they were going to cause some serious delays.

I was done hiking by a little past noon, so my main goal was to spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing and doing some chores. First up was to stop by the bike rental area at the campground entrance to see if they had a wrench to tighten my rear gears. I could tell they had loosened again, and that’s the problem that leads to the much bigger hub-repair problem when the chain jumps off the biggest gear. So just as I pull up to their garage, the chain jumped off the biggest gear. Seriously. Luckily the damage wasn’t quite as bad as it was the last time it had happened, and I was able to pick at the hub and get it rolling smoothly again on my own. Then when I finally asked for the wrench I needed, it turns out that they actually had a whole bike-tool kit, which no one at the garage knew how to use, but it let me fix my problem hopefully for the last time, and monkey around with a couple other things while I was at it.

Then I took a shower (second in two days!), did laundry, and loitered around the campground store eating and doing Internet stuff. It’s funny watching and listening to all the store employees, most of whom are getting on-the-job training and currently have very little idea what to do. But at least they have Wi-Fi, and tables, and re-fillable fountain drinks. Even the lodge doesn’t have Wi-Fi!

As I was sitting there, Dennis & Pat showed up, which was a great relief to me. Earlier in the day I had checked the site we had arranged for them to take and found it empty, and then while I was doing Internet stuff, I suddenly got an email saying that that reservation had been canceled. So I was afraid that there had been some horrible problem beyond the capability of the scatterbrained National Park servants to solve, and they had been left without a space in the campground. Instead, it turns out that they had just gotten themselves a more “legal” site, since mine would have technically been a “tent only” site, whatever that means.

So that was good, because they had generously invited me to dinner with them at the lodge that night (have I mentioned yet how great these people are?), and I had really been looking forward to it. The Grand Canyon Lodge dining room totally beats Bryce’s version; first, it’s a huge airy room with a vaulted ceiling, and second, you can see the Grand Canyon through the windows. Ok, so that latter feature would single-handedly beat most other lodges, even if the room itself was in a Port-a-Potty.

The three of us enjoyed a great meal together, and then walked out on to the porch for some pictures. Finally, I saw a Canyon that made me say “wow”. The setting sun gave it so much more depth and color than I had seen before. We drove back to the campground, and then said our truly final goodbyes for this trip. They would be spending the next few days hiking down to the river and back (jealous!), and then heading home. So unless I fall into the river when I reach Lees Ferry tomorrow, and get swept all the way back into the Canyon where they fish me out, chances of our paths crossing again have finally gone from improbable to impossible. It’s hard to believe that all this path-crossing was born of that improbable moment back at Natural Bridges when a couple of strangers drove up and offered help to a couple of guys who found themselves slightly adrift. I’ve had more interaction with people on this trip than I have had on any other bike tour (maybe influenced by Dennis’s more social nature?) but our time with Dennis & Pat has enriched the experience far more than any other. Hopefully I’ll be able to manage the rest of the way knowing that I won’t be seeing them every couple days!

27.01 mi / 2:05:04 time / 12.8 mph avg. / 37.0 mph max. / 1251 ft. climbing / 11 mi hiking
Staying at North Rim Campground

I knew the Grand Canyon North Rim officially opened today, but I didn’t really know what time. I figured I’d shoot for about the same time that the gate to AZ 67 opened, at 8am, even though that was 40 miles north of me. They must have someone there manning the entrance station in case there are any vehicles travelling at the speed of light, right? However, figuring out exactly when 8am was was a bit of a chore, since I hadn’t really converted to Arizona time yet (they ignore Daylight Saving here) and generally haven’t paid much attention to time at all lately.

Well, I got there about 8:15, and there had already been a steady stream of cars flowing by, so I guess they let people in pretty early. Luckily the line wasn’t too long when I got there, but it was already quite a bit longer when I left. The road inside the park got even better, as the trees closed in right next to the road. Twelve miles of that, and I made it to the campground, where the line for registration was amazingly slow and painful. Yes, I know it’s opening day and a bunch of people are being trained, but how hard is it really to register a campsite? I had made a reservation a long time ago, which was good, because the campground was full, but then I found out that they do in fact have hiker/biker sites here. A hiker who had just registered said they were the best in the campground, so I switched over to that area instead. Yep, my tent is about 20 yards from the edge of the canyon. Sure, a side canyon, but still pretty sweet.

Then I rode back out a mile south to the lodge and visitor center to see what was going on there. The lodge actually hides the main view of the canyon, until you enter the lobby and step down into a room with enormous picture windows. And there it is, the Grand Canyon. I was impressed, but not blown away. One downside of the North Rim is that you’re so far away from the river a mile below that you can’t even see a hint of it. And all the various canyon sections are so vast that it’s difficult to get an idea of what you’re even looking at, and what the true scale is. Even the short trail down to Bright Angel viewpoint (the main viewpoint in the area) didn’t add the perspective I was looking for.

So it was time to head back a couple miles on the road I came in on to get to the Widforss trailhead. This was a 10-mile round-trip hike over relatively level ground that traced the edge of the canyon rim and provided a lot of good views. Better, it was a hike through a pine and aspen forest, on dirt! (and pinecones!) It was nice to be walking on something that wasn’t slickrock or sand. And on top of that, it was quiet. I saw five other parties besides me, all coming back when I was on the way out, so I had the whole trail to myself on the way back. One of the parties was a couple that I had seen on a couple hikes in Zion, so it’s funny how often paths cross out here. And then at the end of the trail, there was a couple camping out there. The unnamed fellow and I spent a lot of time gazing at the canyon and chatting, and we did some serious bonding over our mutual love for Little Debbie products (despite the fact that I haven’t had a single one on this trip, eek!)

When I got back, I cruised the campground and finally found Dennis & Pat. We hung out catching up on our last couple days for a bit, and then they invited me to join them later for a drive down to the lodge for a drink at the saloon and a presentation from a ranger about a backcountry trail. I was a stinking mess, having not showered since a week ago in Bryce, so before joining them in their truck, I got myself a $1.50 5-7 minute super-high-pressure campground shower. That helped a lot, and made the North Rim Amber I drank down at the saloon much more enjoyable. We left the presentation once the ranger started randomly talking about fossils and stuff, but the parts about the backcountry trail and the general geology of the canyon were really interesting, especially since it’s totally not something I would have sat in on on my own, so I’m really happy that Dennis & Pat asked me along.

By the time we left the lodge it was rather dark, so my ride back to my campsite from theirs was quite the adventure, even with my bike light. Some more hikers had arrived in the hiker/biker area, so I nearly crashed into some of their tents on the way in, then I shot past my own tent ending up right beside someone else’s, and then I found what I was pretty sure was my tent, but I still held my breath as I opened the zipper. Phew, no one inside, so I crawled in and then only had the ferocious wind coming out of the canyon to deal with for the rest of the night.

28.84 mi / 2:41:42 time / 10.6 mph avg. / 34.0 mph max / 1887 ft climbing
Staying in Kaibab National Forest

Today would be a short day, so I slept past 7, getting nearly 10 hours of sleep. I was actually camped right near some sort of forest garage / work area, and a crew pulled in mere seconds after I finished taking a dump. Whew, they almost got to see my bare white ass!

I rolled the two miles into Jacob Lake, of which the Jacob Lake Inn is basically the only establishment (well, and the National Forest campground, which opened today). The Inn has a store and cafe, so I got some second-breakfast there, and stocked up for another day and night in the wild. I also spent a lot of time chatting with people outside, particularly a couple of guys doing Census work (tickled pink to be getting paid to drive backcountry roads, with very little else to do since there is no one to count out here!) and a couple from Anchorage, who gave a good scouting report on the road ahead. See, technically the road from Jacob Lake to the North Rim (AZ 67, 44 miles long) doesn’t open until tomorrow, but I was hoping to get a head start. This couple had gotten in there by taking backroads, and had done a mountain bike ride. They said no one had given them any hassles, and though the gate on the main road was closed, no one was manning it. So it sounded like I’d be fine.

I went ahead, and found that the closed gate was even nice and tall, so after removing my handlebar bag, I barely had to lean the bike to get it through. I still had a bit of climbing to do, up to 8840 ft. (marked accurately this time!) and it was into a headwind, so I’m glad I had this extra day to shorten tomorrow. Much of the forest was burned, until I reached the summit, past which it became green again, and then broken by high alpine meadows dotted with small lakes and patches of snow under the trees. Beautiful riding.

Still, for a closed road, there was quite a bit of traffic. Far less than there will be tomorrow for sure (the ranger said he’s seen 50 cars lined up when they open the gate at 8am revvin’ to go like the Indy 500), but I saw a vehicle about every 15 minutes. About half trucks delivering food, drink, and other supplies to prepare for the National Park opening, and half private vehicles who presumably got on the road via gravel Forest Roads.

I stopped four miles short of the National Park entrance, and about 19 miles short of the Canyon rim. I found another sweet spot with a massive fire ring and log seating set up already. It was only 2pm, so I set up my tent and spent the next couple hours dozing in the filtered sunlight shining through the pine trees. At Zion, nearly 5000 ft. lower, it would have been brutally hot, but here at 8800 ft., it was a perfect 72 degrees.

Eventually I roused myself, wrote some journal entries, built a snowman, cooked some dinner, and even built a campfire! A perfect day in the National Forest. A couple in a pickup-camper actually just pulled in a little way down the road from me, but I don’t think we’ll give each other much trouble.

77.34 mi / 7:10:14 time / 10.7 mph avg / 37.0 mph max / 6386(!) ft climbing
Staying in Kaibab National Forest

After a couple easy days on the bike, it was time again for a big one, so I made sure to get an early start. Since the beginning, my plan had been to continue west from Zion, then south into Arizona, before heading back east. But after talking with Fred and Regina at Zion Cycles, they helped convince me that backtracking east out of Zion made the most sense. Only after talking with them did I realize that it had been my apprehension about making it through the tunnel that had prevented me from even considering that route, which meant I’d have to make it through twice. But since the first time was so easy, what harm would there be in trying again? It would cut some 50 miles, and maybe even a whole day off the trip, and I don’t think I’d be missing much.

After crawling back up the switchbacks and making it to the tunnel ranger station, I got a stern “I’ll need you to stop right there and turn around” from the ranger. Haha, I don’t think so! When I made it clear I was going through as soon as I could find some help, she softened a bit, even saying she’d take me through at 11:30 when her shift was over, if nothing came sooner. I hoped it wouldn’t take that long, but the problem was, I was so early in the morning that there wasn’t much traffic yet. Still, when the first RV showed up after 10 minutes, I gave it a shot, and asked if there was any chance if they room inside for me and the bike. The older gentleman said they had a couple of dogs in there, so I said, no worries, I’ll wait for the next one. But they had to wait for the tunnel to clear, and in the meantime I think his wife worked on him, and eventually they offered a look inside to see if I thought I could fit. Sure could, so I quickly grabbed my stack of bags (even getting help from the ranger!) and loaded them, me, and the bike inside along with their two friendly golden retrievers. So twice through the tunnel with almost no wait at all, yay people!

Some miles later I ran into a couple of bike tourists going the other way, and we shared info about what was coming ahead for each other, with them being paticularly concerned with the upcoming tunnel. I hope they had as much luck as I did, but since one of them was a pretty girl, I bet they did even better!

I had another big hill to climb on US 89 before making it to Kanab, which is a rather large town (two movie theaters!) I had my first McDonald’s of the whole trip there. Then I crossed into Arizona into Kanab’s sister-city of Fredonia. There I stopped at the National Forest ranger station to get advice on camping options, did a final stock-up (including an extra 3L of water) and headed out to climb the big hill leading to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

As expected, the hill was long, hard, and slow, but traffic was minimal, and the weather was pretty nice, despite turning some of my chocolate bars into pure liquid. The state had markers along the road indicating 5000, 6000, and 7000 ft. The only problem was that they were horribly wrong! They were too low by at least 300 ft, making me think that I had a lot more climbing left to do. Only when I passed a viewpoint shelter that said 6700 ft. just after passing the 6000 ft. road sign did I know that my altimeter was correct and the signs were wrong. Idiots!

Somewhere above 6000 ft. the sagebush turned to pine forest, and just before I reached the crossroads of Jacob Lake, I headed down a recommended Forest Service road to do my first dispersed / free / wild / crap-in-a-hole camping of the trip. Found a nice spot with logs for a chair and even a fire ring, though after 6000+ ft of climbing (a new record) I didn’t quite have the energy to build a fire, and instead remembered Dennis by having a dinner of his chili and ramen noodles.

I also hit some sort of magical cyclist’s Golden Number, when I reached 7436 ft. at exactly 74.36 miles into the ride. I guess my winnings will be awarded at the end of the trip.

19.97 mi / 1:41:22 time / 11.8 mph avg. / 24.0 mph max / 787 ft. climbing / 7 miles hiking

Today was a little easier since I didn’t have to move camp, and I was at the Angel’s Landing trailhead at 9am. Angel’s Landing is a 1500 ft. tower of rock, and I’d been excited about the death-defying trail to the top ever since reading about Zion. However, after doing the great Observation Point hike yesterday, which took me 700 ft. higher, I was a bit concerned that Angel’s Landing would be a letdown.

Boy was I wrong. If the hike we did in Bryce was the best 3 mile hike in the world, a good argument could be made that Angel’s Landing is the best 5 mile hike in the world. It starts simply enough, with a series of long switchbacks taking you from the river into a narrow canyon. Then you hit Walter’s Wiggles, a series of 18 tight, San Francisco-like switchbacks that take you out of the canyon in a hurry. And then suddenly you’re in the open, with a 1000 ft. drop two feet to your right, and a 1000 ft. drop two feet to your left, with only a chain to hold onto to keep you centered. For all intents and purposes, you’re walking along a knife edge, and if the mountain was scaled down to the size of a knife, I bet it would be an extremely sharp one. Your view of the valley below is literally divided in two.

And then you notice, ahead, that the knife drives 500 ft. more, nearly straight up. Here, there are chains everywhere, not as protective fences, but to give you something to grab as you scramble up and down the rock, or to frantically claw at as you’re about to tumble over the edge (I actually grabbed a guy’s arm to steady him as he was about to go!) Finally, the view at the end isn’t as spectacular as Observation Point, but it’s a great place to sit and have some lunch and wonder how you’re going to get back down. Zion is an exceedingly friendly park, at least on the longer trails, with a “hello” on the trail getting a 100% response rate.

After that, the Riverside Walk was a bit of a letdown. Flat and paved, it was predictably packed with huffing fatties and kids mostly excited by begging squirrels. Unfortunately, the “Narrows” section of the trail, which takes you wading through and across the river, was officially closed due to the high water flow, so I couldn’t test out that section to make up for it. Especially when I found out later that there is a $100 fine. So no, there’s no way that I sloshed across the thigh-high, freezing-cold river to find a secluded little spot on the other side hidden from the teeming masses. That simply was not possible, not at all!

Then it was time to relax back at the lodge and do Internet after a relatively short day of hiking. But their Internet, delivered by satellite, wasn’t doing so well, so I rode back into town to the Pioneer Lodge’s “Internet Cafe” (which made me realize that the “Internet Cafe” is soon to become a historical artifact, if it isn’t already, since Internet is now almost as expected at a cafe as food and drink).

Then on the way back to camp, I stopped once more at the amazing mini-mart (which actually had some Indian spices/groceries, which is the closest I’ve seen to an Indian restaurant, Suchi. Also, after leaving Bryce, where we suddenly saw mobs of Indians, I’ve only seen one other group. I guess Swati must attract them!)

Then, just as I was about to ride into my campsite, I saw a couple walking the other way. “Dennis?” I called (no, not that Dennis; I wish!) And yes, amazingly, it was Dennis & Pat, met for the third time in the third park! If our timing had been different by only seconds, we would have had no idea we were camped only a short walk from each other. No site sharing necessary this time, but after they walked to see the hokey Zion movie on a giant screen, they came back to my site and chatted until bedtime. This time, I made sure to mention my campground reservations at the Grand Canyon, and it sounds like we’re not done seeing each other yet!

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Capitol Reef, Bryce, and stuff

85.82 mi / 5:18:38 time / 16.1 mph avg. / 41.5 mph max. / 2409 ft. climbing
Staying at Watchman Campground

I slept out on the balcony for the fun of it last night, just me, my sleeping bag and my pad. I think I actually slept better there than inside the room…it helped that it didn’t get down to 25 degrees like it had the night before. I woke just in time to wave goodbye to Swati and Dennis as they packed up the car and drove off. I was sad to see them go, and now I would be truly starting the solo portion of my journey.

Even though we’d had a late night, I made it on the road by 8am. Today would be relatively easy and mostly downhill, so I considered getting one last morning look at Bryce, but decided it would be better to stay ahead of the game. The day started with some riding on the high plateau, through (relatively) lots of tourist-related facilities. Then I hit Red Canyon, where for no apparent reason at all, there is a 5-mile bike trail. Must have come from some odd political earmark. Even stranger, they explicitly prohibit bicycles on the road in that section, even though the road is exactly the same as it is everywhere else. At the beginning, the trail wound back and forth off the road a bit, and it would have annoyed me if I was going the other way (uphill), but going down was just fine. It gave me a nice chance to gawk at Red Canyon, which is sort of like a Bryce Jr., without the admission fee.

Red Canyon suddenly ends, and I was in a different world. There was green (or at least green-ish) everywhere! I would be heading southwest, upstream along the fast-flowing Sevier River, which creates all the greenery. Even though it was uphill for a stretch, I was lucky to have a favorable tailwind that made for easy riding. At 11:30am, I blew past my planned stopping point for the day, covering the 61 miles at nearly an 18mph average. I would easily be making it all the way to Zion today.

After an awesomely disgusting patty melt lunch at Mt. Carmel Junction, I headed west on UT 9, uphill and into a headwind and towards the dreaded Zion tunnel, in which bicycles are not allowed. I’ve been nervous about this tunnel for the whole trip, because I’ve read that some people have had much difficulty getting a ride through, because the park service doesn’t help at all. Though the sagebrush plateau along UT 9 gave no hint of the approaching canyon, I knew I was getting closer when every car coming toward me had their headlights still on. And then suddenly, the pavement turns red, begins winding, and drops between imperial mountains of multi-colored stone, many built with unlikely geometric patterns on their surface. If the drive to get to the entrance is so impressive, I can’t imagine what the park will be like.

Swati had given me their Zion admission which was good for seven days, though I really meant to pay my own entry. As I rolled to the entrance gate, I had my money obviously right in my hand, but the woman looked straight past it and instead saw Swati’s Zion brochure and receipt that I just happened to have stuck in the top of my handlebar bag, and told me to roll on through. She had to know she was doing me a favor, so that was very cool of her. She also said that the ranger at the tunnel would help me hitch-hike through, so that was encouraging.

When I got to the tunnel, there was a short line of cars waiting, because they send RVs and anything else large through it as one-way traffic, for which they pay $15. It’s odd that they make such specific provisions for RVs, but then ignore cyclists, especially since otherwise the park is extremely cyclist-friendly. There’s even a cyclist rate that I should have paid at the entrance gate, which is hard to make logical sense of. “Sure, come in, and pay only $12 because you’re on a bicycle, but sorry, you can’t go past that tunnel coming a mile from here”.

The ranger at the gate wasn’t especially helpful, beyond barking that I should find someone in a pickup to carry me through. He did point out that a pickup had just pulled up a few cars behind me in the line. I walked the bike back and saw that unfortunately the bed was covered. Still, when they rolled down the window, I asked if they had any room under it. No, but if I was cool with laying it on top, they’d take me, as long as I didn’t have sharp stuff that would puncture the cover. Awesome! So my new friend Dave even helped me take off my bags, put them on top of the bed cover, and then lay the bike on top of them. I hopped inside and met his wife Val and their son. Dave did a great job of taking it easy through the mile-long tunnel, and the bike didn’t move an inch. I told him he drives like a professional, and he told me that driving a truck is actually what he does for a living. Ah ha! Once through the tunnel, they let me out at the first safe spot. I was figuring that it could take at least an hour or two for me to find a way through the tunnel, but instead it took barely five minutes! It was yet another heartwarming example of great people helping out strangers in need.

Just as I got my bike off the truck and Dave and Val drove on, a giant bus pulled into the turnout and a load of Dutch tourists piled out. I was mobbed! They were literally surrounding me in a circle and taking dozens pictures of me and the bike. It was hilarious! As an added bonus, some of them helped to steady the bike while I put the bags back on, even though very few of them seemed to have English skills. And as usual, the solar panel was the most interesting thing to them too.

I rolled down a big bunch of switchbacks through more towering mountains, and then I crossed the Virgin River and was in Zion Canyon proper. I rolled past the first campground (“South”, the first-come, first-served one) because the sign said “FULL”. Watchman Campground (the one that allows reservations) also said “FULL”, but I pulled up to the registration booth just for the hell of it. And the clerk inside told me that someone had just left early, so they had a single tent site available! Yet more luck!

Unfortunately, when I shifted my gears while puling up to the booth, I once again shifted past my largest gear in the rear and jammed it between the gear and the spokes. I’d done this before, but this one was much worse, because the chain put a pretty bad kink in one of the spokes, and more catastrophically, bent and fractured the aluminum flange on the hub. That prevented the hub from rotating freely, which meant that no racheting motion could occur, and that’s required any time the bike is moving and I stop pedalling. So I had made it to Zion a day early, made it through the dreaded tunnel with ease, and gotten a campsite in a full campground. But now I had a bike that was completely unrideable. I was pissed at myself, and this was one point where I was happy Dennis wasn’t around, because I knew he would feel the same way, especially since this problem was completely preventable, if only I had done a little bit of maintenance that I had kept putting off.

But, somehow, my streak of incredible luck was not even close to running out. I was now just outside of Springdale, and I knew Springdale had a bike shop. I knew this because it’s the only town with a bike shop between here and Moab, all the way on the other side of the state. On top of that, Zion/Springdale has a free shuttle bus service that picks up right near the campground. If you’re going to be an idiot and break your bike somewhere in southern Utah, there is absolutely no better place to do it.

So, I walked my disabled bike over to my campsite, quickly set up camp, took my wheel off, and walked over to the shuttle stop. In a couple minutes, I was dropped off steps away from Zion Cycles, and, luck again, the door was open even though it was nearly 6pm on a Sunday. In Utah.

I was expecting I would need a whole new hub and have the whole wheel rebuilt, and was willing to pay for that, but Fred looked it over and figured he could just disassemble the hub, go at it a bit with a Dremel to smooth it out, and replace the 9 spokes that had been scarred. Even better, he started working on it even while we were talking, and told me to give a call later on, because he might even have it done before tomorrow!

So I went next door to a pizza & pasta place and ate a whole pizza, then hopped the bus back to the Visitor Center and campground. I gave my mom a call from the pay phone there (thanks for the calling card info, Swati & Dennis!), and then wandered back to my site to clean it up some more. The people who left it early must have left because they had no idea how to camp. They left the site in disgusting shape, with nearly a whole watermelon in the fire grate, a bunch of cans and bottles, and a ton of other food scraps that were attracting flies. And I have no idea what was smeared all over the picnic table. Talking later on back at the bike shop, they mentioned that with the economy, it seems like a lot of people who might have taken motels before are now camping, so it makes for a demographic that is wholly ignorant of respectful camping culture.

Then I called back to Zion Cycles, and yes, my wheel would be ready by the time they closed at 8, so I could come on down and get it. Unbelievable. When I saw it, it was all clean and beautiful and true, and spun like a dream. We talked a bunch more, and I even got some good advice on routes over to the Grand Canyon. Fred and his wife are yet another example of great and helpful people without whom this trip would not be possible.

This time I walked back to the campground (it’s really only like a mile or so), happily spinning my wheel in my hand. I stopped at the small market just outside the park boundary which is the most comprehensively-stocked small market I’ve ever seen, and got some snacks, ice cream, and a beer. I started putting my bike back together as it got dark, but hit the sack and would finish up in the morning.

0 mi / 0 time / – mph avg. / – mph max. / – ft. climbing / 5 mi hiking
Staying at Bryce Canyon Lodge

It was relatively late when we all roused ourselves, and I think we all managed to sleep pretty well together for an odd group of four. Thankfully the room was huge, so even with the bikes, it left plenty of room for me on the floor. I didn’t have any days completely off the bike on my last tour, so this would be a welcome opportunity to take it easy.

I went to do a load of laundry, while Dennis would take a test-ride on his bike, and Swati and her mom would prepare for the day. The laundry machines were funny, a load was $1.50, but it had to be in the form of a dollar coin and two quarters. The dollar coins could be obtained at the attached General Store. Is this some Federal program to artificially induce the use of dollar coins? I now have visions of Sacagaweas (or whatever the dollar coin is these days!) being the only currency accepted in bureaucratic government offices across the country, and poor federal employees hoarding the things in order to obtain a precious Coca-Cola.

We all met again outside the General Store, and Dennis dropped his decision: he would not be continuing on. This, despite the fact that his test-ride had gone pretty well. It was mostly the fear of re-occurance that was guiding his decision, and perhaps that was a rational and well-placed fear. Still, I wanted to make sure that he had all the necessary information on which to base his decision, but we could wait for later for that, and enjoy Bryce Canyon instead.

We went to the Visitor Center and watched the 20-minute park movie, inexplicably projected in horribly-compressed digital video. 70% of the pictures in the video showed snow amongst the stone, so it was too bad we wouldn’t be seeing much of that in the real version. Then we cruised the 18-mile drive to the end of the park, and saw most of the viewpoints on the way back. That was one place where the use of the car was really nice, because a 1100 ft. climb to over 9000 ft. would not have been a lot of fun. It would have made us a lot less sleepy though! For me, having already seen the Amphitheater area near the lodge, the viewpoints weren’t nearly as striking from a geologic perspective, but as the park brochure said, they did provide very expansive views of the surrounding terrain. The Natural Bridge viewpoint (which, as the signs say, isn’t actually a Natural Bridge, so why don’t you just change the name you idiots???) was my favorite of the non-Amphitheater views, with Bryce Point providing an awesome perspective on the Amphitheater that I hadn’t seen the day before.

Then we stopped back at the room for a bit, where I laid out the details of the upcoming days for Dennis. I noted that for at least the next week we would have relatively short distances or downhill grades, with several days off, and also mentioned some opportunities for van pickup service around the Grand Canyon area should we need any sort of bailout there. I really hoped that it would reduce Dennis’s fear of the unknown, and convince him that any issues would be manageable. But I also didn’t want to press him too much, because he is the only one who really knows how he feels, and is the only one capable of making the decision. Even worse than putting himself in a dangerous situation would be me influencing him into a dangerous situation. So I tried to just give the facts. But maybe I should have been more proactive and encouraging. We left it at that for the time, to give him the chance to digest the new information. Which is really the last thing I wanted to foist upon him, since I know he has been giving himself indigestion from all the thinking and re-thinking of the past few days, but I really wanted to make sure he had a full view of the facts to start from.

Then Dennis, Swati and I took a hike down below the rim, down amongst the hoodoos, fins and tunnels. The view of the Amphitheater from the top is incredible, but stepping inside it is like being given a brand new set of eyes to replace your old, worn-out ones. The most surprising part is that it literally takes only a few steps below the rim for the perspective to change dramatically. The late afternoon sun was lighting up the oranges, pinks, whites, and purples to full saturation, and the deep blue sky wasn’t being left out of the game either. The Queens Garden trail took us down and around many of the most famous hoodoos, many defying physics with their balancing acts. But my favorite part was when we connected with the “Wall Street” section of the Navajo Loop Trail, where we found ourselves deep within the orange fins, rising hundreds of feet above us while leaving a gap of less than 10 feet for the trail to wind through at the shadowy bottom. And there were tall evergreen trees growing down there! It was much like the bandit-hideouts at Arches, but even more enclosing, and far greater in scale. When we returned up a long line of switchbacks to the top, we could see that we explored just one of the dozens between-the-fins spaces; I wish I could walk them all. The brochure wrote “some say it’s the best 3-mile hike in the world”, which I thought was simply a load of National Park hyperbole, but after doing it, I think that’s a claim that actually would hold up in court. It was that good.

We had some time to kill before our dinner reservation at the lodge restaurant, so we got a set of cards from the front desk and played a drinking game without the drinks. The lodge has tons of games, which they provide as a replacement for TV, because, splendidly, none of the rooms have TV. Yay National Park Lodges! It was great to see Swati’s mom come to life during the game, and both Saxenas are very accomplished card shufflers!

Then we had our anticipated lodge dinner, treated by Swati’s mom. Even though I had been eating all day (including a whole new 6-pack of bagels), I still had soup, salad, bread, beer, my entire Thai-peanut-pasta dish, some of Swati’s mom’s dish, half of Swati’s dish, and a good chunk of the chocolate cake and ice cream in honor of Dennis’s upcoming birthday. Unfortunately, my meddling earlier meant that Dennis’s mind was elsewhere for much of the dinner, though he did enjoy his cake.

After dinner, Swati and Dennis went off for one last talk, while I waited anxiously in the room to hear the final, final decision. At last, they came back, and Dennis told me that his morning decision held: he would not be going on. That was disappointing to hear, and really quite sucky, but that doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision. And at least we had some finality, and hopefully an end to the mental and emotional torture Dennis had been feeling over the last few days.

We did some final exchanging of supplies to make sure I would really be ok on my own, and then said our goodbyes, since they would be leaving for Salt Lake City early in the morning. I can only hope that in time, Dennis will be able to see our ride together as a great two-week trip, rather than half of a four-week trip. Because that’s really what it was, and I’d have him as my wheelman again, any time, anywhere.