68.98 mi / 5:51:56 time / 11.7 mph avg. / 30.0 mph max. / 3838 ft. climbing
Staying at Lakeview National Forest Campground

I’m not really sure how the toilet needs were supposed to work at this gas station campground. There was a separate building with showers, that included sinks and toilets, but the posted signs said they closed at 7:30pm, and opened at 6:30am. I still really have no idea what time it is, because I think Cameron is within the Navajo Nation, and unlike the rest of Arizona, they do follow Daylight Savings (god, what a bunch of crazy mixed-up bastards populating this state!) However, the showers were closed and locked by what I thought was 7pm, so I used the very nice yet inexplicably mirror-less gas station bathroom to clean my contacts and brush my teeth (setting up on the pull-out baby-changing table). Take that, jerks!

Then, as you know, I wake up well before 6:30am, no matter what the time zone, and of course neither the showers nor the gas station were open by then. And, I have quite the post-breakfast morning rhythm going, which, given the volume of food I eat, is nearly impossible to suppress. Luckily, the other gas station just up the road was open, so I was able to avoid shitting in a plastic bag. Phew. I did however piss in a bottle, for the first (but probably not the last!) time. Luckily I kept it just under 16 oz.!

Ok, just in case that wasn’t Too Much Information, I might as well spill the other TMI story and get it all out of the way in one entry. If you really don’t want to hear about my unpleasant medical ailments, please skip the following paragraph!

For the past week I’ve been battling a case of, well, let’s call them “butt blisters”. Not on the fleshy part of the butt where it contacts my bike seat, but more towards the center. You know. Yeah, there. The pain and discomfort came on the strongest at Zion, where I even sought out pharmaceutical relief (and if you know me, you know how rare that is). Whether biking, hiking, crouching/bending to get stuff in and out of the tent, or simply sitting down, there was nary a moment where I wasn’t reminded there was something going on down there. Given the fact that I would be riding a bicycle 6 hours a day for the rest of the trip, I had resigned myself to simply dealing with the pain, because I didn’t figure there would be any chance for healing. But now, a week later, I think I’m completely healed. Through careful management, it’s been getting a little better each day, in yet another example of my very fortunate ability to heal myself while on tour. Although the biking surely wouldn’t be doctor-recommended (I was getting a searing pain climbing out from the North Rim that would make me scream at the trees, and that’s when things were actually getting better), my theory is that the problem was actually pooping-induced, and now that I’ve hit a solid morning rhythm in that domain, I’ve been able to get some relief. Which is fantastic, because having a constant pain in the butt can take a bit of enjoyment off the trip! At one point I even feared that it might make me cut it short or change plans.

Ok, back to the ride. Cameron sits at a low point (at the Little Colorado river), so today would start with a 35 mile climb of nearly 3000 ft., very much like yesterday. Those are the 35 miles I was thinking of tacking on to the end of yesterday’s ride, which would have been stupid. Especially when I reached that next motel 10 miles up the road and found that it was closed down. I guess that’s why no one answered the phone! Arizona’s 5000, 6000, and 7000 ft. signs were a little more accurate this time, but they could still be better. I guess it’s nice that they have them at all though, I’ve never seen them in any other state. Their mile posts are similarly haphazard though; I guess the highway department here isn’t big on precision (I’ve been in states where they have posts accurate to the hundredth of a mile). And according to the road signs, the position of Flagstaff moved by more than three miles as I approached it.

Once I crested the hill, I still had 15 miles of relatively flat riding before reaching Flagstaff. Due to a strong headwind, it seemed to be taking forever; even the early-lunch stop at Subway (first Subway dine-in of the trip!) didn’t help much. But then, I hit the outskirts of the city, and due to the sensory overload thrown at me by this teeming metropolis, the next 10 miles flew by. They have a freakin’ shopping mall here! With a damn Best Buy! Can you believe it?! I bet you could get anything you want in this city, including at least five or six different brands of automobile. There are cars everywhere, and roads with more than one lane, and I had to bring my instinctual Chicagoland bike-commuting skills back to the fore to enable me to survive while gawking at all the signs and color and hustle and bustle. Seriously, it’s the first place I’ve been the entire trip where the people are not either A) locals who know every other local in town, or B) tourists. Which makes it quite a culture-shock. And it has more motels than Moab!

This afternoon would be much better than the previous couple, because there was actually stuff to do in this town. Actually, since it was in the comfortable 70s at this elevation all day (and still partly cloudy), it would have been fine even if there was nothing. First I went to the library, where I spent a long time catching up on Internet stuff and preparing for the final leg of the journey. Strangely, the library had no WiFi that I could find, but they had power, and Flagstaff has T-Mobile service, so that means I could use my hacked G1 phone to wirelessly give Internet access to my laptop. That’s a pretty sweet trick, and it ironically gives a better connection than any WiFi access I’ve had the whole trip.

I even spent time checking which of the two downtown brewpubs I should hit for early-dinner. I decided on the Beaver Street Brewery, even though the beer ratings for neither were outstanding. But I guess those guys didn’t write their reviews in the middle of a bike tour, because the beer was fantastic. It also highlighted how weak that 4.0% stuff in Utah was, because two pints was enough to get me half-sozzled. As I was finishing up my burger, the brewmaster came over and said he noticed my yellow-panniered bike in the lot (hmm, and how did he deduce I was its rider?) He’d seen me down at Lees Ferry a couple days before, and wondered how I’d survived what he referred to as “the dust storm” in Cameron. He said it was nearly impossible out there in a car, and would have been unthinkable on a bike. Yet more confirmation that my Cameron stop was a blessing in disguise.

I then rode half-tipsy over to the Safeway to stock up on real groceries at cheaper-than-gas-station-or-National-Park prices. It’s the first full-size grocery store I’ve been to since Moab. I really have no idea where people get their food in between those two places. Do they subsist solely on Doritos, Pepsi, and beef jerky?

And then it was a final 15 miles southeast out of Flagstaff to a National Forest campground on Lake Mary. Lake Mary Road, which seems like a quiet forest road, was undergoing some fairly major construction (until 2010), partly to improve the bike lanes. Given the width of the construction, they must be putting in an 8-line bicycle superhighway. Ironically, there was a sign at the start of the construction that said “No Bikes”, which I ignored. Heck, I’m not a bike, I’m a friggin’ RV! Didn’t run into any problems, so I’m not sure why they had the sign. My only guess is that normally the road has 8-foot shoulders dedicated and signed as bike lanes, so they figure people wouldn’t know how to deal with a downgrade to anything less. Ah, the hazards of overly-generous biking facilities.

I finally had a tailwind, so I was comfortably cruising at 20mph. Given the number of turnouts, picnic areas, boat launches, campgrounds, and the proximity to Flagstaff, I bet that the area turns into an absolute zoo on weekends. But on this weekday evening, it was pretty quiet. I thought of free-camping, but instead settled on Lakeview Campground, which in fact does not have a view of the lake. $16 seemed a bit pricey for a campground with only vault toilets, but I guess that fee is inspired by the weekend mobs. And, it was a pretty nice campground, with mighty tables, flat tent areas, and toilets with motion-detecting lights inside! Also, I figured I’d almost surely be camping for free tomorrow, so I can give this Forest some of my money tonight.

Overall it was one of the nicest riding days of the whole trip. The method of an early dinner in town and then a short early-evening ride to the campground is something I’ve often enjoyed on previous tours, but that’s been nearly impossible out here given the lack of towns. When I got into camp my 22oz. Stone IPA was still fairly cold, and I paired it with half a loaf of raisin bread and a couple of handfuls of Oreo cookies. Mmm, good stuff!

78.57 mi / 6:08:00 time / 12.8 mph avg. / 23.5 mph max. / 3293 ft. climbing
Staying at Simpson’s Conoco Gas Station Campground

Since it was so warm, I hadn’t even bothered to set up my tent, and simply slept on top of the picnic table. It worked pretty well, and made packing up camp go faster than usual. That meant I once again rolled out of camp at sunrise, this time to beat the heat out of the valley.

I crossed the Colorado River on Navajo Bridge at Marble Canyon, and then began my southward trek that would take me to Tucson. I was now once again in the Navajo Nation, and the road was actually in much better shape. It also helped that no one out driving at dawn. I spent the first 35 miles climbing 2800 ft. back out of the river valley, and then hit the first services at mile 45, at Gap (where a lone gas station provides the only services). Then it was another 30 miles downhill to Cameron.

My dawn start once again meant that I had covered a lot of miles by mid-day, which leaves a bit of a conundrum. Early in the planning I had thoughts of making this an epic 113 mile day with 6000+ ft. of climbing, so I was still tossing around that possibility as I reached Cameron. But I figured, if they have a motel there, I’ll take a room and let that fill in for yesterday’s missed motel, and that would solve the problem of surviving the midday heat. As I rolled into “town”, they did have a motel! Yay! And, it was full. Hey, what else is new? I’ve heard rumors that the world is in some sort of recession/depression, so someone should really tell all the people out here about it, because obviously they have no idea. Morons!

I got the number for another motel 10 miles down the road, but got no answer when calling. The “RV Park” across the street was just that, a gravel parking lot in which to park your RV, without a hint of shade, so that was out. Well, I might as well start heading up the hill to that other motel, take my chances, and if they’re full, maybe do that 113-mile day after all. I had some 7 hours of daylight left, though it would mean an ugly day of 10+ hours on the bike.

Then, as I stopped at the last gas station out of town, I saw a sign about campsites on their wall, and before I knew it, I was getting out my money to pay. The “campground” was behind the deli/laundry building, but it actually had patches of grass and a few decent trees in a row, so I was able to catch a break lazing in the shade for a while, after getting a burger at the deli. Still, it was so early that the idea of stopping there continued to gnaw at me. But I just kept telling myself that pushing on further wouldn’t have gotten me anything. After a while, a strange thing happened to the sun…it start becoming obscured by these things that I think are called “clouds”. I haven’t seen anything like it in so long that I can hardly remember the name for the phenomenon. It even looked like rain in the distance, so despite the heat, I had to set up the tent and put on the rainfly.

No sooner did I do that than a ridiculous windstorm began. The winds had to be 40 mph, and they continued for hours. For the first time in its life, I had to guy down my tent to keep it from breaking in half. That’s when I finally made peace with ending my ride here, because even though it sucked being holed up in a hot tent, it would have sucked a whole lot more to be fighting that wind at mile 100 in the midst of a 3000 ft. climb.

There was no way I was cooking in that wind, so I had what was actually a fairly decent dinner of pita bread filled with tomato, string cheese, and sometimes yogurt, plus a big jar of applesauce, Doritos, and a liter of Pepsi. Yum! The wind finally calmed a bit at nightfall, allowing me to get some sleep.

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