"You're only in Utah?"

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Yeah, I’m only in Utah. I’ve logged close to 5,000 miles on the bike, enough to get me from NY to Seattle and half way back, and I’m “only” in Utah. Did I mention that I’m loving every moment of it?

Stevens and I did make the trip down to the Hoover Dam together after camping one night on Lake Mead. I figured that if I had made it that far I might as well take the stupid tour of the Dam. I learned that Matt and I had far overestimated the amount of electricity that it produces. It provides enough power for about 1.1 million homes. Anyway, I was suckered into waiting for the tour, and Stevens was on his way. It turns out that that may very well be the last time that I see Stevens on this trip, but more on that later.

I stuck with my goal of riding through the Great Basin, and up to Great Basin National Park. The Great Basin itself refers to the section of the continent where water enters and has no outlet to the sea. This area includes most of Nevada, Utah, and parts of Oregon, California, and Idaho. Route 93 follows the eastern border of Nevada. That was definitely a different kind of ride through huge desert valleys and occasional canyons. The best accidental find along that route was the Cathedral Gorge Nevada State Park. I found it looking for a spot to camp, having found nothing satisfactory on BLM(Bureau of Land Management, more on that later too) I overnighter at their campsite. It’s a very pretty spot on a relatively small scale.

By the time I meandered my way up to Great Basin NP it was already mid-afternoon. Mt. Wheeler was staring at me the better part of the ride that day, so I inquired about the hike.

A moment on Park Rangers.

By and large they are a lovely group of people who are there for all the right reasons. I mean that you can tell when they really love the Park that they are they to protect and help educate you about. I know make it a point to go pepper them with questions when I hit a visitor center. For the most part they are very informative and have plenty of good advice. I would encourage everyone to talk to a Park Ranger when you get a chance, but you don’t necessarily have to go 61 in a 35 to prompt an opportunity. Anyway.

When I got to Great basin I saw that summiting Wheeler was a somewhat reasonable hike. 4.3 miles one way with a 3,000 foot elevation gain. That 3,000 ft does start at 10,000ft. I talked to the Ranger about the hike and she warned me about all kinds of things, but mostly the wind, cold, and scree. Scree is similar to gravel and varies in size the same way. In Alaska it generally refers to a finer pebble size collection of rocks and acts like heavy-duty sand when you climb on it. I did forget to mention that I’m used to hiking in Alaska and she had me so concerned about the temperature drop that I almost brought my big blue puffy jacket. I decided I was into the hike and would spend the night to approach Wheeler in the morning as the Ranger suggested.
I found a really nice spot up a BLM trail about 4 miles off the road and 2 or 3,000 ft over the town. I probably slept between 7,000 and 8,000 feet that night. Read cold. That was my second night camping solo and left to my own devices I got a little whacky. It started off nice. I had a little fire. I studied some maps. Then I got the camera out. I had to break out my computer too to shoot some bulb exposures. I didn’t have much battery left in the computer and when it died I was still pretty reved up. So reved, that I decided to finally fix the power point on my bike(so I could charge my ipod). I pulled the thing apart.

Between how cold that morning was and the repacking that I had initiated the night before, it was a slower start than I had planned. Then I figured it would be a good idea to beat myself up before the hike. The “road” I took out to where I camped was hardly even a trail in some points. There was lots of loose sand, rocks as big as my head(it is possible), and two foot ruts in places. I wish I could have stopped to take some better pictures of that road. It was ridiculous. On my way out to the camp spot, I took two turns, and admittedly didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to where. I just knew I had to make a right and a left to get out.
Well, I took the wrong right. The first sign that made me pretty sure was when I crossed a gully that sent my ass through my teeth even though I was standing on my pegs and ready for it. I remembered crossing a gully the night before, but not one that hard. Then I went down a really steep ass hill. I remembered having to gun it up a hill on my way in-impressed at how powerful my bike is-, but not one that big. Then I got to a second hill that was even steeper and longer than the last one, and it also banked into a sharp turn. I knew for sure that was not the way I came, and that hill looked way beyond my skill level. I decided to turn around at the crest of the hill. I felt bad about having to leave the trail, but not as bad as I would have felt if I went ass over ears at the bottom of that hill, five miles from the real road.

I banked it left and started making my way through the sand trying to avoid sagebrush and stalling out. Literally 18 inches from the trail I got caught in a really big sage brush. It brought me to a stop. I had my left foot down and went to put my right down so I could get my sidestand down with my left. I put my right foot down, but it was still a good 4 inches from the sand and I already shifted my weight. When my right foot finally hit sand all of the bike’s weight had shifted with it, and my left foot was a good 12 inches off the ground. I was fucked. I tried in vein, but at that point there was no way to keep the bike upright.
But wasn’t it beautiful. After a moment, I was laughing my ass off. Go it alone huh. Well, five miles from a real road, I was on my own. I tried to straight He-Man the bike up, but it was down on a slight slope and that was not happening. I started to take things off; boxes, dry bags, etc. I tried to dead lift it again think the last time I tried to dead lift more weight than I had business trying to I couldn’t walk right for two months. It didn’t work. I thought about it for a minute and figured there had to be a better way. Mostly, because one way or another I had to get the bike up. And I did. I figured out a way to get the front wheel to leverage the weight of the bike. Probably not the healthiest thing for the bike, but it worked.

Alright, I’m thinking. Let’s get this show on the road. I have a mountain to climb. Let’s get this bike repacked, find the right road, and do it. I just need to put my trail shoes back on that box. My trail shoes. My trail shoes. Shit! My trail shoes fell off somewhere between there and the 3 or 4 miles I came from my campsite. So, I backtracked to where I started and found them about 200 feet from where I started. I get them tied down a whole lot better and giggled a little and was off.

Then I’m on the road climbing up to the trailhead when around a hairpin turn I didn’t notice that on the tar and gravel road there was still a nice thin band of loose gravel patch through the middle. My rear tire started to kick out so I kicked down with my right foot. A proper reaction on the dirt track I was on earlier, but when my foot grabbed the road I would have really kicked my own ass if my calf and my side box hadn’t cooperated in keeping that from happening. Thanks, that felt nice.

When I finally make it to the trailhead I’m totally pumped. I had a few good laughs at myself for what I put myself through before going on a big hike. Not only did I have the strain of lifting the bike, but the 8 or 9 miles on tough dirt track was also rather physical. But like I said, I made it to the trail I was off and pumped. Maybe it was GZA’s Liquid Swords I had in my ear on the way up, but I started shadowboxing and punched myself in the nose. Ah, I couldn’t stop laughing. Needless to say the rest of the hike was awesome. The scree, cold, and wind were all nonissues. I was pretty impressed with the effect the altitude had though. By the time I got to 12,000 feet it felt like I was climbing with bronchitis. At the top I could see forever. Just gorgeous.
So what’s BLM? The Bureau of Land Management manages public lands in 12 western states. You heard right public land. Just like it sounds. Most of it is fairly unregulated. Find a spot and camp free. This land is your land, this land is our land…

From there it was on to Utah. Live elevated they say here. The landscape in Utah is just stunning and it kept drawing me along. I made it down to Bryce after another night camping on BLM. It was a particularly cold night, and I was again at some elevation. That morning was the first time my bike was not excited about starting on a cold morning. I gave it a little time and it eventually fired for me. DJ please cue “The Will to Live” thank you. Anyway Bryce was killer and incredibly photogenic.

I guess that was something like my fourth day without Stevens and the night before I was thinking that I really hadn’t been meeting as many people along the road. Stevens and I had split roles. He was our social director and I would handle all diplomatic issues. Perhaps it was the thought alone, but over the next couple of days I met a flurry of people. At Bryce I met Steve the traveling nurse who had some cool information about the area. There was the retired couple that I would see at Zion the next day. Some dude on the road with his Harley pulling a popup trailer who had been on the road since August first. There was Terry from Tory, UT a fantastic drunk and rock ‘n’ roller. Joe from Buffalo who I would make the final push up Angels Landing summit with and share some stories. Then there were the students from USC who had cut class to get outside in the West on the same summit.

Maybe it was talking to Steve about the Grand Staircase, but instead of heading southwest to Zion right from Bryce, I decided to head northeast towards capitol reef. I am so glad I did. That was another fantastic ride highlighted by the ridgeline the road follows just south of Boulder. It is a spindly ridge without much of a shoulder that drops off 500? 1000?ft to either side.
The other cool thing I noticed at Zion, besides how impressive a place it is, is that I am becoming a much better hiker. I certainly haven’t achieved mountain goat status yet, but I’m much improved. The Angels Landing trail is listed as strenuous, and I would say that was fair, but when I got to the top I felt like I could do the whole thing over again. Pretty happy with myself.

Now what?

I am in St. George finishing up my strategy for what is without a doubt the most ambitious leg of my trip. From here I plan on heading out due south to the rim of the Grand Canyon. Not the North rim with a visitors center and all that stuff, although that is still on the agenda. If you look on your regular road atlas you will see a series of dirt roads west of the North rim. I am going to take one that is just east of the one furthest to the west that you will see. That road goes to Kelley Point. I am not going to Kelley point since it is 30 miles of hardcore road. Just west of that there is a road to a place called Twin Points that is only 5 miles of unimproved road. From there I plan on going to that campsite you see at Tuweep(or Turoweep, it’s known as both), where there is an old lava flow. After that I’ll come back to civilization to resupply and head to the North Rim. I would like to do some hiking there before getting back on the road. At that point it is my intent to point the bike east and head towards Brooklyn.

Oh yeah, what about Stevens?

That guy is beautiful. Instead of going to the yoga retreat he decided to wear out what tread is left on his tires by doubling back from Phoenix on Route 66, one of his longtime dreams. From there he will return and do a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture that there is apparently a lot of in that area. After that? He me some dude who is heading to Argentina on his bike. Matt is currently weighing his options. Is that something else or what?

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Photos

Lake Mead
Check out how low the water level is

Mt Wheeler in the distance
On the western approach before I had considered hiking it.

Deep Space
Great Basin is supposedly the darkest place in the contiguous US. The stargazing was awesome.

Back at camp spot
if you look at the smaller rock face you'll see a cluster of trees above a hill. I camped just below that cluster.

Wind break.
The crosswind where the ridge opened up was pretty intense. I had an awesome lunch at that spot. The rest of my jerky and a snickers.