Laid Off? Utah Here We Come!

[WoodsChick]

I'd always had these grand visions in my head of Cathedral Valley. The real thing did not disappoint. Lots of sandy roads...or more accurately put: lots of sand with some road sprinkled in. Even some creek crossings. I think the images speak for themselves, pretty much...

Glass Mountain, a little mound of 100% gypsum. It looked like tons of tiny little panes of glass stacked on top of each other in haphazard jumbles...

It was beautiful...

Hmm...looks like rain. We'd already felt a few drops...

Flowers everywhere...

Nobody else there except us, though...

I once had a photographer tell me, "It's all about the sky. Clouds will make or break you." I think he was onto something...

The higher we climbed out of the valley the darker the skies got...

Ahh...the beginning of a totally hellacious downpour. Nobody does rain like the desert...

We kept going, knowing we'd have to ford the river towards the end of our ride. We were riding right into the head of the storm and we were completely soaked within minutes. This was ok and all, but we were kind of bombing and it was starting to get cold. We stopped and assessed the situation. Funny thing about rivers in the desert...they change dramatically in very short periods of time. Same with washes...one minute they're bone dry and the next you've got a wall of water bearing down on your sorry soul. We reversed course and proceeded to have one of the best rides we've ever had. I mean a ride...no sightseeing, no stopping for photos, no slowing to look at maps or road signs...we just frikkin' flattracked that road for miles on end, side by side most of the time, sliding and roosting and laughing to ourselves in our helmets. We are both very competitive by nature...especially with each other. I had the edge in equipment this time, though, what with the deep sand everywhere, and I rode my ass off trying to keep him honest. It's a wonder we didn't take each other out during a few of our more creative maneuvers but we've been riding together for over 20 years now and we trust each other and we both know what we can and cannot do. By the time we slid to a stop in a cloud of sand, bypassing our road in a fit of excessive speed and joyful exuberance, the only trace of moisture left in our gear was hard-earned sweat Damn, that was a fun ride...


More in a few...

 

[Cabrito]

I'm just going to say Wow!

Wow to everything in your last post.

 

[veefereefer]

 

[WoodsChick]

After our romp on the sandy road, we turned north and made our way towards the Muddy River and the San Rafael Swell. The rain figured out where we'd gone and had chased us down...

This section looked like the moon..

I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference...

This was the end of the line for my OEM clutch cable. Apparently the clutch cables breaking prematurely is a "known issue" on the 610's. Someone forget to tell mine, as I got 15,430 miles out of it...

Eric whipped the spare cable out of his bag and we were out of there in no time...

Factory Butte...

This was a crazy trail...super loose and fluffy...

The San Rafael Swell in the distance...

The Muddy isn't very muddy, is it?

That's right, folks...more water in the desert!

I totally dig all the embedded rock in the roads...

Good thing sand makes me happy...

Closing the gate on the park boundary...

Never seen a gate out here with strike plates before...

More on the way tomorrow. G'night!




WoodsChick

 

[jimboFosho]

The pics are just jaw dropping. Amazing stuff

 

[WoodsChick]

The pics are just jaw dropping. Amazing stuff

No,Utah is just jaw dropping. It's amazing stuff, alright. I'm just showing you the pictures




WoodsChick

 

[WoodsChick]

After slipping through the Goblin Valley State Park gate, we trundled up the sandy 2-track until we reached a plateau. The views up there were OK, I guess...

Most favorite bike ever...

More Husky love...

Hmm...lookin' kinda like a lowrider, eh?

Guess that's what happens when you shear off both your lower subframe bolts. He didn't have any spare 8mm bolts but it was resting on the chain roller and the pipe was kinda holding it up, too, so it wasn't going anywhere. He took his backpack off the rack and wore it, and I took his doggy bags and put them on my rear rack...

Mmm...

Eric spent the next 50 miles standing on the pegs. That 50 miles included about 10 more miles of really deep whooped-out sand. In fact, our map clearly had the words "sand dunes" printed neatly between where we were and where we needed to be. Great... You have no idea how hard it was to not stop and take photos. I was afraid that if I stopped in the sand I wouldn't get going again. Eric was having an adventurous ride, too, swapping all over while on the pegs. It was pretty intense. We were pretty psyched when we got to the end of the 4WD road...

We hopped on the highway and rode through gale-force winds and blowing sand for the next 20 miles or so. I was kinda wondering earlier why the skies weren't clear. It slowly dawned on me that things were kind of fuzzy due to all the sand blowing around. I could hear it hitting my helmet, sandblasting my pretty red and black paint, and I found sand everywhere when we got back to camp. The roads looked like they were squirming around in front of us...almost like they were alive. Never experienced anything quite like it before.

We pulled into Hanksville, had a tasty dinner with wi-fi for dessert, and limped back to base camp in the dark...

It had been a long day...We wanted to get an early start the next day after fixing the subframe and changing out the air filters. We had an overnighter planned that would take us over the mountains, through the canyon, across the river and up the switchbacks. I guess you could say we saved the best for last



More later...of course




WoodsChick

 

[Star Man]

WOW....this is one EPIC adventure. I'm really enjoying the write up and photos. WoodsChick and Eric, you guys never fail to inspire the rest of us.

Just a couple of questions: What maps/GPS are you using for navigation? What's the fuel/mileage range on those Huskys?

 

[WoodsChick]

WOW....this is one EPIC adventure. I'm really enjoying the write up and photos. WoodsChick and Eric, you guys never fail to inspire the rest of us.

Just a couple of questions: What maps/GPS are you using for navigation? What's the fuel/mileage range on those Huskys?

Hey, Starman! I'm a map and compass gal so no GPS. We carry one just in case we need to figure out where we are on the map, but we don't use it for tracks or anything. We use Benchmark Road and Recreation Atlases. They've served us well all over NV, OR, CA, ID and UT. Good company out of Oregon.
We try to have USFS/BLM maps, too, whenever possible.

We've got a 200-mile range at 40mpg with our 5gal tanks. Range is everything in the desert





WoodsChick

 

[WoodsChick]

I woke up slightly bummed, knowing this day would hold our last ride. At least it would be an overnighter. I knew it was going to be a good day, too, when the sun started to come up. I took this while still in bed...

Every tree within 20 miles of us had these gauzy-looking nests...or webs, or whatever...and they were filled with these beautiful little caterpillars...

Eric replaced his subframe bolts and changed out our air filters while I loaded our camping gear on the bikes. We headed out across the desert and up into the cool mountains...

These flowering cacti were stunning, especially since they were blooming really nicely at about 7000'...

Now this is a trail marker, folks! 2 different kinds of GPS data and elevation in addition to clearly marked trail names...

This little critter was not having a nice day...

The aspens were not yet leafed out at this elevation...

9000' and the winds were howling like mad...

The winds didn't bother the bumblebees all over these tiny flowers. Always blows me away when I see flowers thriving in such harsh environments...

Nice terrain to ride...

Does this count as water in the desert?

It was 40º up here not counting the wind chill factor...

I wanted to keep going, Eric thought it was time to implement Plan B...

Okey-dokey...Plan B it is...

Guess we'll go around the other side of this mountain...

Wow...they'e almost invisible, aren't they?

More coming soon...




WoodsChick

 

[louemc]

No,Utah is just jaw dropping. It's amazing stuff, alright. I'm just showing you the pictures

WoodsChick

Eons of Erosion/Desert/Woods photographer Chick...is jaw dropping.

A little mosture in that Desert soil, sure makes it heaven...Don't it?

Thanks again for the pictures...and the words...This is the Best

 

[WoodsChick]

We dropped down out of the mountains and the temperature rose dramatically...it was cold up there!

There are landing strips everywhere in the desert, but this was the first official "FAA" strip we'd seen. It looked just as primitive as the rest...

We found this cozy little place in a wide sandy wash...

The neighbor's place...

We had our sights set on a canyon that had caught my eye a few days before while perusing the map. It looked long and deep on the map, and the trail crossed the river before continuing on to the east. i couldn't get it out of my mind so we decided to ride it and hope that we'd be able to successfully ford the river when we came to it. It was mostly rocks...

And sand...

The sand was kind of deep in a lot of places, but it was huge fun riding in it...

We tempered our enthusiasm a bit, since it would be really difficult to tow a disabled bike out of there, and even more difficult to walk out of there with an injury or whatever. Still, we managed to enjoy the riding and the fantastic scenery...and the sand...

if you don't like deep sand...and lots of it...you have no business riding in Utah...

Ahh...a bit of shade to cool off in. The bikes were pretty toasty, too, from plowing through the sand for miles on end...

The trail exited the canyon for a brief period before dropping back down...

After 16 miles of brutal sand and rocks, we arrived at the river, spent and and happy...

We set up camp...

And walked the river crossing so we'd know what we were up against in the morning...

More in a little while...I gotta go make dinner

 

[WoodsChick]

We had a good time hanging around camp and watching the light show on the surrounding rock formations. We hadn't seen another person in over 8 hours and wouldn't see another person til later the next afternoon...

This place ranked in the top 3 of our all-time favorite campsites...

Two days removed from SuperMoon status, but impressive nonetheless...

We slept without the rainfly on the tent and it was spectacular. A low of 66º and nothing but bright shiny stars in my eyes all night. This is the view I woke up to...

We broke camp and took all the gear off our bikes. We had briefly thought about getting the bikes over the night before so we wouldn't have to think about it all night, but we knew that the water level would be lower in the morning.
Still, it was still moving along at a pretty good clip, and the bottom of the crossing was grooved out by the current. Walking across the river was like walking along a whoop section on a motocross track...up and down and up and down. It was mostly sandy but there were some large roundish rolley rocks to contend with. Seeings as how we were a zillion miles from civilization (at least that's how it felt) and we had no idea what lie ahead, we decided to play it safe and walk the bikes across. Eric's TE was first. Eric manned the throttle and clutch and I had hold of the rear. Good thing, as the current tried to sweep the bike away and it was all I could do to keep the thing upright. We made it across without any undue drama and then went back for my supermoto. After both bikes were safely across we went back for all our gear...

The ride out of the canyon on the other side was just as spectacular as the canyon itself...

These little cacti bloom in tons of different colors...

More tomorrow!




WoodsChick

 

[rodr]

Wow. Continually amazing pics and story!

 

[Blankpage]

Bet you didn't do a whole lot of thinking about democrats rebublicans and elections while out there in the desert J/K.

Did you just straight up swap the front wheel or have to modify geometry to make it work? Seems that would quicken the steering quite a bit.

You guys don't do the gopro thing? That ride would make for some awesome clips in addition to the awesome photos posted good stuff. Seems you guys figured out what motorcycles are for.

 

[WoodsChick]

Wow. Continually amazing pics and story!

Thanks, rodr! I gotta wrap this up today. I'm leaving after work tomorrow for a lovely week in Nevada with my Husky

Bet you didn't do a whole lot of thinking about democrats rebublicans and elections while out there in the desert J/K.

Did you just straight up swap the front wheel or have to modify geometry to make it work? Seems that would quicken the steering quite a bit.

You guys don't do the gopro thing? That ride would make for some awesome clips in addition to the awesome photos posted good stuff. Seems you guys figured out what motorcycles are for.

No thinking about politics, for sure!

No wheel swapping for me. Mine is an SM610 running the stock SM wheels, I just put 17" knobbies on `em. Eric's is a TE610 that came stock with the dirt wheels. The 17" wheels can be handful in the dirt but they work fine for the easy stuff we're doing with these bikes.

I've thought about the whole GoPro thing before but I just can't do it. At least not yet. Some stuff would be good, like the crazy paint-swapping we did in the sandy stuff, but I really like taking still photos and they seem to have more...I dunno...soul, maybe? I shot a little video from the pillion spot while off-road with a broken shoulder and that was a lot of fun, and I'll probably have a GoPro one of these days, but I'm just not ready to pull the trigger just yet :roll eyes


And, yes...motorcycles are for having fun. If you can't have fun on any motorcycle in any terrain, you're probably not doing it right




WoodsChick

 

[Blankpage]

A person could quickly forget about the problems of the world on a ride like that.
If word got out could be a hit to the pharmaceutical industry's antidepressant cash cow.
Can you imagine the desert crawling with a bunch of laid off Wall Street cubicle moles. All of them staring at the sky wondering why their blackberry email doesn't work

 

[Razel]

Thanks for the compliments on the photos. Just think, one of these days I might get a real camera and be able to take bitchin' photos like yours! Seriously, I want to learn some stuff...
WoodsChick

Keep that camera, though. You have some seriously bitchin' pictures here ... and it's always good to have a backup.

 

[ThumperX]

Thank you WoodsChick

 

[WoodsChick]

Keep that camera, though. You have some seriously bitchin' pictures here ... and it's always good to have a backup.

Thanks, Razel. No way I'd take a really nice camera on the dirty rides. My point-and-shoot is about as nice as I'd want to carry.

Thank you WoodsChick

You're very welcome, darlin'

I'm on my way to Nevada right now. I'm going to try to wrap this up as long as I can stay connected to my wi-fi. It's been spotty at best...


WoodsChick