Monday, October 20, 2008

EPIC Utah MOTO 2008 Day 3

We slept like babies after a tough day 2, our version of the motorcycle ECO-challenge. After all, the 1 star canyon lodge put us in the "anasazi" theme room for the night. I'm still not sure what made it the Anasazi or even theme room for that matter. Given the size of the room, it should have been called, the "state prison" theme room. With all our gear packed in there, walking room was virtually non-existant.


"Van after a good nights sleep in the 1 star "Canyon Lodge" motel"


Again, I woke up expecting to look out the window and see the mother of all storms making her way into Utah, but once again, blue skies and not a cloud in the sky. I thought to myself, good thing these weather forecasters aren't paid based on their accuracy of predicting when storms will hit. I stepped outside and the local temperature in Panguitch was definitely chilly. My guess would be easily in the 30's. It was a cool brisk morning in that part of the state. Of course the elevation of Panguitch is equivalent to that of Jeremy ranch so the cool morning was not a surprise.

We loaded the bikes, turned on the GPS and iPhone tracking unit and headed up the highway towards Panguitch lake. Today's ride would consist of riding to Panguitch lake on the pavement, then exiting the highway and riding a national forest service road which I saw on my mapping software while planning the trip and then arriving at Cedar Breaks national monument, over 10,000 feet, for a scenic photo opportunity. We would then ride down Cedar Canyon and take the scenic Kolob reservoir road through the north-west part of Zion and end up in Rockville, Utah. Definitely not a big day on the bikes.

Once we arrived at the turnoff to the forest service road, we realized quickly that we were not going the right way according to our route in the GPS. We immediately turned around and within 1 or 2 miles found where we went wrong and once again were back on track. This trail we were riding turned out to be the Marathon trail, another big ATV trail in Utah. The scenery was awesome and it was good to be off the highway on yet another backroad adventure.

Within several minutes, we came across yet another log jam in the trail. This one was big but had several easily rideable routes around the perimeter. We only hit a couple of log jams and within no time, we were back on the highway just 1 or 2 miles from Cedar Breaks.


"A minor log jam compared to the others. The prayers must have been answered"


We arrived at Cedar Breaks a few minutes later. As I pulled my bike into the parking lot, I heard this loud thud. I thought perhaps I had just hit a small rock and flipped it up underneath the fender. I parked my bike and as I climbed off I noticed my kick-starter was missing. I put 2 and 2 together and combed the parking lot where I had heard the big thud. There was my kick starter sitting on the ground. Losing a kick starter wouldn't be a huge deal considering we both have electric start on our bikes.

If you've never been to Point Supreme (10,350 feet) at Cedar Breaks, you should definitely take the 30 minute drive up Cedar Canyon from Cedar City, Utah. This is one of the most beautiful and easily accessible places in Utah. I've been there before by car, but by motorbike was much better for some reason :-).


"Van standing at Point Supreme, Cedar Breaks, Utah"


We started down Cedar Canyon towards our turn off to the Kolob Reservoir Road. This is a secret backroad that will take you on a nice dirt road from Cedar City to the town of Virgin, Utah. I'm somewhat familiar with this road as I've driven it before from Vigin up to Kolob reservoir. I've always wanted to cover the full length but never did for some reason. This is definitely a route that you wouldn't want to take in winter as i'm sure it becomes unpassable. We stopped at the famous overlook on the way down that canyon that gives one a beautiful view into the back of Zion National Park.


"Josh in deep thought at the Zion Canyon Overlook"


We decided from this point that we would head into Cedar City before making the turnoff to Kolob reservoir. We wanted to fill up our tanks, grab a quick snack and stop at a motorcycle shop to replace our front spare tube which we had used the day before. We filled up at the local Maverik and then hit the Suzuki shop for a spare tire before heading back up the canyon to the Kolob reservoir road.


"You can't tell me you would really buy a Suzuki after seeing these tricked out KTM's on the lot eh?"


We started to gain altitude fast immediately after we turned off on the Kolob road. The views from up here were absolutely amazing, cedar breaks in the east, i-15 and nevada to the west, and the snowy Tushars extremely visible to the north east. Soon we were passing all those cabins you can see from I-15 when you pass through Cedar City. I always wanted to know how to get to those cabins. Now I know.

The road passed by a lot of ranch property and the aspens were everywhere. I was surprised how good the road was but yet how few travelers there were. We started down a hill and all of the sudden I could see 2 motorcycles coming the opposite direction. KTM Adventure 990's, the first KTMs we had seen the entire trip. I gave them a hand wave and they returned the gesture. Wow, it was like a secret fraternity handshake. It was cool to see them. Adventures are awesome bikes,very similar to the BMW GS series, but due to their weight and size, I don't think they would have survived day 2 of our journey.


"Autumn leaves on the Kolob reservoir road"


Within minutes, we arrived at Kolob reservoir, the largest single body of water that drains into the Virgin river via Kolob creek through the Zion Narrows. This was familiar territory as I had been here before. This is where the dirt road ended and became pavement once again. This was very evident when we saw a huge pack or Harley Davidsons which had come from the other direction. This was obviously their turn around point as I don't think that would be a good bike to ride to Cedar City.


"North end of Kolob reservoir in Autumn, 8100 feet"


We started down the road from Kolob heading towards Virgin. Within just a few minutes, the road turned to the classic "deep red" asphalt that all of the roads in Zion National Park have. We passed by the "Wildcat" trailhead, the place where several times I started my hike for the "Subway" and the "West Rim" in Zion. The memories were rushing back like crazy. The views of the backside of the West Temple in Zion are simply awesome from way up there. The road meanders slowly through "Hop Valley" in Zion National Park as it meanders towards Virgin, Utah.


"Van on Kolob Reservoir Road, Zion and the West Temple in the background"


Before we knew it, we had arrived at the end of the Kolob road where it meets US 9 in the town of Virgin, Utah. Only just a couple of miles of riding on US 9 to the town of Rockville, the end of the road for the day. US 9 pretty much any time of the year between I-15 and Zion National Park is an absolute nightmare. Given the amount of the traffic, you would think that Disneyland is at the end of the road, assuming everyone going to Disneyland is going to stay in their camper trailer.

It was a cool feeling to be cruising this familiar route on my KTM that I have driven so many times in my life. I think I was probably 5 or 6 the first time I traveled this highway. It was great to be in Zion!

We arrived in Rockville and parked our bikes in the driveway. I thought this would be a good moment to do a self timed picture so we could both be in the photo. I grabbed the garbage can from the side of the house and carefully set my camera to snap the pic.


"Grandma and Grandpa's vacation retreat, I don't think Grandma would like the bikes :-)"


The day seemed young and the skies were crystal clear blue. We decided to head into town and grab some pizza and then put a plan together for the rest of the trip. Because of our day 2, we were already behind schedule at this point. The storm was starting to show signs of arrival in the northern part of the state and so we had pretty much scrapped our plan of trying to ride our bikes back home.

We unloaded some gear and rode into town and ate a delicious lunch at the Zion Pizza and Noodle, a personal favorite. We both still had a lot of energy considering the days ride wasn't too bad and decided to head out to the Gooseberry Mesa, the new Moab of Utah. Van had never been up there and I assured him he would not be disappointed.

We head back to the house, geared up and started up the grafton road to the Mesa. I've been mountain biking here several times and ridden my motorcycle out there a couple of times. On a typical day, there can be somewhere between 25 and 50 cars in the parking lot, mostly mountain bikers, but this time there were only a couple. If you are a mountain biker, there are many miles of trails and different loops. Luckily the BLM has kept the main trail down the middle of the mesa to the overlook open to ATV and off road vehicles.


"Van on the Gooseberry trail, I think the mountain bikers were jealous :) Notice the moon in the upper left"


At one point, we crossed paths with a large group of mountain bikers. We stopped and shut off our engines so they could pass peacefully. Their trip leader stopped and immediately starting enquiring about our trip. A fellow rider himself, he noticed the custom seats we had made just for this trip. Of all the modifications we made to our bikes, the custom Renazco racing seat was probably the best money we spent. Talk about saving our butts :).

After a few more miles of riding, we arrived at the end of the mesa. The views up here are absolutely incredible, especially looking at Zion National Park to the north-east. We snapped a couple of photos and gazed the valley in awe and then mounted our donkeys and headed back to Rockville.


"Van on top of the Gooseberry, Zion in the background; Nowhere in the National Park will you get a view like this"


We got home just before dark and parked the bikes in Grandpa's shed. I'm sure that is the first time there has ever been a dirt bike parked in there. The bikes were comfy and cozy with the shed full of lizards for the night.

We sat on the porch and talked about our options for the rest of the trip. It was friday night and according to our original plan, we should have been in Hanksville tonight already on our northern route home. We decided we would most likely ride our bikes to St. George the next morning, park them in my friend's garage and rent a car and drive home sunday. We decided unless the weather was really bad when we woke up, we would take a scenic route to St. George considering riding US 9 and ultimately I-15 to St. George would be absolutely against our original rules of engagement.

We pulled out the atlas and began to study the options for a scenic ride to St. George. Unfortunately, neither of us loaded the topographical maps for northern Arizona in our GPS computers. Besides that, we only had the Utah atlas. I've spent some time riding the southern part of St. George and was quite familiar with the area between Hurricane and Washington, Utah and knew some of the roads over there. I was certain that once we got over in that general area, we would be able to feel our way into St. George. As you will read later, this definitely was not the case and we end up discovering a new 100 mile route from Rockville to St. George via the Arizona strip.

jww

Click here to read about day 4 of the trip

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