Short Version:
We drive through some deserts and commit vehicular manslaughter on our way to a spectacular place full of magical rocks that gets really flipping cold at night.
Long Version:
The road from Goblin Valley to Bryce Canyon is a Scenic Byway, and passes through all manner of strange and veautiful regions:
- sandy, dune-filled desert
- rocky, jagged desert
- hilly, rounded desert
- desert mesas and buttes
- deserted desert
- desert full of deserted pickup trucks
- desert towns, falling down
- cliffs
- bizarre rock formations
- sweeping vistas
- mountains
- forests
- red rock hillsides
- orange rock hillsides
- yellow rock hillsides
- black rock hillsides
- white rock hillsides
- stripey hillsides
After the stripey hillsides, we reached Bryce Canyon Natioal Park, but not before the Reaper harvested another squirrel. For some reason every roadkill squirrel we've seen (apart from the pancaked furry red splodge ones) adopts in death a super-cute pose, lying supine with front paws held just under the chin, rear legs splayed out in front. They look like they're actors in some children's stage show who have been asked to be dead in a non-threatening, overdone, obvious, cartoony sort of way.
It cost far too much to camp in the National Park, so we left, and went next door to the National Forest. The dedicated campground had a fee as well, so we drove on down the road to a spot by a creek, set ourselves up, and ate burritos and chocolate until it was time to go to sleep.
We awoke late, largely because the ice on the windows was blocking all the light. It was seriously cold. We debated the relative coldnesses of this morning v the morning at Polecat Creek at the front end of the Big Day of Yellowstone, and agreed the latter was freezier.
We made our way back in to the National Park, to the Visitor Center where we found free internets and an informational screen which said it had got down to -2 degrees overnight. That explains why my feets got cold. The informational signage around the place was busy telling us that the park has over two hundred freeze/thaw days each year, which is a lot, and is one of the primary causes for the startling rock formations which abound there: during the day the water runs into nooks and crannies in the rock; then when it freezes overnight the expansion** stresses the already-weak rock and eventually splits it.
I'm not going to try to describe the formations; I know for a fact that Lovely Wife took umpteen photographs, so you can jolly well wait for her to upload them***. Suffice to say they were startling and stunning and realy really cool.
We ogled the rocks from three of the park's hiking trails: The Queen's Garden, the Navajo Loop, and the Peek-a-Boo Loop. Apparently the combo is a 10km, 4-5 hour hike. We ran it in two hours, but half of that was spent taking photographs. We then drove to the end of the park - it extends out along a limb of a high plateau - and took photographs at the many viewpoints accessible from the roadway. Most were so close to the road that you bareky had to leave your vehicle; those which involved a short walk tended to be fairly empty. The exception was Sunset Point, which afforded some seriously awesome views once you managed to squeeze between the sizeable Amerikans and the teeming hordes of East Asians, all of whom seemed to be speaking incredibly loudly. We've seen very few East Asians on the journey so far (Chinatowns in Vancouver and San Francisco excepted), which is a huge change from Auckland. We had to laugh at one point out near the end of the park, when we watched a middle-aged woman of East Asian extraction attempting to park her car. In a deserted parking lot. She ended up using two spaces for her compact hatchback. Sigh.
We found showers at the General Store (of course) and then hit the road west, towards Red Canyon and Thunder Mountain, and a ride we'd heard some very good things about.
* = Ebenezer Bryce said that, some time in the mid-late 1800s, in response to a query on what it was like to live near the canyon that would later wear his name
** = Water expands when it freezes. This is unlike most substances, and is why, when you put a beer in the freezer to chill it quickly you should always remember to not forget it's in there
*** = Or, if you're an impatient scallywag, you can ask Mr Google to show you some pictures. Make sure the stupid "Safe Search" filter is set to OFF, cos you never know your luck.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Goblins in the Sun
Short Version:
Goblins, mining, sunbathing
Long Version:
Goblin Valley State Park is in the middle of nowhere, assuming that nowhere is an area in mid-eastearn Utah.
The goblins for which it is named are humanoid stone features, wind- and water-carved and ranging in size from small human child to Godzilla. Actually, we saw one that was shaped a lot like Godzilla, about an hour-and-a-half into our wanderings through the valleys where these truly bizarre constructs form, exist, and then eventually crumble into nothingness. Weird, and definitely wonderful.
We stopped for the night at Temple Mountain, which was in the mid-twentieth century the site of a thriving uranium mining endeavour, and a sizeable township which had grown up around its pits. Little remains save occasional half-concealed holes in the ground, tumbled support timbers which have cracked and splintered, and broken pieces of concrete lying at strange angles to one another near rusting plumbery.
The sun was shining, and tiny lizards were basking in its radiance. We followed their example, and judging from the protracted staring from the dirtbikers who blatted past, we weren't quite what they'd expected to see amidst the ruined ghost-town. Actually, they were probably just checking Nene out - I certainly was.
Goblins, mining, sunbathing
Long Version:
Goblin Valley State Park is in the middle of nowhere, assuming that nowhere is an area in mid-eastearn Utah.
The goblins for which it is named are humanoid stone features, wind- and water-carved and ranging in size from small human child to Godzilla. Actually, we saw one that was shaped a lot like Godzilla, about an hour-and-a-half into our wanderings through the valleys where these truly bizarre constructs form, exist, and then eventually crumble into nothingness. Weird, and definitely wonderful.
We stopped for the night at Temple Mountain, which was in the mid-twentieth century the site of a thriving uranium mining endeavour, and a sizeable township which had grown up around its pits. Little remains save occasional half-concealed holes in the ground, tumbled support timbers which have cracked and splintered, and broken pieces of concrete lying at strange angles to one another near rusting plumbery.
The sun was shining, and tiny lizards were basking in its radiance. We followed their example, and judging from the protracted staring from the dirtbikers who blatted past, we weren't quite what they'd expected to see amidst the ruined ghost-town. Actually, they were probably just checking Nene out - I certainly was.
Cycling and Recycling
Short Version:
Slickrock again. A Fox on the Rocks. Footage. Anarchy rules!
Long Version:
Our neighbour gave us a cheery wave as we drove out of the campground in the morning, which I thought was rather odd, given not only the chastisement he'd received the previous night but also his proximity to the campground's roofless toilet in which we'd de-beaned before we left. We waved back, though, as good neighbours do.
And then we went and rode the Slickrock Trail again, in the opposite, supposedly more difficult direction.
It was more difficult. Lovely Wife said not, but I'm beginning to doubt that she's actually human; she seemed once agin to be feeling absolutely no after-effects from the effortful slog we'd put in the previous day. And the day before. And the day before that. In fact, we were on our ninth consecutive significant ride day, and she looked, rode, and smelled like she'd just stepped out of a salon. Cow.
We stopped only thrice:
- For lunch and to photograph Marian's cactus
- For shots of Nene riding near Shrimp Rock
- To film ourselves on the switchback hillclimb made famous by the Fifth Horseperson of the Apocalypse during our last visit
At that last stop we were stunned to see a fox run up the hill, then pause, looking back over his shoulder at us reproachfully before disappearing over the lip. Unfortunately we were so stunned we didn't think to photograph it, but then we made ourselves feel all better again by getting heaps of awesome footage of each of us doing particularly tasty technically-sound riding on the tricky climb and descent. Except that I didn't quite manage to actually film any of Nene's efforts, because I couldn't quite get the hang of pushing the one button needed to start filming. I'd made her ride up and down several times too, to get different angles. Oops.
We dumped our long-held recyclables at the Recycling Station, where we were amused by the sight of all of the employees gathered together for a break, smoking cigarettes directly beneath an enormous "No Smoking" sign. Then we hit the thrift store, where yet again there were many many things of great awesomeness that fitted Nene perfectly, and several that were just too small for me, or just slightly too worn or not quite excellent enough to warrant the $4 outlay. Disappointing!
Showers at Poison Spider Bicycles made me feel much better though, especially because the bearded anarchist at the counter didn't charge us for them. I think the waddling couple from the Amerikan Mid-West who were there at the same time we were might have paid for ours as well as their own, but that's only fair and reasonable.
And then we were off into the desert again, to the junction where we'd been pounded by storms twice. It was like coming home, which is kind of scary.
Slickrock again. A Fox on the Rocks. Footage. Anarchy rules!
Long Version:
Our neighbour gave us a cheery wave as we drove out of the campground in the morning, which I thought was rather odd, given not only the chastisement he'd received the previous night but also his proximity to the campground's roofless toilet in which we'd de-beaned before we left. We waved back, though, as good neighbours do.
And then we went and rode the Slickrock Trail again, in the opposite, supposedly more difficult direction.
It was more difficult. Lovely Wife said not, but I'm beginning to doubt that she's actually human; she seemed once agin to be feeling absolutely no after-effects from the effortful slog we'd put in the previous day. And the day before. And the day before that. In fact, we were on our ninth consecutive significant ride day, and she looked, rode, and smelled like she'd just stepped out of a salon. Cow.
We stopped only thrice:
- For lunch and to photograph Marian's cactus
- For shots of Nene riding near Shrimp Rock
- To film ourselves on the switchback hillclimb made famous by the Fifth Horseperson of the Apocalypse during our last visit
At that last stop we were stunned to see a fox run up the hill, then pause, looking back over his shoulder at us reproachfully before disappearing over the lip. Unfortunately we were so stunned we didn't think to photograph it, but then we made ourselves feel all better again by getting heaps of awesome footage of each of us doing particularly tasty technically-sound riding on the tricky climb and descent. Except that I didn't quite manage to actually film any of Nene's efforts, because I couldn't quite get the hang of pushing the one button needed to start filming. I'd made her ride up and down several times too, to get different angles. Oops.
We dumped our long-held recyclables at the Recycling Station, where we were amused by the sight of all of the employees gathered together for a break, smoking cigarettes directly beneath an enormous "No Smoking" sign. Then we hit the thrift store, where yet again there were many many things of great awesomeness that fitted Nene perfectly, and several that were just too small for me, or just slightly too worn or not quite excellent enough to warrant the $4 outlay. Disappointing!
Showers at Poison Spider Bicycles made me feel much better though, especially because the bearded anarchist at the counter didn't charge us for them. I think the waddling couple from the Amerikan Mid-West who were there at the same time we were might have paid for ours as well as their own, but that's only fair and reasonable.
And then we were off into the desert again, to the junction where we'd been pounded by storms twice. It was like coming home, which is kind of scary.
USA Loop #2, Day 20
We paid to camp at the Slickrock Trail trailhead.
It was ten dollars.
That brings our total accomodation costs for this leg of the trip to...
Ten dollars.
Average cost/night: Fifty cents.
That's pretty good, unless you're talking about the rap guy, who is pretty not-good, although not as not-good as the really rude one with the bad haircut, although that doesn't actually narrow it down much. The one who interrupted the vanilla country-pop star's award acceptance speech. I can never remember whether he's the one who molests pre-teens or whether that's one of the other, equally unlistenable and unlikeable tardomatic shitbuckets that pass as pop stars these days.
The guy in the campsite three down from us (in an otherwise unoccupied thirty-site campground) decided to play some of the so-called "music" that emanates from these so-called recording "artists" at intolerably high volume (ie audible) just after we went to bed.
I didn't bother putting pants on before I went to have a wee chat.
It wasn't a long conversation, and afterwards I was able to stand outside, staring at the incredibly-bright starscape and luxuriating in the utter soundlessness of the desert night for quite some time before the cold had me leaping back into the Reaper and back into my fartsack.
We slept well.
It was ten dollars.
That brings our total accomodation costs for this leg of the trip to...
Ten dollars.
Average cost/night: Fifty cents.
That's pretty good, unless you're talking about the rap guy, who is pretty not-good, although not as not-good as the really rude one with the bad haircut, although that doesn't actually narrow it down much. The one who interrupted the vanilla country-pop star's award acceptance speech. I can never remember whether he's the one who molests pre-teens or whether that's one of the other, equally unlistenable and unlikeable tardomatic shitbuckets that pass as pop stars these days.
The guy in the campsite three down from us (in an otherwise unoccupied thirty-site campground) decided to play some of the so-called "music" that emanates from these so-called recording "artists" at intolerably high volume (ie audible) just after we went to bed.
I didn't bother putting pants on before I went to have a wee chat.
It wasn't a long conversation, and afterwards I was able to stand outside, staring at the incredibly-bright starscape and luxuriating in the utter soundlessness of the desert night for quite some time before the cold had me leaping back into the Reaper and back into my fartsack.
We slept well.
Spiders
Short Version:
Tired. Return to Moab. A ride in the desert (funny, that). Bad bank.
Long Version:
We were tired when we arose the day after our Western Rim - Zion Curtain - Kokopelli mission. Actually, I tell a lie: I was tired. Someone else was claiming box-of-birdsness. Still, there were no complaints emanating from Lovely Wife when the leisurely start to the day dragged on a wee bit longer than originally planned: delicious caffeiney goodness was drunk, bikes were fiddled with (in an entirely appropriate way), sun was sat in. Eventually, though, we got back on the road, heading back westwards, back into Utah, and, in the end, back to Moab.
Lovely Wife had been somewhat put out when we left Moab without earning ourselves a spider sticker by riding the Poison Spider Trail. This was somewhat surprising, given that she's been known to wake her long-suffering husband in the middle of the night to demand that he "Get them off me!" Extra irony points on the grounds that aforesaid husband is equally, if not more arachnophobic than she is*.
Still, the dinosaur footprints halfway up the cliff at the trailhead were pretty cool, and the trail itself was... actually the trail itself was, as everyone who'd ridden it had told us, an ordeal. It comprised three parts energy-sapping wheel-hugging ankle-deep red sand to one part bone-jarring rock ridges, almost all of which were arranged perpendicular to our path. Little Arch was the definite highlight: at the edge of a sheer cliff, high above the river and highway, and climbable. Fantastic combo, except for the amost falling off part.
At the end of the Poison Spider Trail, which is shared by bikers, hikers, horses, motorbikes, and 4x4s, one turns around and comes back the way one went out. Unless one is a motor-vehiclist with a decent map of the convoluted subsidiary trail network, in which case one can go play on small, sketchy dirt roads to one's heart's content. Or unless one is a hiker or biker who is not particularly risk averse, in which case one can take The Portal.
People have not died on The Portal.
People have died after falling off The Portal.
Apparently it's quite easy to do. Especially when it's getting dark.
Being a manly man, I argued the case for riding The Portal in the face of Nene's stated desire to return to the trailhead via the Poison Spider. I was careful not to be too persuasive, though, and soon we were headed back the way we'd come, albeit with a few wrong turns as the setting sun washed out our ability to spy trail markings. It took just under an hour to re-cover the ground we'd taken two-and-a-half to cross on the outbound leg, and we arrived back at the van just in time to nip another bout of nappy-rash in the bud before using the Moab Express Laundromat's free customer wi-fi connection to call the National Bank in NZ, in another attempt to get them to actually do some stuff they'd been promising for over two months. In the end, we had to get tetchy, but they promised to have it done overnight, which was soon enough for us to not starve or be stuck mid-desert without gasoline, but not soon enough to keep our custom long-term.
* = Seriously, in our house a spider of any size has more comprehensive squatter's rights than humans get even in the most liberally-inclined societies, just by being too damned scary to evict
Tired. Return to Moab. A ride in the desert (funny, that). Bad bank.
Long Version:
We were tired when we arose the day after our Western Rim - Zion Curtain - Kokopelli mission. Actually, I tell a lie: I was tired. Someone else was claiming box-of-birdsness. Still, there were no complaints emanating from Lovely Wife when the leisurely start to the day dragged on a wee bit longer than originally planned: delicious caffeiney goodness was drunk, bikes were fiddled with (in an entirely appropriate way), sun was sat in. Eventually, though, we got back on the road, heading back westwards, back into Utah, and, in the end, back to Moab.
Lovely Wife had been somewhat put out when we left Moab without earning ourselves a spider sticker by riding the Poison Spider Trail. This was somewhat surprising, given that she's been known to wake her long-suffering husband in the middle of the night to demand that he "Get them off me!" Extra irony points on the grounds that aforesaid husband is equally, if not more arachnophobic than she is*.
Still, the dinosaur footprints halfway up the cliff at the trailhead were pretty cool, and the trail itself was... actually the trail itself was, as everyone who'd ridden it had told us, an ordeal. It comprised three parts energy-sapping wheel-hugging ankle-deep red sand to one part bone-jarring rock ridges, almost all of which were arranged perpendicular to our path. Little Arch was the definite highlight: at the edge of a sheer cliff, high above the river and highway, and climbable. Fantastic combo, except for the amost falling off part.
At the end of the Poison Spider Trail, which is shared by bikers, hikers, horses, motorbikes, and 4x4s, one turns around and comes back the way one went out. Unless one is a motor-vehiclist with a decent map of the convoluted subsidiary trail network, in which case one can go play on small, sketchy dirt roads to one's heart's content. Or unless one is a hiker or biker who is not particularly risk averse, in which case one can take The Portal.
People have not died on The Portal.
People have died after falling off The Portal.
Apparently it's quite easy to do. Especially when it's getting dark.
Being a manly man, I argued the case for riding The Portal in the face of Nene's stated desire to return to the trailhead via the Poison Spider. I was careful not to be too persuasive, though, and soon we were headed back the way we'd come, albeit with a few wrong turns as the setting sun washed out our ability to spy trail markings. It took just under an hour to re-cover the ground we'd taken two-and-a-half to cross on the outbound leg, and we arrived back at the van just in time to nip another bout of nappy-rash in the bud before using the Moab Express Laundromat's free customer wi-fi connection to call the National Bank in NZ, in another attempt to get them to actually do some stuff they'd been promising for over two months. In the end, we had to get tetchy, but they promised to have it done overnight, which was soon enough for us to not starve or be stuck mid-desert without gasoline, but not soon enough to keep our custom long-term.
* = Seriously, in our house a spider of any size has more comprehensive squatter's rights than humans get even in the most liberally-inclined societies, just by being too damned scary to evict
Chafing
Short Version:
A fantastic and quite long ride. Strange midgets.
Long Version:
Invermeremortal Lori had told us that the Western Rim Trail was her all-time favorite. High praise indeed, coming from someone who's ridden so extensively. We'd stolen Travis' map of the area, but were mildly baffled by the convoluted squiggly line we were supposed to be following once we got past the free-and-easy run down the navigational-difficulty-free Kokopelli and Parallel #2 access trails. We ended up taking what turned out to be the correct trail despite my best efforts to get us to go the other way; Nene was unkeen on the flying 1000ft soft-sand descent and took us right instead, on a trail that led us around the rim of a convoluted, squiggly canyon made of variously yellowish and whitish sandstone.
The views were phenomenal. Stunning vistas opened out around almost every corner; out over May Flats with its dense stands of bright orange- and yellow-leaved cottonwood trees to the Colorado River, running sluggish and red in the near distance. More mountains loomed on the far side of the plain. Closer to us there were stone entities on every side; standalone pillars; castle-like structures of all shapes and sizes; and everywhere we looked the Rim we were following, turning back on itself like some Escherish construct; overhangs left, right, and centre; beautiful, organic curves every place we looked. It seemed like we'd not been riding it long when it ended, dumping us down a sketchy, steep hillface to the outer trailhead, and back onto the Kokopelli for another ten miles or so of dirt road before we reached our next turnoff: the Zion Curtain.
Never let it be said that mountain-bike trail-builders are not at least as witty as the people who name suburban hair salons. The Zion Curtain follows the Utah side of the fence that delineates the Utah-Colorado border in this particular part of the desert. It hauls riders up an angled plateau, weaving to and fro across the hillside but always returning to the fence. Where the plateau meets the sky, we found ourselves standing high above the Castle Rocks Campground, which we'd passed twenty-or-so minutes into our ride that morning, thirty-or-so kilometres ago. As the crow flies, we were no more than 500m from the more bulbous of the stone features for which the campground is named, but being not crows we had a somewhat different journey ahead of us.
First there was the screaming descent from the high plateau. Literally screaming, in my case, a couple of times. It was mostly a lot of fun, with a few seriously hairy moments thrown in, just for laughs. Then a section of rolling dirt track with mounds in all the right places to render pedalling largely unnecessary. It meant standing up for quite a while, but we'd been riding for several hours by then, and my nether regions were rather pleased to be off the seat. Unfortunately for them, we soon(ish) reached the Kokopelli Trail again, and pedalling ensued. Funny how long fifteen miles can feel when your arse is killing you and you need to poop.
Still, we made it to Castle Rocks without major incident, apart from Nene face-planting in a mud puddle at high speed, and then we made our way slowly up the evil rock hill section back to camp. We'd been out for just under seven hours, of which almost all was spent riding. The campground was full of short, weird people, but we had eyes only for three things:
- Beer. Rogue Chocolate Stout. Oh-so delicious fermented chocolatey goodness. Nom nom nom nom nom*.
- Foods. The corn chips were half-gone by the time the tin of Western Family brand Mexican-Style Diced Tomatoes with Lime Juice and Cilantro was open, but the taste sensation after hours of dust-parched mouth was near-indescribably good. Nom nom nom nom nom*.
- Nappy-Rash Cream. Why buy expensive special cycling anti-chafing cream when generic supermarket-brand nappy-rash stuff does the job just as well, and for a fraction of the price?
The twisted dwarves finished their photo-shoot** and left, and we went to bed. We'd've drunk more beer if we had any, but we were all out, which was a wee bit sad, but not sad enough to keep us awake for long.
* = In the "Ingesting something delicious" sense, not the stupid French people "Without" meaning
** = Yes, seriously.
A fantastic and quite long ride. Strange midgets.
Long Version:
Invermeremortal Lori had told us that the Western Rim Trail was her all-time favorite. High praise indeed, coming from someone who's ridden so extensively. We'd stolen Travis' map of the area, but were mildly baffled by the convoluted squiggly line we were supposed to be following once we got past the free-and-easy run down the navigational-difficulty-free Kokopelli and Parallel #2 access trails. We ended up taking what turned out to be the correct trail despite my best efforts to get us to go the other way; Nene was unkeen on the flying 1000ft soft-sand descent and took us right instead, on a trail that led us around the rim of a convoluted, squiggly canyon made of variously yellowish and whitish sandstone.
The views were phenomenal. Stunning vistas opened out around almost every corner; out over May Flats with its dense stands of bright orange- and yellow-leaved cottonwood trees to the Colorado River, running sluggish and red in the near distance. More mountains loomed on the far side of the plain. Closer to us there were stone entities on every side; standalone pillars; castle-like structures of all shapes and sizes; and everywhere we looked the Rim we were following, turning back on itself like some Escherish construct; overhangs left, right, and centre; beautiful, organic curves every place we looked. It seemed like we'd not been riding it long when it ended, dumping us down a sketchy, steep hillface to the outer trailhead, and back onto the Kokopelli for another ten miles or so of dirt road before we reached our next turnoff: the Zion Curtain.
Never let it be said that mountain-bike trail-builders are not at least as witty as the people who name suburban hair salons. The Zion Curtain follows the Utah side of the fence that delineates the Utah-Colorado border in this particular part of the desert. It hauls riders up an angled plateau, weaving to and fro across the hillside but always returning to the fence. Where the plateau meets the sky, we found ourselves standing high above the Castle Rocks Campground, which we'd passed twenty-or-so minutes into our ride that morning, thirty-or-so kilometres ago. As the crow flies, we were no more than 500m from the more bulbous of the stone features for which the campground is named, but being not crows we had a somewhat different journey ahead of us.
First there was the screaming descent from the high plateau. Literally screaming, in my case, a couple of times. It was mostly a lot of fun, with a few seriously hairy moments thrown in, just for laughs. Then a section of rolling dirt track with mounds in all the right places to render pedalling largely unnecessary. It meant standing up for quite a while, but we'd been riding for several hours by then, and my nether regions were rather pleased to be off the seat. Unfortunately for them, we soon(ish) reached the Kokopelli Trail again, and pedalling ensued. Funny how long fifteen miles can feel when your arse is killing you and you need to poop.
Still, we made it to Castle Rocks without major incident, apart from Nene face-planting in a mud puddle at high speed, and then we made our way slowly up the evil rock hill section back to camp. We'd been out for just under seven hours, of which almost all was spent riding. The campground was full of short, weird people, but we had eyes only for three things:
- Beer. Rogue Chocolate Stout. Oh-so delicious fermented chocolatey goodness. Nom nom nom nom nom*.
- Foods. The corn chips were half-gone by the time the tin of Western Family brand Mexican-Style Diced Tomatoes with Lime Juice and Cilantro was open, but the taste sensation after hours of dust-parched mouth was near-indescribably good. Nom nom nom nom nom*.
- Nappy-Rash Cream. Why buy expensive special cycling anti-chafing cream when generic supermarket-brand nappy-rash stuff does the job just as well, and for a fraction of the price?
The twisted dwarves finished their photo-shoot** and left, and we went to bed. We'd've drunk more beer if we had any, but we were all out, which was a wee bit sad, but not sad enough to keep us awake for long.
* = In the "Ingesting something delicious" sense, not the stupid French people "Without" meaning
** = Yes, seriously.
We Like the Night
Short Version:
We ride the 18 Road Area by day and by night and by day, then hit Grand Junction for some shuttling fun
Long Version:
We were camped right alongside some trails that we'd heard great things about, and were on the bikes pretty much as soon as we were awake. We rode for just over two hours, and during that time explored most of the inner trail system, the star of which was indisputably Kessel's Run; a fast, ultra-flowy gully chute with bermed corners and generally nice lines that enabled some massive speeds. We rode it first, and we rode it last, and then we bailed into town to steal internets and to try to hook up with our Coloradan downhill racer friend Travis, who we'd met many moons ago at the Blackrock trail network in Oregon, and who'd driven from the other side of Colorado to come ride with us (Hi Travis!). Our phonelessness hampered our attempts to locate him, but eventually we found him: back out at the 18 Road.
We bought some delicious foods and then headed back out to the foot of the Bookcliffs, where we found Travis and ate delicious foods. Then the boys went for another ride. In the dark. In horizontal, stingingly-cold rain. Lovely Wife laughed at our suggestion that she join us, and stayed warm and dry in the van with a good book. This, of course, meant that she was fresh as an irritating daisy the next morning when the three of us set off to ride a few more of the trails before leaving the area: some of the same ones as the previous day, with some extras thrown in. One of these new ones was my star trail of the day, which surprised both of the others because it was nearly flat and nearly straight. The others found it a bit bland, but I thought it was excellent; untaxing and relaxing, and named Vegetarian to boot.
More delicious foods then a convoy to nearby Grand Junction, where we (eventually) found the upper trailhead and set off to shuttle what the Fruita bike-shop guys had referred to as the two premier trails in the Grand Junction Lunch Loop network: Gunny and Holy Cross. Travis and I rolled Gunny first, and found a wee bit more pedalling required than we'd been expecting. He powered through a couple of downhill sections that I walked, and I rode up a couple of steep climbs that he eyed with disfavour before dismounting from his 8-inch-travel DH bike and hiking up. All told it was a lot of fun, and it was kind of sad to pop out at the road at the end of the trail. Especially so when we figured out that we'd emerged way down the hill from where we'd expected, which meant way down the hill from where Nene was waiting with Travis' enormous pickup truck, which meant a couple of miles of uphill road grunt still had to be done. Sigh.
Nene and Travis next, down the top section of Gunny, then into Pre-Nup and on through Holy Cross to the lower trailhead. Favorable reports (apart from one crash, not by Nene) meant that the next and final run of the day was Travis and I, on Pre-Nup, Holy Cross, and Holey Bucket. There was some great riding done, but not by me: I was having one of those runs where nothing goes quite to plan, and even dismounting to hike an obstacle left me with a pedal-inflicted charley-horsed calf. Sigh. Still a lot of fun though, and from the description the others gave of the arduous hike-a-bike up the final steep poke of Holy Cross I'm glad I was on the run that used Holey Bucket to bypass it.
We stopped for gas and were harrassed by bums for change, which we refused to hand over on the grounds of poverty. Then we went to a Mexican fast food place and inhaled WAY too much cheesy, beany goodness, which meant that after wishing Travis good luck on his six-hour drive home we had a musical and fragrant journey to Rabbit Valley, on the Colorado-Utah border.
We ride the 18 Road Area by day and by night and by day, then hit Grand Junction for some shuttling fun
Long Version:
We were camped right alongside some trails that we'd heard great things about, and were on the bikes pretty much as soon as we were awake. We rode for just over two hours, and during that time explored most of the inner trail system, the star of which was indisputably Kessel's Run; a fast, ultra-flowy gully chute with bermed corners and generally nice lines that enabled some massive speeds. We rode it first, and we rode it last, and then we bailed into town to steal internets and to try to hook up with our Coloradan downhill racer friend Travis, who we'd met many moons ago at the Blackrock trail network in Oregon, and who'd driven from the other side of Colorado to come ride with us (Hi Travis!). Our phonelessness hampered our attempts to locate him, but eventually we found him: back out at the 18 Road.
We bought some delicious foods and then headed back out to the foot of the Bookcliffs, where we found Travis and ate delicious foods. Then the boys went for another ride. In the dark. In horizontal, stingingly-cold rain. Lovely Wife laughed at our suggestion that she join us, and stayed warm and dry in the van with a good book. This, of course, meant that she was fresh as an irritating daisy the next morning when the three of us set off to ride a few more of the trails before leaving the area: some of the same ones as the previous day, with some extras thrown in. One of these new ones was my star trail of the day, which surprised both of the others because it was nearly flat and nearly straight. The others found it a bit bland, but I thought it was excellent; untaxing and relaxing, and named Vegetarian to boot.
More delicious foods then a convoy to nearby Grand Junction, where we (eventually) found the upper trailhead and set off to shuttle what the Fruita bike-shop guys had referred to as the two premier trails in the Grand Junction Lunch Loop network: Gunny and Holy Cross. Travis and I rolled Gunny first, and found a wee bit more pedalling required than we'd been expecting. He powered through a couple of downhill sections that I walked, and I rode up a couple of steep climbs that he eyed with disfavour before dismounting from his 8-inch-travel DH bike and hiking up. All told it was a lot of fun, and it was kind of sad to pop out at the road at the end of the trail. Especially so when we figured out that we'd emerged way down the hill from where we'd expected, which meant way down the hill from where Nene was waiting with Travis' enormous pickup truck, which meant a couple of miles of uphill road grunt still had to be done. Sigh.
Nene and Travis next, down the top section of Gunny, then into Pre-Nup and on through Holy Cross to the lower trailhead. Favorable reports (apart from one crash, not by Nene) meant that the next and final run of the day was Travis and I, on Pre-Nup, Holy Cross, and Holey Bucket. There was some great riding done, but not by me: I was having one of those runs where nothing goes quite to plan, and even dismounting to hike an obstacle left me with a pedal-inflicted charley-horsed calf. Sigh. Still a lot of fun though, and from the description the others gave of the arduous hike-a-bike up the final steep poke of Holy Cross I'm glad I was on the run that used Holey Bucket to bypass it.
We stopped for gas and were harrassed by bums for change, which we refused to hand over on the grounds of poverty. Then we went to a Mexican fast food place and inhaled WAY too much cheesy, beany goodness, which meant that after wishing Travis good luck on his six-hour drive home we had a musical and fragrant journey to Rabbit Valley, on the Colorado-Utah border.
Farewell, Invermin! So Long, Moab! Adios, Brodie the Dog!
Short Version:
Goodbye, Invermere friends! A Mexican feast, and one last Moab ride, complete with green cliffs, dino prints and lies about length. A red river, a horsefight, some pronghorns.
Long Version:
It was really rather sad saying goodbye to the Inverns, but we did so with high hopes of seeing at least some of them again, somewhere, sometime. And then we met Don and Christie at a Mexican restaurant called La Hacienda, where we set out to eat too much and achieved our goal with ease. Beans and cheese were coming out of our ears by the time we left, and it was a musical night in the tent, which we'd dried under the desert sun during the day while we were out riding, and finally actually got to sleep in again.
We enjoyed a leisurely morning in the sun, and eventually set off for one last ride with our neighbours; out along our road to the Klondike Bluffs trailhead, past greenish copper-laden cliffs capped with iron-rich red rock, and up onto the trail called Baby Steps, which proved, initially at least, to be a really fun climb up a mixture of dirt and grippy rock. We turned off onto the main Klondike Bluffs trail in search of dinosaur footprints, which we eventually found once Don stopped helping Christie navigate. They were very cool; huge, three-toed indentations in the rock, with a surprisingly strong sense of immense age.
Back onto Baby Steps, up under the eave of a huge, precariously-balanced rock, and away on a tight and twisting trail that was sometimes hard to follow, especially at speed. Both Nene and I missed corners, and were lucky to not wear cactus spikes as a result. We hit two major descents, separated by a fast section of the same dirt road that runs all the way in to Salt Valley in the Arches National Park, and a horrible climb made worse by repeated promises that we were nearly at the top.
And then we were riding out, past the green cliffs and along the dirt road back to camp, 3.5 hours and 30kms after we'd set out. Delicious beer punctuated our farewells to Don and Christie and Brodie the dog, and then we were off: up a gorge through which the Colorado River flowed red; past more strangely-shaped towers and plateaus; past a white horse and a brown, kicking and biting each other in a field full of flowers and unconcerned cows; past a herd of pronghorns near a dilapidated ghost-town called Cisco, whose falling-downness reminded us of Mexico; onto the Interstate; and eventually in to Fruita, where internets were stolen and the local dirtbag campspots located, out along the 18 Road at the foot of the mysteriously-named Bookcliffs.
Goodbye, Invermere friends! A Mexican feast, and one last Moab ride, complete with green cliffs, dino prints and lies about length. A red river, a horsefight, some pronghorns.
Long Version:
It was really rather sad saying goodbye to the Inverns, but we did so with high hopes of seeing at least some of them again, somewhere, sometime. And then we met Don and Christie at a Mexican restaurant called La Hacienda, where we set out to eat too much and achieved our goal with ease. Beans and cheese were coming out of our ears by the time we left, and it was a musical night in the tent, which we'd dried under the desert sun during the day while we were out riding, and finally actually got to sleep in again.
We enjoyed a leisurely morning in the sun, and eventually set off for one last ride with our neighbours; out along our road to the Klondike Bluffs trailhead, past greenish copper-laden cliffs capped with iron-rich red rock, and up onto the trail called Baby Steps, which proved, initially at least, to be a really fun climb up a mixture of dirt and grippy rock. We turned off onto the main Klondike Bluffs trail in search of dinosaur footprints, which we eventually found once Don stopped helping Christie navigate. They were very cool; huge, three-toed indentations in the rock, with a surprisingly strong sense of immense age.
Back onto Baby Steps, up under the eave of a huge, precariously-balanced rock, and away on a tight and twisting trail that was sometimes hard to follow, especially at speed. Both Nene and I missed corners, and were lucky to not wear cactus spikes as a result. We hit two major descents, separated by a fast section of the same dirt road that runs all the way in to Salt Valley in the Arches National Park, and a horrible climb made worse by repeated promises that we were nearly at the top.
And then we were riding out, past the green cliffs and along the dirt road back to camp, 3.5 hours and 30kms after we'd set out. Delicious beer punctuated our farewells to Don and Christie and Brodie the dog, and then we were off: up a gorge through which the Colorado River flowed red; past more strangely-shaped towers and plateaus; past a white horse and a brown, kicking and biting each other in a field full of flowers and unconcerned cows; past a herd of pronghorns near a dilapidated ghost-town called Cisco, whose falling-downness reminded us of Mexico; onto the Interstate; and eventually in to Fruita, where internets were stolen and the local dirtbag campspots located, out along the 18 Road at the foot of the mysteriously-named Bookcliffs.
Dirty Snowballs
Short Version:
Weird dreams, an incredible ride. Dolly.
Long Version:
Perched on a hill, upslope from Don and Christie and Brodie the miniature Amerikan Eskimo, we both dreamed some seriously weird dreams. Anti-gravitational furniture was demonstrated, Special Ops police forces were marshalled, toilets on the ski slopes refused to flush, and the desert was riddled with caves. Turns out that last one wasn't a dream; we were parked right next to one, in which a desert-rat soil-scientist had apparently been living up until relatively recently.
In the absence of the semi-mythical Larry, Don was in charge of the day's ride, which took us on unmarked trails up through a canyon and across a plateau of slickrock*. We paused at the edge of a sloping cliff, which meandered away into the distance, glowing red and orange in the light of the late-morning sun. "We're riding along that," Don said. Initial mirth gave way to mild and then not-so mild consternation as it became apparent that kidding he was not. "You'll be amazed at what you can stick to," he said, and sent the Weatherman off to ride laterally across something too steep to be called a sidehill, but not quite sheer enough to be named true vertical, in search of a spot from which to film. It looked insane, and awesome, and soon enough we were all at it, winding upslope and down as confidence increased.
We dropped onto a limb of rock, which led to a series of ever-lower, building-sized steps that dropped us eventually to the canyon floor, where thick sand and spiky plants awaited us. A short hike for those of us with an insufficient power-to-weight ratio to drive ourselves through the wheel-clutching red menace, and then we were back on grippy rock, heading up into a huge bowl where we settled for lunch before commencing a physical exploration of the tyre-holding capabilities of near-vertical faces. The bowl and the halfpipe above its rim were grand, and had that been the end of it we'd have ridden out to the trailhead a happy bunch.
But there was much, much more.
The exploratory riding we'd done on the cliff-face and in the bowl was but a taste of things to come as we reached the high plateau of Bartlett's Wash. It's huge, and is essentially a playground for riders, catering to all abilities in that however steep you want to ride there's a slope for you; however wide the carving turns you wish to indulge in, there's a place for you to do exactly that. There were small mounds and knobs of rock from which to launch oneself should one wish to do so, and there was immense joy to be had from diving down into sinkholes, circling the rim, and shooting back out, like a spaceworthy vessel using the gravity-well of a coelestial body to accelerate, kind of like a comet but without the dirty snowball epithets.
And then there was Dolly.
Those of you reading this in any part of NZ (except maybe Gore) are probably thinking about cloned sheep. Stop it. Start thinking about Jolene, 9 to 5, and Islands in the Stream.
Especially Islands in the Stream.
We reached Dolly Parton's Cleavage during one of the rare confluences in ride-line that had several of us in single-file, and were into the cleft and careening down the steepest of walls between the enormous, bulbous hillocks before we knew what we were getting ourselves into. Out the bottom end, and stopping just short of a precipitous precipice, we watched several of the others follow us in and then hiked back up for another run, which was little different save for a less-occluded sightline: slightly scary, great fun, and over way too quick**.
Plenty more slickrock playground to explore though, including another sloping wall traverse down to canyon bottom, with even better pot-holes and weather-rounded gullies to swoop through on the way, and then Don gave us an option: out-and-back on yet another canyon wall, or call time on the ride and haul out to the trailhead. No-one departed, despite the call of the ale.
The ride along that last canyon wall was the perfect finale for what had turned out to be my highlight ride of the week we spent in and around Moab. The absence of clearly-defined trail meant that people were riding the wall high and low, seeking valid pathways to onwardsness. There were times when we were able to look up the wall and see riders above, then turn and stare down towards the eventual steep drop-off and see others wall-crawling on the lower plane. Chopping from one line to another happened regularly, and opportunistically; every so often a ramp to a higher plane would manifest itself and be ridden; other times someone would ride a more-or-less vertical segment of wall to a lower line that had looked particularly tasty from above. Eventually we all coalesced at a sketchy foothole-pocked traverse around the end of a sheer-sided cleft, and the first few through were debating the relative merits of carrying on around the end of the looming point versus trying to find a way up the cap-rock bluffs to the summit when a flurry of activity burst forth, midway along the skinniest section of the traverse, where Lori was departing rapidly downslope. Thinking initially that it was the Weatherman, we stopped to take photographs, but once the true identity of the slider became known the rescue party formed quickly, efficiently, and, as it turned out, needlessly, as she extricated herself from her predicament with no more than a minor assist credit for Bob.
That signalled beer o'clock, but we had a long wall to ride to get back to fermented deliciousness. Having said that, the ride back along the face seemed to take far less time than the outbound journey, and only the overshoot-and-backtrack made it take as long as it did. And then dirt road, with sections of deep sand that Nene blitzed with style and grace and irritating ease. Then she and the Launderer forged ahead of the group, missed a turnoff, and did some bonus miles. Nene tried to claim bonus beer for having done the extra mileage, but the demand was disallowed on the dual grounds that: she's only little; and that lack of navigational ability should be punished, not rewarded. Mildly Grumpy Lovely Wife!
* = Petrified sandstone, we discovered somehow.
** = Insert sexually-oriented joke about the person of your choice here.
Weird dreams, an incredible ride. Dolly.
Long Version:
Perched on a hill, upslope from Don and Christie and Brodie the miniature Amerikan Eskimo, we both dreamed some seriously weird dreams. Anti-gravitational furniture was demonstrated, Special Ops police forces were marshalled, toilets on the ski slopes refused to flush, and the desert was riddled with caves. Turns out that last one wasn't a dream; we were parked right next to one, in which a desert-rat soil-scientist had apparently been living up until relatively recently.
In the absence of the semi-mythical Larry, Don was in charge of the day's ride, which took us on unmarked trails up through a canyon and across a plateau of slickrock*. We paused at the edge of a sloping cliff, which meandered away into the distance, glowing red and orange in the light of the late-morning sun. "We're riding along that," Don said. Initial mirth gave way to mild and then not-so mild consternation as it became apparent that kidding he was not. "You'll be amazed at what you can stick to," he said, and sent the Weatherman off to ride laterally across something too steep to be called a sidehill, but not quite sheer enough to be named true vertical, in search of a spot from which to film. It looked insane, and awesome, and soon enough we were all at it, winding upslope and down as confidence increased.
We dropped onto a limb of rock, which led to a series of ever-lower, building-sized steps that dropped us eventually to the canyon floor, where thick sand and spiky plants awaited us. A short hike for those of us with an insufficient power-to-weight ratio to drive ourselves through the wheel-clutching red menace, and then we were back on grippy rock, heading up into a huge bowl where we settled for lunch before commencing a physical exploration of the tyre-holding capabilities of near-vertical faces. The bowl and the halfpipe above its rim were grand, and had that been the end of it we'd have ridden out to the trailhead a happy bunch.
But there was much, much more.
The exploratory riding we'd done on the cliff-face and in the bowl was but a taste of things to come as we reached the high plateau of Bartlett's Wash. It's huge, and is essentially a playground for riders, catering to all abilities in that however steep you want to ride there's a slope for you; however wide the carving turns you wish to indulge in, there's a place for you to do exactly that. There were small mounds and knobs of rock from which to launch oneself should one wish to do so, and there was immense joy to be had from diving down into sinkholes, circling the rim, and shooting back out, like a spaceworthy vessel using the gravity-well of a coelestial body to accelerate, kind of like a comet but without the dirty snowball epithets.
And then there was Dolly.
Those of you reading this in any part of NZ (except maybe Gore) are probably thinking about cloned sheep. Stop it. Start thinking about Jolene, 9 to 5, and Islands in the Stream.
Especially Islands in the Stream.
We reached Dolly Parton's Cleavage during one of the rare confluences in ride-line that had several of us in single-file, and were into the cleft and careening down the steepest of walls between the enormous, bulbous hillocks before we knew what we were getting ourselves into. Out the bottom end, and stopping just short of a precipitous precipice, we watched several of the others follow us in and then hiked back up for another run, which was little different save for a less-occluded sightline: slightly scary, great fun, and over way too quick**.
Plenty more slickrock playground to explore though, including another sloping wall traverse down to canyon bottom, with even better pot-holes and weather-rounded gullies to swoop through on the way, and then Don gave us an option: out-and-back on yet another canyon wall, or call time on the ride and haul out to the trailhead. No-one departed, despite the call of the ale.
The ride along that last canyon wall was the perfect finale for what had turned out to be my highlight ride of the week we spent in and around Moab. The absence of clearly-defined trail meant that people were riding the wall high and low, seeking valid pathways to onwardsness. There were times when we were able to look up the wall and see riders above, then turn and stare down towards the eventual steep drop-off and see others wall-crawling on the lower plane. Chopping from one line to another happened regularly, and opportunistically; every so often a ramp to a higher plane would manifest itself and be ridden; other times someone would ride a more-or-less vertical segment of wall to a lower line that had looked particularly tasty from above. Eventually we all coalesced at a sketchy foothole-pocked traverse around the end of a sheer-sided cleft, and the first few through were debating the relative merits of carrying on around the end of the looming point versus trying to find a way up the cap-rock bluffs to the summit when a flurry of activity burst forth, midway along the skinniest section of the traverse, where Lori was departing rapidly downslope. Thinking initially that it was the Weatherman, we stopped to take photographs, but once the true identity of the slider became known the rescue party formed quickly, efficiently, and, as it turned out, needlessly, as she extricated herself from her predicament with no more than a minor assist credit for Bob.
That signalled beer o'clock, but we had a long wall to ride to get back to fermented deliciousness. Having said that, the ride back along the face seemed to take far less time than the outbound journey, and only the overshoot-and-backtrack made it take as long as it did. And then dirt road, with sections of deep sand that Nene blitzed with style and grace and irritating ease. Then she and the Launderer forged ahead of the group, missed a turnoff, and did some bonus miles. Nene tried to claim bonus beer for having done the extra mileage, but the demand was disallowed on the dual grounds that: she's only little; and that lack of navigational ability should be punished, not rewarded. Mildly Grumpy Lovely Wife!
* = Petrified sandstone, we discovered somehow.
** = Insert sexually-oriented joke about the person of your choice here.
Lessons in Porcupinism
Short Version:
Some things we learned in Moab, a great ride on greater bikes, we shift house.
Long Version:
We'd been learning things from the Invermatons:
- A broken neck is not the end of riding. (Don)
- Laundry baskets are valid hiding places, but only if they're full of dirty laundry. (Mark)
- Another broken neck is still not the end of riding. (Don)
- Back of the hand = discipline; open palm = abuse. (The Viv of Destruction)
- It's easier to negotiate deep sand-traps on a bicycle if you're not a heffalump. (Christie, Lori, Gina and Nene, v Me, Steve19, and Cam)
- Willpower + grit + laughter = Anything is rideable (Sodium Chloride Viv)
- There's no accounting for taste. (Lori, Cindy, Viv19, Ann, Christie, Gina, Nene)
- Performing repairs on bicycles is made vastly more difficult when helpful people like me help. (Don)
We were a couple of weeks too late to run the Whole Enchilada; a 31-mile mainly downhill epic which drops from the now-snowed-under Burro Pass. Still, the main Porcupine Rim trail was open, and a short climb from our drop-off point (thanks Don!) saw us away laughing, chasing the main group's two-hour head-start on the fun but rough downhill to the Colorado River.
Don and Christie had decided that they'd earned a rest day, and had loaned us their super-awesome Ibis Mojo SL bicycles for the ride. Turns out they're not only SuperLight, but also SuperPlush ; we were floating up and down both steps and drops we'd've been fighting on our own bikes, with only our unwillingness to place such precious devices at risk slowing us on both climbs and descents. A couple of times Nene was negatively-impacted by my tortoise-like downhill progress; forced to slam on the wrong-way-around brakes in a hurry to avoid rear-ending me. I suffered most, though, when an attempted crawl down a series of steps that I'd normally have blasted through at pace led to what would have been a total face-plant had my elbow not been there to bear the brunt the landing. This, of course, occurred just after we caught the main group, so there were witnesses aplenty to my buffoonery.
There was some crazy terrain, with some washed-out sections of trail engendering huge rock-drops that some mad bugger rode, and that several untall women* navigated with generally endearing complaininess. We played leapfrog with a mad old man from Michigan, who was about seven feet tall and was wearing something which looked very much like the orange perspex face-shield section of Rebel Alliance pilot flight-helmets, and then we were off on the road-ride back into town where we stole internets, did laundry, and bought a wee thank-you gift for Don and Christie before heading out into the desert to their AirStream for dinner. Which was so delicious that we moved in next-door.
* = And Fucken Dave
Some things we learned in Moab, a great ride on greater bikes, we shift house.
Long Version:
We'd been learning things from the Invermatons:
- A broken neck is not the end of riding. (Don)
- Laundry baskets are valid hiding places, but only if they're full of dirty laundry. (Mark)
- Another broken neck is still not the end of riding. (Don)
- Back of the hand = discipline; open palm = abuse. (The Viv of Destruction)
- It's easier to negotiate deep sand-traps on a bicycle if you're not a heffalump. (Christie, Lori, Gina and Nene, v Me, Steve19, and Cam)
- Willpower + grit + laughter = Anything is rideable (Sodium Chloride Viv)
- There's no accounting for taste. (Lori, Cindy, Viv19, Ann, Christie, Gina, Nene)
- Performing repairs on bicycles is made vastly more difficult when helpful people like me help. (Don)
We were a couple of weeks too late to run the Whole Enchilada; a 31-mile mainly downhill epic which drops from the now-snowed-under Burro Pass. Still, the main Porcupine Rim trail was open, and a short climb from our drop-off point (thanks Don!) saw us away laughing, chasing the main group's two-hour head-start on the fun but rough downhill to the Colorado River.
Don and Christie had decided that they'd earned a rest day, and had loaned us their super-awesome Ibis Mojo SL bicycles for the ride. Turns out they're not only SuperLight, but also SuperPlush ; we were floating up and down both steps and drops we'd've been fighting on our own bikes, with only our unwillingness to place such precious devices at risk slowing us on both climbs and descents. A couple of times Nene was negatively-impacted by my tortoise-like downhill progress; forced to slam on the wrong-way-around brakes in a hurry to avoid rear-ending me. I suffered most, though, when an attempted crawl down a series of steps that I'd normally have blasted through at pace led to what would have been a total face-plant had my elbow not been there to bear the brunt the landing. This, of course, occurred just after we caught the main group, so there were witnesses aplenty to my buffoonery.
There was some crazy terrain, with some washed-out sections of trail engendering huge rock-drops that some mad bugger rode, and that several untall women* navigated with generally endearing complaininess. We played leapfrog with a mad old man from Michigan, who was about seven feet tall and was wearing something which looked very much like the orange perspex face-shield section of Rebel Alliance pilot flight-helmets, and then we were off on the road-ride back into town where we stole internets, did laundry, and bought a wee thank-you gift for Don and Christie before heading out into the desert to their AirStream for dinner. Which was so delicious that we moved in next-door.
* = And Fucken Dave
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