P.A.Y.N.E?

Do you know when Colombus Day is? I definitely had no clue as I found myself walking to the door of the Monticello Post Office to pick up my package of 7 days of food and 40 or so maps. More on that later...

How can I sum up the last 2 weeks of hiking? I don't know how, nor do I have the patience to type it all out. What I do know is that I'm not sure I've ever done such consistently isolated hiking in my life. I mentioned it a bit in the last post, but the "out there" factor just hit a new high in the Gila. In 7 days of hiking from the Eastern Gila (Black Range) to the West (Mogollion Mtns), I saw only 3 people on the trails out there. The GET founder, Blisterfree, and 2 stoned elk-hunters. Unbelievable. And all of this for the first created, and most well-known Wilderness Area's in the country.

Photos and oh-so-brief summaries will have to suffice...

left the town of Magdalena to enter some nice ridgewalking along the Magdelena Mtns.

sick sunrise from the top of South Baldy in the Magdalena's

approaching Potato Canyon.

down inside of Potato Canyon. And here I managed to get lost. No way I blame it on my own error. Instead it was the fault of the low, western sun, and the absurd amounts of gnats that were annoyingly buzzing around my temples. I was looking out the whole time for a side canyon that I was to take, but never found it. Hiked all the way up this canyon instead, only to find nearly impossible pour-offs to climb over. Surely the maps would have mentioned those??? Wandered all around up other side-canyons, never truly lost, but always truly baffled. Finally after backtracking the next morning, I could see the side canyon I needed hidden in the trees. Relief....

the aspen are really nice up in the NM high country these days...

Descending Shipmen Canyon in the Apache Kid Wilderness

mind-blowing Valley de San Augustin on the roadwalk to Monticello resupply. My smile was HUGE HUGE HUGE here. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like it, and the photos don't even come close to capturing how alien and massive the landscape looked.

And then I was in Monticello. Luckily I found the home of the weekend postmistress and talked her into going the tenth of a mile to the PO and giving me my package. Otherwise I would have been trying to hitchhike 40 miles to Truth or Consequences on a road with no traffic, coming from a town with no stores or restaurants... hungry hungry hungry these days...

some nice roadwalking at night

pinnacles around Monticello Box

bye bye Monticello Box

now that's a nice watersource!

once climbing onto the Continental Divide, and the eastern extent of the Gila, I was expecting nice trails. What I found were severe burn areas, 40+ elk in a day (literally!!!), and maybe a tiny bit of nice and brand new trails.

San Mateo's in the distance from where I came

big burns, bigger color in the Black Range

The absurdly beautiful, LUSH, riparian habitat of Diamond Creek inside the Gila

in love with the Virginia Creeper crawling up that tree...

serious bushwacking. Thats brush over 6 feet high on a "shortcut" to get from Middle Fork of Gila to Adobe Canyon

Gila Cliff Dwellings before the crowds

hoodoos along the legendary West Fork of the Gila River

the crest of the Mogollion Mountains. Best fall color of the trip (so far)

yup

now it's time to head into Arizona and the Blue Range, and Eagle Creek, and then the town of Safford. I've read they have all a man can want in Safford, and what I want is a pizza buffet. And a Chinese Buffet. And movie theatre. And decently-priced resupply.

Smile. Smile and look alive!

2010-10-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

I can't lie to you. There have been times while hiking on monotonous jeep roads that I've considered reaching for my mp3 player. Just when I'm about to pull off my pack to fish it out, IT hits me: stillness. When the stillness really hits me, I halt my progress, hold my breath, and look. The tall grasses are blowing in a soft breeze. A few miles in the distance, I suddenly see a dozen different mesas. Each rises from the dry landscape around it, and proves that it dresses itself in different colors and jewelry than all of the others around. Sky extends far, far beyond in all directions and I quickly realize that this is far from monotomy.

Suddenly my walking is different. When I begin to move again, I find my footsteps are more relaxed. My feet are planted softly into the ground. Each trekking pole gently pushed into the Earth. No sounds can disrupt this silence.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE COWBOYS GONE?

If there is one thing I have learned about this trail already is that it is always changing. Okay; if there are two things I know about this trail, it's that it varies everyday, and there will be tons of solitude.

Q: How many people have I seen in 76 miles (3ish days) from Mountainair to Magdalena?

A: 5!!!

There's a whole lot of space out here for me and only me. And a few ranchers. A few birds. And apparently diamondbacks as evidenced by the creepy number of dens I've seen on crosscountry travel. I walked off into this newfound emptiness on the first of many ranching roads out of Mountainair. None of these guys are signed at all and most of the time ther are numerous 2-track roads "roads" that aren't even mapped at all. My map/compass/GPS were about to all become best friends, and best friends quickly. This is flat as country, and at first I was cruising and 3 to 3.5 mph. I would be able to do this everyday, until always hitting a wall late in the afternoon due to not being able to take enough breaktime. I'll blame all of this on the lack of daylight that shines these days...

Now standard HUGE views were all around, as were grey clouds. Thre have been threats of storms on 5 out of the 7 days I've been out here, but I've managed to stay dry in the day, and have my tarp get soaked at night. I had expected dry weather out here, but the cows and I will stay happy if our watering holes remain watered during these hours.

The tiny amount of drizzle that did fall that afternoon left a rainbow. Correction: a double rainbow in it's wake. For some reason I couldn't stop laughing and staring in intense disbelief. How could this trip get any more amazing? It always does...

Just before dark I arrived at the Thompson Ranch to ask for some tap water. According to my maps, he is a trail friend. When I asked him for water however, he only asked me in response "what do you need that for?" Despite my backpack shouldered and trekking poles in hand. He acted like he'd never seen a hiker out there before (there are very few on the GET), but still let me fill from his hose out front. He also offered advice in the form of "look out for diamondbacks. They're out there and about to return to their dens." Great.....

MY SHOES ARE DIRTY!

Next day would be a muddy affair on two track, but first I needed to find my bearings. The night before I'd started a x-c segment at dawn, and wasn't totally sure where I'd made it to in the dark. I was either in the proper canyon, or a minor drainage not far enough west. Both flowed south. GPS told me I was in the right spot, but after 2 shady readings, I'd come to only partially trust the thing. Turns out I was right (GPS too), climbed out of a side canyon, for more xc fun. 3 miles later I found myself on a muddy, slippery, eeewwwwww yukky road. Not soon after my shoes were the weight of Swedish clogs, an old-timer pulled on on an ATV. This is the only human other than my filthy self that I'd seen/smell all day.

"Whatcha doin?"
"Hiked out of the Manzanos. Headed to the Magdalenas across this land"
"You know these are all private inholdings don't ya?"
"UUUMMMMMMM"

Now the sweettalking began in earnest: "Beautiful country out here that you live in, eh?"

"Where you goin' again?" Then he goes on to tell me which roads on my map were county roads, and where to expect the roads to smoothen out.

And so I cruised on my way, enjoying another gray day. The day turned into the most navigation-intensive yet. Loads of of faint 2-track, to stock trails, then straight up xc with a compass bearing, to get to an unnamed wash. Tons of fun. I'm finding it is extremely rewarding to be on a trail where I actually need to use my grey matter.

My legs were throbbing and I had to stretch them out at the end of the day before I could cook my pot of generic Mac-Chee and chamomile tea. The stars are so bright until the clouds come and cover them all up...

ENOUGH WITH THE FLATS ALREADY!

sketchy ladder!

Today I finally let out my cry for diversity. The flats have been killing my muscles, and sapping my will to keep moving forward. First thing, I had to ford the Rio Grande. I'd spent a lot of the prvious day fretting over what would happen when I got there. There are two different bail-out options listed on the maps in case the water is too high and dangerous. With all of the rain the mountains had been getting, I was worrying that I'd find raging, chest-deep water awaiting me. It should come as no surprise that all I found was slow, knee-deep water. Disgusting, silty, muddy-bottomed, and pumped full of agricultural products. I'd wait 8 more miles to find a decent water source, thank you very much...

Still heading west, I entered San Lorenzo Wash, whose walls grew taller after a few miles to become the BLM jewel, San Lorenzo Canyon. This was the first bonafide canyon I've seen yet, deep enough to send me hiking up side canyons in search of slot canyons. Even more fun were the only 2 people I would see all day.

"Why would you want to hike here for?"
"I dunno. It's nice out. For travel. For adventure?"

His wife had to tap him on the shoulder with her cell phone to signal to him to just drop it.

Map studying in the laundromat rocking a tarp as a skirt....

Drive on...

La Luz (ABQ to Mountainair, NM)

2010-10-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

Confirmation that life ain't all that bad:

A) On a single hitch, I got a ride from Salt Lake City to Albequrque. With bunk beds and a tv in the truck to watch Nacho Libre to boot!
B) The smell of juniper smoke floats around camp while I cook at night.
C) I traversed the crest of the Manzano Mountains

Over the course of these 5 days, the smiles have been piling up higher and higher...

Day One

You know a trail is going to be good when it immediately starts with a 4,000 ft climb. This climb was on the legendary "La Luz" trail up and through a canyon choked with the yellow leaves of aspens. The feeling of wearing a heavy backpack was amazing, and I was pulling up the steep climb with ease. From the top, 9 miles later, the views were unlike anything I've ever seen before. Well, that's not entirely true. Maybe the views were something like those in Southern California or Northern Baja, but much more extreme. Visibility was around 100 miles, 80 miles of FLAT AS desert, then mountain ranges beyond. Arizona likes to call their isolated mountain ranges the "Sky Islands", but these mountains in New Mexico seemed no different. Islands of rock poking up from a sea of barren desert. Muy bonita.

Day Two

4,000 ft up means 4,000 ft down to the valley below. That's 4,000 ft down on really sore feet and knees, on a body still not fully recovered from running 100 miles 5 days prior. I ate a sub at the Tijeras Subway, packed a sub for the road, and headed out into the most boring terrain yet. Maybe I've become a scenery snob over the years, but the climbs through Tunnel and Ontero Canyons just didn't do it for me. I saw loads of mountain bikers from ABQ on the trails, and I couldn't help but think that I'd rather bike than hike through here. It was in this section that I learned to always have my compass in my pocket to verify my direction amidst the sea of jeep roads. The route had finally topped out on some plateau, and there were unmapped jeep roads and trails and etcetera all over the place.

The road hit a deadend at a barbed wire fence. I started off following the fenceline like the maps suggest, but soon realized that there was a road that sliced through this fencewalk, cutting the distance in half, and getting rid of the overgrown and steep hiking. I hiked this as quickly as I could, with no breaks other than the now standard 15 second check of the map. Just when darkness came and required the use of my headlamp, I found the junction with another barbed wire fence that I was looking for. There was just enough time to cook dinner over a juniper fire and steep some chamomile tea before the thunder yielded a drizzle, and I was forced to crawl under my tarp.

Day Three

Today had to be better than the last. This is the beauty of each new day in an adventure like this. You never know what you will see and how it will affect you. To start the day I was only staring at another walk along a barbed-wire fence though. I was to walk a road up on this tree-covered plateau, paralleling the fence, then find a junction with yet ANOTHER fence. When I couldn't find this junction with the fences all covered in trees, I had to make it my own way. Plan "B" was to take said road half a mile, hope the fence, and take a bearing on the eastward and orange sun, until I hit that fence. Bingo! Now follow that and hop it at a petroleum at the USFS border for more fun roadwalking.

Water carries. I'd been getting by on only 2 different water supplies at this point, all from chlorinated taps. Now I had to find a tasty cattle trough up on this featureless plateau. GPS is always a last resort, and one that I haven't had to resort to just yet. I was ecstatic when I found a cattle trail which went off into the woods and toward my water. Nice yellow water that is. Another hour on the road found me hiking an hoest to G.O.D. hiking trail. It felt as if I'd never done this before, and the snapping of pine branches underfoot was irresistible. I found another spring, this one miraculously gushing out of the ground and running clear.

And here I saw people again. We all climbed seperately up to the crest of the Manzano Mountain Wilderness. Just like on the Sandia Crest, the 4,000 ft of relief gave huge views over terrain that I was becoming increasingly familiar with. To the north is the craggy spine of the Sandia, west was the green slice around the Rio Grande (fording this in 2 days), and further southwest was the Magdelena Mountains. Up high on the ridge the spine of the Manzano's was very wide. The route alternated through overgrown trail, and wide open grassy meadows with the way marked by ginormous cairns. My feet were getting more blistered, so I didn't feel the least bit guilty when taking a bit of lazy time to soak up the views and sunlight on that ridge. After a steep and thorny descent to find water at Ojo del Indio, there was an even steeper climb to Capilla Peak.

As soon as I saw that there was a fire tower on the peak at 9,200 feet, I knew that I needed to find a way to camp up there. With huge clouds building, I wanted to be up high for the show. Of course the tower was locked and there really wasn't a spot to sleep and stay dry. Even though there was a flat spot for camping, logic sadly got the best of me and I decided it probably wasn't in my best interest to sleep on the top of the largest peak around in the middle of a lightning storm. sigh. On the way back down from the tower's pearch, I saw the most beautiful, silky, pastel-pink sky I've seen in months. In 30 minutes that beautiful sky was dumping hail that was piling up by the fistful outside of my tent. A gusts of wind came, tore out a stake, and left me cursing while I scrambled to put on my shoes and fix the tarp....

Day Four

"There's a dead moth in my dinner. DAMMIT...I hate it when that happens!"

Duly noted: don't shine headlamp into mac and cheese as you stir it or it resembles the bright orange flames that they become martyrs in. Not even 217 moths could bring me down from my buzz as I stretched out under my tarp, juniper flame at head, and began to write this entry.

When I had awoken this morning, I arose with nerves about the hideous, fire-induced, bushwacks that lived on in internet infamy. My map marked the boundary of two different burns, comprising some 8 miles of trail. Listening to this, I had visions of 7 mile days and running out of food. It should come as no surprise to find that the hype was overblown and I still managed to hike over 20 miles. That doesn't mean today didn't provide the most overgrown trail that I've seen yet. Even while pushing my way through scrub oak and briar patches, the burnt trees left tons of open space between their missing branches for huge views. The trail was incredibly vague on the many switchbacked descents to saddles, but my sixth sense of "traildar" always surprisingly found the way.

After 30 minutes spent staring into space at the top of Manzano Peak, it was time to drop off the north side of the Manzanos, for good.

Bear 100 Race Report

2010-09-26T13:38:00.001-07:00

From Bear 100

(Cute) girl with (cute)friend: "You're doing awesome and look great!"

Me: "If only you could feel my body right now."

::awkward silence::

Me: "ummmm, I guess that came out wrong, eh?"

GIGGLE GIGGLE GIGGLE

APPROACHING THE BEAR (aka The Bovine 100)

500ish miles of hitchhiking found me sharing the cars of conspiracy theorists, racist teenagers, and great conversationalists who shared my love of travel. Months of preparation and anticipation left me with only 4 hrs of sleep in my Super 8 motel room before lacing up and taking off

From Bear 100

170 or so runners waiting in the last minutes before the 6am start

From Bear 100

I found myself in the front 20 or so runners as we began the race, and funneled onto singletrack for the first 3,000 ft climb of the day. I was running with Matt, a guy from SLC who I'd met at the pre-race meeting. Matt had run the Wasatch 100 and enjoyed sharing stories and tips that he had learned from that run, his first 100. Soon we settled into a silent rhythm, and I was comfortably hiking at a fast comfortable pace. I'd decided to bring along my Titanium Goat carbon fiber trekking poles that I was already using. Bringing these along was a decision that would make life a hell of a lot easier when things hit the fan later on in the race...

THIS IS FUN (MILES 10-20)

Until then, everything was peachy. The trail was climbing and climbing up switchbacks out of the canyon from Logan and up to the ridge for sweet moon views at sunrise:

From Bear 100

Once up top, we were rewarded with some phenomenal running as the ridge dipped and wove with the valley staring from below. I was finally warmed up and began to pass a few people, then taking a break to photograph, and get passed by those same people I had just passed. My pace was pretty quick, but I never felt like I was pushing things too hard. Sure, I could have gone slower, but that wouldn't have been nearly as fun. Looking back, I should have followed the advice (forgotten on race day) of "Start with what you think is a slow pace, then divide that in half". With a goal of finishing in under 24 hrs, I figured I didn't have time to be too conservative however, and wanted to run relatively quick on the flats and downs. The pace stayed quick until we started an 800 ft climb up to the first aid station at mile 10.5.

The crew at this aid station was completely hilarious, one guy even asking me if I wanted a "rubdown". I hung around for maybe a bit too long joking with these people, and when I took off, I can't remember what I saw. Things have already become a bit of a blur and the first 30 miles or so have all been mashed together in my brain. The course profile claims that there was a climb out of that aid station, and then a descent. The aid station was nestled on a saddle above the first canyon that we had climbed out of, and at some point we started a really fast descent to the next aid station at mile 19.6ish. Jake from Stanley, ID came up behind me so I pushed the pace, using him as a catalyst for higher speed and a bit of friendly conversation. Jake was a really cool cat who I would wind up running with on and off for the first marathon, and then not see him for 70 miles. Bombing down this 6 mile descent was another instance of me pushing a bit too hard and too early....classic rookie mistake.

From Bear 100

This aid station was the first that support crews were allowed in, and it was a predictable zoo. Dozens of people on the side of the trail cheering us on as we came to refill bottles and gel containers. Here I started to get into the rhythm of getting one of the volunteers to fill up my hydration bladder with 40-50 oz of water, another volunteer to find my drop bag, and then I would refill my 2 gel flasks with the homemade energy gel waiting in my drop bag. When I was on the ball, I was always out of aid stations within 2 minutes. When I didn't care so much or worried about the clock, you could double that amount of time and blame it on good conversation. Going into the race I had intended to keep that number below one minute, but as time passed, I munched on fruit, talked, and just wanted to enjoy the entire experience...a quick adventure in under 36 hours really...

Leaving that aid station was an easy and flat 3 mile run up a craggy canyon along smooth dirt road, complete with magic light filtering thru fall leaves

From

From Bear 100

Bear 100

. Everyone was cruising up the slow 500 ft climb until the cows hit. Earlier in the run I asked another runner how the Bear compared to Wasatch 100. His answer was "The Bear is cowier".
running:

From Bear 100

stopped by over 50 cows

From Bear 100

We'd hoped to scare the cows out of the way, but soon it became apparent that this wasn't just a group of 10 cows, and instead much more. After stepping off to the side of the road, we heard some cowboys behind on horses usher them through. Now it was time for another aid station, and another nice dose of singletrack. On the elevation profile this looked like an intimidating climb, but out on the course, it turned out to be quite tame, if not long. This is a theme that would develop over the course of the race. All summer my training was focused on getting in as much elevation gain and loss possible, usually finding me on steep 3 mile climbs of 2,000 ft. That's not quite the same as 2,000 ft climbs spaced out over 4 feet. I found myself putting my poles away during the race and running some of those ups since they seemed so much easier than I had gotten used to Again....probably a mistake that I'd realize later...

The canyon walls drew in closer and choked by trees. Not sure why I don't have any photos of this section. More memory blur and somehow the trail is back in the open again!

From Bear 100

Lots of signs of cows now, with doo-doo infested trails and their footprints all near the boggy water-sources. Glad to not be self-supported and drinking the water through here.

Since my memory is hazy for a little bit, the least I can do is explain the general layout of the course. Canyon bottom, 2,000ft+climb to the top at a ridge, 2,000ft descent to another canyon floor, repeat. Ad infinitum. Sometimes the ascents and descents would be on dirt roads which would make the elevation change seem like a lot less. Following this pattern, the course began a nice dirt-road climb up to a high rolling section, this time with loads of sheep up high.

From Bear 100

I played leaprog with a runner from Missouri for a while out here along a nice and rocky descent. The running was fun and I was feeling great. Rocky and narrow singletrack is always engaging, and when you throw in colorful UT foliage, it really doesn't get much better.

From Bear 100

Somewhere in here the course climbed and again descended. And on this descent I got my first real physical worry of the run. My quads had been feeling sore between miles 10 and 20. That seemed a bit early to get sore to me, but more running shook that soreness out and I was feeling invincible. Now on this particular descent on a dirt road the underside of the arch on my left foot was delivering sharp pains to my sense of invincibility. After running a mile of this, I decided to take it easy and walk for a few minutes. Not being able to swallow my pride so easily, I began running, slowly, again. The pain returned but I just kept running. Being new at this silly 100 mile thing, I was unsure about how much pain I should just be dealing with and trying to ignore, and what pains to be truly conservative about and walk through. Hell, I didn't even know what was wrong with me!!

ATV and truck traffic began to pick up on this dusty dirt road located seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Smiles and waves were of no help, people just kept their faces smug and drove by. Just when the traffic was beginning to annoy me, the course was routed onto some low singletrack near the sounds of a small creek

From Bear 100

With the lack of descent, my foot was fine with running on this rolling and flattish trail. Time for another aid station. Things were starting to get really hot now. I made sure to take plenty of water out of here, then rushed past the cop directing traffic around the race on Hwy89. Now the running was in nice grassy terrain, but I wasn't feeling so hot. My foot wasn't the cause for my woes, but instead my stomach was the culprit. I was feeling really bloated and it was tough to do more than a quick walking pace. This had bothered me after leaving an aid station earlier in the race, and it took a few minutes to dig at the root of the problem. Since I'd never had this issue in any of my long runs this summer, I assumed I must have been doing something different in the race. FRUIT!! I decided to eat pieces of fruit at aid stations...good stuff like melon, strawberries, and orange slices. Could that have been it?? I've got no clue, but after that point I never ate any more fruit, and I never again got bloated...

Now we were really starting to get into the race. It was around 3pm (??) and nearing the 10 hr mark. Mile 50 was starting to near it's head and I needed a bit of an energy boost. I zipped open a tiny compartment on my Ultimate Direction running vest/pack and pulled out my mp3 player. I had been trying to wait for either the 50 mile point or darkness to arrive to savor this moment. And here it was. The shuffle function played all sorts of amazing music and I was back into the run. Chewing a couple of fruity-flavored Tums helped turn my stomach around and I was feeling like $1,000,001 bucks. The trail was shaded from the heat of the sun, but not much too look at. I hadn't seen any runners for over an hour while I was struggling with my stomach, but finally I was running quickly enough to pass 3 other people, one guy looked like he was leaning over about to puke. Once the trail topped out on a ridge, there was a really fun and FAST descent to a lake. The lake was beautiful, but sadly tough to see with the now low sun burning into my eyes from that direction.

THIS IS REALLY REALLY FUN
Now I'd found my second wind and decided I'd run uphill. Chatted with a man taking his son out on a backpacking trip. Not only did we talk about the beauty of this land and the lake, but he told me about the "party" every year at the Franklin Basin. Duly noted, and would become important later on. Keep in mind that he told me this at mile 51, and this aid station was 10 miles away. How quickly everything would change...

From Bear 100

On my way up I met up with Paul, a new friend I'd made who gave me a ride from the pre-trip meeting to my motel the night before. He told me I was running better than anyone else he'd seen on the hill. Of course he may have been feeding me lines like everyone does at these races, but I was already feeling great and now felt better. Ran most of the uphill for the first time of the race and then began a really steep and rocky descent. I was singing LOUDLY along with my music and was surprised to find 2 guys behind me. How could anyonecatch up to me with the pace I was keeping?? 10 seconds after that thought one of those guys asked me if I wanted any unsolicited advice. That advice was "don't run the uphills". Although I felt like I was killing it on the climb, I obviously wasn't going all that fast if this guy power-hiked the climb and then caught up with me on the descent. I felt like a total moron and was mentally beating myself up for the next couple of miles. It was then, in my first mental lowpoint, that my mp3 player battery died. My energy was starting to wane around mile 55, and now it really began to plummet. There was another big descent of over 2,000 miles and I mentally didn't want to do the slog. My pace dropped a bit with the decline of my positivity.

From Bear 100

THIS (SORT OF) HURTS - MILES 60-80

The sun was starting to get low, and I arrived at the 62 mile aid station just in time to pick up my headlamp. The ziploc bag waiting for me also had a long sleeved shirt, warm hat, gloves, and a windshirt, none of which I needed just yet. I was able to run out of this stop fine, but soon everything went to crap. My quads had been sore on and off for the past 40 miles...not a huge deal. Now my right knee was sending sharp pains up to my hip and I didn't know what to think. Later I came to realize that it was my IT band...a typical injury, and one at the time that it mattered I didn't know what it was... The pain was so extreme that it was tooo much for me to run the downhills. I could walk, and that was it. Uphills were better and I could easily power-hike those. But those descents were pushing tear-inducing territory. So I walked waaaayyy too slow on the descents, but made it to the aid station at mile 69. This station was the "party" station that the backpacker told me about 20 miles earlier, and I know I'd stay here for a bit. I hadn't sat done once for the entire race, but 70 miles into it, and I caved and sat down. I stayed here for 15 minutes or more while volunteers filled my water bladder, brought me broiled potatoes, candy, etc etc etc. Before this I had a fear about sitting down. If I sat would I be able to stand again??? When the time to move had come, I found that my legs felt much better. There was a really fun rock-hop across a large creek (even more fun 70 miles into a race..) , and then another big climb. I hiked really strongly, even passing a couple of people before the 2,000 ft descent to the Beaver Mtn Lodge Yurt. Feeling so great on the climb had me experimenting with running downhill again.

From Bear 100

TERRIBLE IDEA. The pain in my knee returned with a vengeance and I found myself hobbling down the steepest descent yet. I felt like I was moving slower than 1 mph, possibly the slowest I've ever hiked in my life. With no music or daylight, there were no distractions to take me away from my frustrations. The only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that somewhere at the bottom was a warm yurt to sit down in and regroup. During the descent I caught multiple glimpses of the yurt lit up beyond. It really didn't look that far away. What it did look like was a huge drop to come, and then a climb up and out of another canyon to reach the yurt above. Definitely NOT what I wanted to see thru the trees.

Those next couple of hours spent hobbling thru the dark were a serious lowpoint, as were the throngs of people passing me by with a lot of pep in their steps. Finally at the bottom I was rewarded with a tiny ascent to the yurt, and air full of warmth. Hung out inside for over 15 minutes again, chatting, eating, and eating some more. My new theory became that my knee needed warmth so that it wouldn't tighten up. After a minute of stretching I went back into the cold. And cold it was after coming from the relative warmth of the yurt.

OK, THIS COULD BE THE LOWEST POINT OF MY LIFE (MILES 80 TO THE FINISH)

No telling what happened in this stretch. My knee felt terrible and I just kept hobbling along. The cold was getting more and more intense, and my layers were proving to be justtttt adequate. There was another aid station around mile 81 that was downright frigid. To the volunteers credit, they had a large fire to help warm us up near. Here I found another guy struggling to go on. He was just staring vacantly into the fire while his father tried to get him psyched for the remaining marathon left to run. We were told that the thermometer at this aid station was reading 26 degrees, and could only be colder in the narrow canyons to come. Hearing that made the air feel even colder to me until the sun finally rose hours and hours later.

The last few hours of the night are a complete blur. I never hiked with anyone else, was very very cold, had no music, and generally can't think of anything else to complain about. An hour before sunrise I made it to the aid station at mile 85 and stayed by the fire for nearly half an hour. Even when I was worthless around mile 75 I knew that I would finish the race. Now that I was only 15 miles away, I felt no need to rush and really wanted to spend time at the only thing there was to get excited about out here: FIRE! A good group of runners caught up, one who decided to drop out so close to the finish. Finally I got bored, packed up, and walked into the coldest hour of the morning.

The sun rose. The course went to the top of a nicely lit ridge, and then dropped down into another canyon and the Ranger Dip aid station.

From Bear 100

"Your IT Band is totally screwed up man" -Him
"Um....what's that?" - Me

Yea, apparently that knee issue is a really popular injury and one that was temporarily fixed with the compression strap that a woman had lying around to give to me. The guys at this final aid station were awesome, and even cooked up pancakes, bacon, eggs, and coffee. If I were actually racing this thing there was no way I'd put that food in my stomach, but thankfully I wasn't running. Those eggs hit the spot and I took off on the final hike with renewed vigor. People had been talking about how this climb was impossible and the toughest on the course, but it was typical hype. Yea it was steepish, but 800 ft over 1.5 miles really ain't that bad...

The final descent was completely brutal. You'd think that being at mile 94 and so close to the finish would have me fast and stoked to finish it all off. No way. With that new compression strap I made my best attempt at running. Finishing in under 30 hrs was still in the realm of possibility, but the rocky trail was pushing that realm further and further away. It was tough enough to pick me feet up off of the ground while walking. Factor in running with a knee that was tough to bend and the difficulty shot up a tad. My knee was functional for the first mile, but after that the pain returned and my hope in finishing in under 30 left.

Although it was only 7.5 miles from the last stop to the finish line, it took me over 4 hours to get there. If you're a math wizard, your brain probably already figured out that this is less than 2 mph. Pathetic right?? My thoughts exactly. Oh yea...I'd been awake for over 30 hrs at this point. My eyes were getting really heavy, and caffeine pills had finally found their limits. I began looking for a flat and shaded spot to take a quick nap. Lucky for me there were no good flat spots on this mountain other than the trail itself. Would I have ever woken up before the 36 hr cutoff if I went to sleep?? Instead of lying down, I sat down in the shade, folded my arms over my knees, and laid my head down on those arms. With my eyes closed for a couple of minutes, I rose with a trickle of added energy. At around 10 the heat started to kick in and I got even more tired. As I dropped in elevation the trail seemed to open up a lot, and I was getting baked by the sun. More and more naps were necessary. By the grace of some sort of God, I made it to the bottom of the mountain.

I could see Bear Lake oh so close, and a paved road to get there. Oh wait, there is ANOTHER climb! I saw the pink flagging branch off to the left, indicating that I needed to take an ATV trail up another hill. This made absolutely no sense since I knew I could just walk thru the gate in front of me, take a paved road to the highway, and take the highway to the lake. Was this some cruel joke by locals? We had all been warned that there were elk-hunters who weren't happy with the race and liked to remove course flagging as a form of revenge. Was this something similar??? Not wanting to cut the course short, I tried the climb anyway. My elation at reaching the bottom of the climb was immediatly reversed when I had to start another dusty climb. Would i EVER finish? Soon two other runners experienced in the ways of the Bear came behind me and confirmed that this was indeed the route, and that it was indeed a cruel, cruel joke by the race designers.

200-2,000,000 ft later, the road hit the top of the hill, went down to the river, and I soaked my feet and got some desperately needed water. Now the finish was in sight. I was (sort of ) hydrated, and to the best of my knowledge there would be no more surprise hills. In the 30 hours of this race, I had become one of those people who whine about going up and down mountains, sort of like lots of thru-hikers I've known through the years. I'd cursed rocks. Cursed my inability to pick up my feet. Now I was going to finish.

The views of Bear Lake situated in the surrounding barren landscape were beautiful all morning and afternoon. Finally I was surprised to find myself running the last quarter of a mile on that road while a few people standing around cheered me on. I'm still not sure how I was able to run again, but it was one of the surprising highlights of the run for me. All of my pain was gone as I turned off the street and ran the short stretch thru the park to the finish line.

31 hours and 54 minutes sure is a long time to be out there. I had been really frustrated with myself around mile 75 when I realized that my finish would be longer than 24 hours. After that point, I really didn't care about time anymore. Finishing was the only goal I had, and I knew that I could do it. For that last horrible stretch when I was progressing at a near-crawling pace, I whined to anyone that listened that "I would never run 100 miles again". "This is stupid" I would say. Now in the hours and days that have followed, I've changed that. In 30 hours, I felt like I had an adventure that takes days and days to experience while on a backpacking trip. The sense of total physical drain was frustrating at the time, but with flawless hindsight, there is something satisfying about giving absolutely everything that you have, and the physical feeling that followed. I'm not sure how much further I could have pushed myself out there without passing out. The heat of that 2nd day and my dehydration made passing out become a serious concern.

Is this all physical gluttony? Do I really want to put myself through the hell I experienced those last 25 miles? Was it really hell or was I just being a whiner all that time? I'm pretty sure I could do the run better if I got another shot. I wouldn't go out so fast my next time. No fruit would find it's way into my stomach. My mp3 player would be fully charged. If I'm in some of the best shape of my life again next year, my (now badly swollen) feet may be toeing the imaginary start line for another race in the American West...

Close enough to touch

2010-09-23T09:58:00.001-07:00

Ready for the hitch to the starting line...

Goodbye CB

2010-09-19T16:49:00.000-07:00

Today was a good way to end my fall in Crested Butte.

Woke up next to Yule Lakes, at 12,000 ft:

Climbed 1,500 ft off-trail:

Summited Treasure Mtn (13,500 ft w/ change):

rode back down a dusty and rutted Washington Gulch Rd with views like this:

I can only assume that the colors in the canyons and high passes between Logan, UT and Bear Lake, ID will be every bit as good as what I saw today.

Kerouac-style

2010-09-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

Soooo many people hate hitching. You stand on the side of a road, thumb falling asleep, all the while getting baked by the sun. People play a silly game of cherades with you, trying to mime to you that they just don't have room in their car. Or perhaps they only have one more block to go, signaled by a thumb and index finger placed an inch apart. Usually those cars have an empty passenger seat, and the driver is about to pull onto an interstate with no upcoming exit for MILES.

I think all of this is quite funny, and it's all worth it when that person finally does pull over and give you the most stimulating conversation you've had in your life. I've had the classic ride sitting in the back of a truck with the grandieur of Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante flying by on all sides. Dogs which shed enough hair to make me sneeze have sat in my lap and licked my face while the driver is listning to some good Neil Young. Once, a guy drove me to his house, picked up his 60's convertible, and drove 3 hours out of his way to drop me off in Kanab, AZ. He did all of this solely because my own adventure caused him to want to do something out of the ordinary and go on an adventure of his own.

Looking at this map I can't help but get excited:

From Drop Box

DINOSAUR, CO!!!! is damn right. Northwest Colorado is one part of the state I have always wanted to visit, and this time it's going to happen. There ain't much out there in them parts of CO. I like to daydream about what it may look like. Huge mesas extending 800 ft into the air on either side of the road. The smell of sage hanging in the air while one thumb is extended to the sky, the other occupied with reading "The Perfect Storm". Are there little oiling operations out there with their drills bobbing up and down, without a person in sight? Will it only be rednecks driving those roads, who when seeing me, scream "damn hippies" to themselves and look the other way when passing??

And then there are the Wasatch mountains, hopefully splattered with yellows and reds by the time I get into them. A closer look at the map reveals town names that you may recall from your reading of Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven". Zooming in even closer in google shows a whole freakshow of Mormon sites to be seen in downtown Utah. I've been told there is a fine brewery in Park City that goes by the name of Wasatch; tasty, weak, and very Mormon beer to be found inside.

Starting Monday in the wee hours of the a.m., its finally time to find out...

A big fall

2010-09-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

I'm not gonna lie, that elevation profile is intimidating. I've got not clue if I am even ready for a race like this, but constantly dreaming about doing it over the past 2 years has forced me to give it a go in less than 3 weeks. I feel strong. Have done runs of up to 14,000 ft of elevation gain. Those were only around 28 or 30 miles (lame I know), and only half of the total elevation gain of this race. Adding more fun to matters is the 12 hrs of night-running I'll be doing. I tasted a bit of this a few nights ago running down from the Ruby Range, and after an hour I was thinking that there was no way I could do 11 more like that, without losing the course and without losing my mind...

Once I finish with that silliness, and as soon as I can walk, it'll be time to tackle 730+ miles of this:

I've got 109 detailed maps printed of the route. The guidebook, which covers about 2/3 of the trail divided into 3 sections for maildrops. New pack. New tarp. New trekking poles. New GPS (gasp!).

My hope is that this trail will push me in ways that other trails haven't pushed me before. In the past I've done long hikes with navigational struggles with other people. This time I will only have myself to rely on, and I've improved my map and compass skills to the point that I do trust myself. The trail promises to be remote and offer solitude and a wild feeling that so many other hikes in the lower 48 can't always give.. And then there's the bushwacking in those lonely and underused wilderness trails...

Hopefully I'll get online once a week for 5 weeks until I finish this trail to upload a few pictures of the beauty of NM and AZ, as well as a few poorly-writted words. First there are peaks to bag, aspen leaves to turn yellow and be seen, trails to run, and 800 miles to hitchhike toward Logan, UT, and another 800 to Albequerque. Epic hitching and living for sure...

Oh Be Joyful! run

2010-07-27T16:55:00.000-07:00

2 months after leaving Guatemala behind, I'm finding myself in the middle of training for my only real failure last year: not running the Bear 100. Sure I could have more miles under my belt at this point, but things will work out fine as usual. Last weekend was the first proper long run of the summer, 25 miles with 5,400 ft of elevation gain. About 30 other CO ultrarunners showed up to share the beauty. The race was put on by ultralegend Kirk Apt. No fees. No course markings/flagging. No aid stations. Simple simple. 5 minutes before we took off, Kirk handed us a black and white topo map of the route, tried to explain some confusion junctions, and that was it.

No one seemed to want to take off in first place, so I dashed to the front and took this pic of the crew starting up a brief stretch of doubletrack

I quickly joined in with Allen and Jake, but experienced ultrarunners from Crested Butte. We set the pace and were definitely a good few minutes ahead of the person in 4th. I felt the pace definitely could have been faster, but didn't want to push it too early in the race, so stayed a bit conservative. I'd later come to regret this, but for the meantime it was nice to joke around with those guys. They were hilarious and full of information on running Hardrock, the Bear, Leadville silliness, etc etc.

Another reason not to push the pace up front was to stay dry while breaking through overgrown trail. Loads of cabbage and flowers in the trail. Thanks Allen!!!

And then the amazing wildflower section began. For nearly a quarter of a mile we found ourselves pushing through shoulder-high flowers that grew over the trail.

yea!!!!

Finally up above treeline, and definitely not running anymore. Steady speedhiking here...

Allen and Jake were really strong hikers up this steep climb and I fell even further behind taking some pictures. By the time I reached the pass, they had dropped over the other side and were out of sight.

The view from where I came:

And where I was to go:

what an amazing course. Surely the best 25 mile race in the country?????

When I finally put the camera back into my backpack, I managed to lose the trail. How this happened still leaves me dumbfounded. The trail I was on became steep and more like a goat trail. This is a theme that would be repeated at the next pass. From up high I could see a switchback to the left, but while descending I never found the switchback. Wound up going a bit too low, took a quick break to swap socks (new shoes a tad too large..) and was about to break out a legit map when the two behind me (Sarah and Yarri) had just topped the pass. They were actually on the switchback that I needed. Laced up the shoes and ran uphill to chat for a minute then move on.

The running was fast, not as muddy as the last time I was in this basin. Passed a few backpackers and quickly realized I was a tad dehydrated. Chugged as much as I could before getting water from the outlet of Blue Lake (sketchy???) and going up to the pass. I never treated any of the water I got, and never carried more than a handheld bottle of water. Everyone else had hydration bladders that they only filled a time or two. Starting to reconsider this style before I run the Bear. After passing the last water source for a few miles, the trail dissappeared into what the maps call 'faint trail'. I could see the trail climbing up to the pass, so just went cross country and hit the trail at the base of the climb.

The pass:
see the little trail going up to the gap??

Runners who had previously run this route were complaining about this climb before the race even began. Now finally hiking it, I didn't think it was bad at all. Certainly not even close to the steep and loose stuff you find when doing some off-trail peakbagging in the area.

Back in power hiking mode and back in being blown away by wildflowers mode. The scent from the yellow flowers lining the trail to the top was overpowering. A few days later and I still haven't recovered. By how much conversation this received after the race, I doubt the other runners have gotten over the intensity either.

Sarah and Yarri starting the climb...

Up top:

Not sure why I didn't take any more photos after this, or even a proper wide-angle photo from Star Pass. Most likely I figured it was time to try to gain some time on Allen and Jake on the downhill, which wouldn't happen.

Next up was a crazy class 4 scramble on a goat trail to gain Scarp's Ridge. Turns out there was another trail on the otherside of the pass, much easier, and much safer. That was another 10 minutes wasted.

Now on Scarps Ridge and to a really fast downhill amidst more yellow wildflowers, and now the addition of tourist hikers. Jumped off the trail for many a hiker and then down to Lake Irwin. The trail junctions were really confusing, but luckily Allen had swung thru here earlier, placed a cooler of sodas(!!!), as well as a cairn at an unsigned jct. After connecting a few obscure pieces of singletrack and dirt roads, it was time for the last piece of trail.

6ish miles of the Dyke Trail. More mindblowing wildflowers. This trail would have normally been easy, but after 20 miles and 5,000 ft of elevation gained, the legs were a bit rubbery and were unhappy with all of the rolling and baby uphills. I didn't want to lose my 3rd place and knew that Sarah wasn't all thatttt far behind. A bit of focus on my form as a way of meditation, and I finished in 5 hrs and change.

Time for another huge run, this time the 4 pass loop in the Maroon Bells

Hasta Luego

2010-05-01T07:55:00.000-07:00

From Mainland MEX

welp. our trip is nearly over. Not enough time to write about it now, but suffice to say, we are still having fun. Some of that could be due to the fact that we are soaking up every minute of this adventure before it ends. It could also be due to the fact that Guatemala is incredibly beautiful. Either way, we have had some incredible adventures these past few weeks.

so we climbed up Volcan Tajumulco, the tallest peak in Central America. Yup...beautiful:

From Mainland MEX

We've spent more time this past week riding our bike unloaded then loaded. Lots of beautiful rides with our gear resting in the homes of our warmshowers.org hosts. This morning we rode up and around and down Lago de Atitlan. Tomorrow we leave this oasis:

From Mainland MEX

We plan to leave here tomorrow, ride to Antigua, camp at the base of the active Volcan Pacaya. On Cinco de Mayo, we will be catching a flight out of Guatemala City and starting a different life in Milwaukee. Perhaps in the future we will find ourselves flying into Columbia to ride south through the Andes....

Proper Guatemala update with photos and sappy thoughts to follow when we return to the States. Nervous for sure...

Alta Verapaz

2010-04-17T23:50:00.000-07:00

This is going to be tough to pull off after going nearly a month without blogging. Expensive internet, lack of towns with internet, and lack of desire to sit in front of a computer for more than 10 minutes at a time led to me avoiding the blogging thing, but here we go...

...we are in Guatemala!

Belice
After 4 months in Mexico, and a monthlong surprise visit in Belize, I thought Id never get around to write that. Mexico had much more to offer us than we had ever imagined before leaving. Belize surprised us even more. The diversity of people in that country was staggering in a way that we have grown to appreciate back in the States. There were Chinese, black Caribs, gringo expats, and refugees who fled civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala to make a beautiful mix of cultures. The north of the country was flat, full of sugar cane fields, and overflowing with smiling people. Lots of raggae music around every corner and the cool slow speech of the Carribean Garifuna culture...speaking in ENGLISH!

We grew a tad soft in our month in Belize, speaking in our native tongue nearly all day long. We took an hour long boat ride out to an island...Caye (key) Caulker. Here the water was that dreamy Carribean shade of jade green. The locals had no cars, but cruised the streets in single speed cruiser bikes like your Granny rides. We took a sailboat out to the Barrier Reef to snorkel with whale sharks, manta rays, millions of fish, sea turtles. Lisa dove the BLUE HOLE. Most importantly we came to realize that we desperately need hammocks in our everyday lives once we have some normal sort of settled life once this cycling adventure ends. Lying around in hammocks has an effect on these people that is impossible to deny...

And then we rode west, back on the mainland, and up into Belize´s Maya Mountains. We initially had laughed at the thought of Belize having quote unquote Legitamte Mountains, but after riding the steep dirt roads to our couchsurfing friend David´s place, we had newfound respect. The longest cave system in the Americas lies under these mountains. And on top of the mountains lie tons of Mayan ruins and beautiful waterfalls. There is also a gnarly singletrack route through the wild and remote Cockscomb Basin that is begging us to return to Belize and ride....

Guatemala

After 4 days, we managed to break away from those jungle clad mountains and enter Guatemala. With our outdated Lonely Planet guidebooks, we were unsure whether or not there was a tourist VISA fee. This made it easy to get scammed out of 25 Quetzales upon entry which we realized hours later once we met other cyclists headed the other way. Oops.

Immediately after getting scammed, the pavement ended on the Belize side, and a dirt road began on the other...welcome to Guatemala. Traffic was nonexistant and the hills began to grow around us. We had assumed that this region, El Peten, would be flat and in the jungle, but it wasn´t. We rode these mellow hills north and into the steep ruins at Tikal. Late in the afternoon we got a nice sunset all to ourselves on Temple V. Early in the morning we got to stare at amazement at the colorful birds flocking and chirping in the trees surrounding Temple IV. Afterwards, we were rewarded with good conversation with a photographer who has spend the past 2 years trying to photograph the elusive jaguar in remote Indonesian islands, and now in Belize.

Then we moved on. At the time we were traveling with our Swedish cyclist friend Hannah and had a blast. Lots of joking and smiles in the green hills leading to Poptun, and Finca Ixobel. We left Hannah behind and made our way up up and up into the mountains. We were blessed with pavement to get us used to climbing uphill for hours on end for the first time in months. Once in Fray Bartolome de las Casas, the pavement ended, and the sweating began.

This is without question the toughest cycling we have done on the trip. period.

Sure there was sand in Baja. The washboards made our wrists go numb and teeth chatter. The rains of the Michoacan highlands had us shivering. But this is a different story. In our lowest gears, we find ourselves pushing the pedals as hard as we can, only to yield a speed that is barely faster than walking the bike. Factor in loose gravel, and it´s tough to even keep the wheels spinning. Pedal too erraticaly and the wheels just push thru the rock and get no traction. Not hard enough and you can´t even get into the saddle. Throw in wide vehicles trying to pass on a road barely wide enough for the both of us, and you´ve got a bit of fun. We´ve found us pushing the limits of what we can ride with loaded bikes. Hell, riding some of this with an unloaded mountain bike with wide tires would be tough.

Naturally, all of the riding is worth it. The challenge is enough to make us keep doing it, and no one really drives these roads. When we roll through tiny villages, there is nothing else going on to distract people from the gringos...filthy and sweating, pedaling through their streets. They shout GRINGO! at us. Once an entire group of schoolchildren on recess started to chant at us as we passed. We can hear the strange sounds of these Mayan languages as we ride past without the noise of other cars to cover them up. And what a strange tongue this is. The people have a really weird high pitched intonation, paired with clicking sounds, which makes their language sound more like Chinese mixed with African languages, than Spanish. Since Spanish is these peoples second, and sometimes third language, we find they speak Spanish nice and slowly....

After 2 tough days, we were rewarded with Semuc Champay. The backpackers bible Lonely Planet claims this to be the most beautiful spot in Guatemala. We can´t quite make claims like this yet, but it sure was beautiful. A raging river cuts thru the rock, goes underground, and then is spit out from under this limestone bridge further downstream. While the river is underground, there are shallow pools on top fed by springs flowing down from the mountains in the valley. These pools are beauitful shades of blue and green and perfect for swimming. Quite the surreal place, and after working so hard, we naturally had to spend lots of time soaking....

Its not tough to say that we are fully in love with Guatemala. With so much to look foward to here, we find ourselves really excited to see what each day is going to bring. We´ve already read several people say that the highway between here, Coban, to Huehuetenango is perhaps the best cycling in all of Central America. We are thinking about living with a family and sutdying Spanish for a week, way up high in a Mayan mountain village called Todos Santos. The tallest volcano in Central America is begging to be climbed. The travelers oasis of Lago de Atitlan is screaming at us to relax in hammocks after baggging volcanic peaks which surround the lake...

Hopefully the next post will have pictures from a USB card reader that is yet to be found in Guatemala. Till then, enjoy your own adventure....

Yet more adventure

2009-11-10T12:56:00.001-08:00

Currently in Milwaukee, then to Atlanta, then on a greyhound to start the next adventure on November 22nd. I'm starting up a new blog at http://yumatoushuaia.blogspot.com for the trip. Hopefully I'll get a gear list and who knows what else up on there before doing internet cafe updates on the road while munching on Fish Tacos.

Till then, a ghetto map of our unplanned 'route' through Baja. Really, we'll be making it up as we go, but we start out on the west coast, know that there are 10,000 ft peaks to hike through, canyons with hotsprings, snorkeling in the Sea of Cortez, whale migrations on the Pacific side, and so much more. No telling where we'll end up, but at least this is what Baja looks like on a map!

Back, again.

2009-10-28T15:00:00.000-07:00

Crested Butte has been dropping snow on me since I got here yesterday, a night and day difference from the desert environment I just spent the past month in...

5 weeks or so ago LB and I went back to UT to take care of some unfinished business that we missed this spring.

Biz like:

hiking thru the ruins of Grand Gulch
exploring the slot canyons and natural arches around Coyote Gulch
Hiking the lenght of the Paria River to Buckskin Gulch, then hanging out in my favorite spot in UT, the Coyote Buttes

and the CRUX:

hiking the last 120 miles of the Hayduke Trail from the Grand Canyon to Zion.

Naturually, it all turned into a better adventure than expected, complete with loads of photos that I'll eventually get to uploading. Grand Gulch was a nice start, and every canyon after that just got better and better. The canyon that grew as we went upstream around the Paria River might be the most colorful I've seen, and man did we get WET constantly fording the not so deep "river". Buckskin Gulch was fun, and exploring the high teepees and fun slickrock around the Coyote Buttes turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip.

Coyote Gulch was one of the greenest spots we saw in Utah, aside from the high-altitude stuff around Boulder Mtn, which we hitched over. Ferns and seeps and trees and just oh so verde down in the Gulch. Nat'l Bridges, Arches, and not too many people. Zebra and Peek-A-Boo were very beautiful, non-technical slot canyons that were nearby, and yea, lots of other surprises too.

Some technical canyoneering came next further east with some friends from CO, then we did a surprise 3 day trip in the sleeper national park in UT...Capital Reef. Really really funky landscape where all of the plateaus and peaks had a really confusing slant to them from creases in the earth's crust.

After those fun little 4 to 5 day trips, it was time for what I was the most excited about, and that was the mini thru-hike from GC to Zion, and it didn't dissappoint. Epic hitchhiking first to get out to a really remote spot on the north rim of the GC, which made us roadwalk at least 15 miles on dirt forest service roads to get out there. Every time I go back to that canyon I appreciate it more and more, and nothing can make you enjoy it more than spending the previous weeks exploring the best canyons that the area had to offer. And all of them paled in comparison, at least in terms of size. Yea the canyon always felt large, but this time I finally had a good reference point since I've seen more canyons, and it was epic. So beautiful.

Hiked down to the river in a day, rock-hopped, cursed, fell, and got free beers from rafters till we finally made the 7 miles downriver to Kanab Creek. The canyon here was green green green, full with fun "Chokestone Alley's", and the best spring I've seen in my life. 21 miles later Hack Canyon hit Kanab and we headed northwest along it. Hack was wider, and I may have enjoyed the not so claustrophobic canyon a tiny bit more. Hack finally opened up fully and we were on the Arizona Strip. FLAT and lots of dirt road walking, around 50 miles worth. I was surprised at how beautiful i found the place. could see for miles, and could see Colorado City, our only resupply point for a day.

CO City was just as strange as I was expecting it to be. One advantage of being in a polygamist town is that they have huge families, and huge familes need lots of food. Therefore, the bulk food section in the grocery store was impressive, and the food was cheap. the highlight of town for sure.

Climbed thru the canyons out of town and got up high before dropping down into Parunuweap Canyon which would take us into Zion. This canyon was probably the highlight of the trip. Fall was in full swing down there and the trees were all yellow, orange, and red, and I was all smiles. Such an inredible place. Followed a seriously sketchy route to climb up to the rim of the canyon, up onto the East Rim of Zion Canyon, camped way up high for a good view, then dropped down into the canyon to finish the trail at Weeping Rock.

I'm hoping to put together a really nice trip report with photos in the coming weeks before departing for Baja, Mexico to start the next trip, and surely the most epic yet. No ending planned, speaking a foreign language in a land that we have no knowledge or plans for....

some stuff

2009-09-07T19:42:00.000-07:00

Getting things together for the next big adventure involving bicycles, good company, and many Latin Americans. Details later...

A bit of boredom and unlimited time on a laptop with my most recent memory card led me to upload a few pics. Cheers!

From CB hikes

Guess who's back?

2009-09-04T13:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy summer here in Crested Butte, what with working part-time and constantly backpacking and biking and all. Just got back from an incredible and epic trip with LB, taking loaded bikes up and over jeep roads around town. Biked up and over Schofield Pass, down the infamous Devil's Punchbowl, down to Aspen on the rec path, then back up on jeep roads over Pearl Pass and back into town at 1 am after hours of sublime moonlit riding.

A few pics:

From Pearl Pass biking

more more more

2009-06-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

maybe a boo-boo yesterday and accidentally took down some photos that I spent too much time uploading. Now they are there ,along with more.

ALMOST DONE!

2009-06-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

More photos are at the bottom of the photo onlslaught to try to keep things in order. I should have all photos up by tomorrow

Photos part deux

2009-06-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, now I'm going to start uploading chronologically...

nice shadows down in the canyon of Natural Bridges National Monument

From UT by Bike

Amazing pink rocks east of Lake Powell

From UT by Bike

Spider Mesa in Capital Reef NP off of the Burr Trail

From UT by Bike

The famous Burr Trail Switchbacks

From UT by Bike

Barren land on Hwy 12

From UT by Bike

Powell Point, which Gen Powell stood on to survey the landscape..

From UT by Bike

freakshow rocks in Bryce

From UT by Bike

Thor's Hammer in bryce and a cute tree

From UT by Bike

Man those pastels in Bryce....

From UT by Bike

man...

From UT by Bike

Hoodoos! yup, Bryce.

From UT by Bike

Red Canyon just west of Bryce, complete with smooth bike path.

From UT by Bike

Zion Bliss

From UT by Bike

Huge rock, little man. In the pool under the Upper Emerald Pool...Zion

From UT by Bike

Zion Canyon. Big walls

From UT by Bike

North Rim G.C. aspen

From UT by Bike

love that north rim

From UT by Bike

Grand Canyon!!! now we're down in it

From UT by Bike

Gorgeous Little Colorado Riv water flows into big boy colo.

From UT by Bike

nice to finally have a model for sense of scale...

From UT by Bike

The freaky Unkar Flats in the GC

From UT by Bike

back along the BIG colorado Riv

From UT by Bike

Funky rock walking

From UT by Bike

small man...

From UT by Bike

Sunsets were usually tame down in the canyon, but this one ain't so bad..

From UT by Bike

Beautiful morning light and LB in there somewheres

From UT by Bike

That moon was great as it helped us start hiking at 4am sans headlamps to beat the heat

From UT by Bike

View from Hermit's Rest on the South Rim

From UT by Bike

Awesome strata on the wall.

From UT by Bike

Hiking up White Canyon(??) in the GC

From UT by Bike

Negoiating steep pour-offs with a large pack with large resupply can be tricky

From UT by Bike

Fun fun descent down-canyon to get back to the big Riv

From UT by Bike

Awesome abandonded boat and lame posturing above the riv

From UT by Bike

Beautiful slick pour-off

From UT by Bike

chokestone in a narrow canyon, viewed from below

From UT by Bike

big boulder that we had to descend

From UT by Bike

epic rock!

From UT by Bike

Only way to get down canyon is to get wet...

From UT by Bike

Love that Prickly Pear

From UT by Bike

waterfall on the shortest river in the world.

From UT by Bike

Too many photos...

2009-06-08T09:10:00.001-07:00

I'm finally uploading photos, which is a slow process when using the web at the library. This will most likely take DAYS...and to make matters more confusing, I'm sort of working backwards. Sorry!

Oh man I love nice sunsets, this a doozy in the Cortez doggy park.

Killer clouds in the farmland near Mancos, CO

Storm??? Just below Molas Pass.

Storm leads to killer lighting.
Dropping down Molas, looking at the town of Silverton. Sweet valley.

Climbing up Red Mtn, looking back toward Silverton
Now doesn't that look fun!!!?!
Ouray. aka "Little Switzerland"
Workin' my way up to Kebler Pass and then home

Text of the finish.

2009-06-08T09:02:00.000-07:00

"You look like shit dude!"

And with that, I was welcomed to the top of my last climb, Kebler Pass, by Disco and began the descent to the end of my trip. A wet and cold finish when everything seemed to die and fall apart at just the right time.

Before all of that, I had some miles to cover to get to that point. I left Cortez early in the morning after camping in the doggy park to try to get to Durango before noon. On the way to Durango I passed the beautifully lush valley that holds the small town of Mancos. Lots of hills were climbed, then descended, until I hit the last long long and fun fun descent down into Durango . I had been looking forward to Durango for a while, especially since it was second in line for me to relocate to after Crested Butte. Things started off well when I was introduced to an incredibly fast surface on the bike lane, unlike any I've seen before on the trip. Then for some reason the bike lane ceased to exist. I'm still baffled on how Durango, a town reknowned for being bike-friendly, didn't have a bike lane for miles on that highway. I picked up a pint of ice cream and downed it by the library, happy to get out of the horrible traffic that flowed through town. Suffice to say, Durango wasn't nearly as quaint as I had imagined in my head, and I was happy with my home in Crested Butte, not here.

I didn't want to linger for too long in Durango since I knew that afternoon thunderstorms were on their way and I wanted to make it as far as I could and hide out from them before getting close to the top of Molas Pass. After about 12 miles, the rain came sure enough, as well as lightning higher up. I was able to make it to The Needles, a strange town sort of thing just south of the Purgatory Ski Resort. I stopped in the bike/ski shop and chatted up some locals to see where I should camp for the night. There wasn't really a chance that I was going to make it to the top of Molas Pass before dark, so I wanted a spot lower down and hopefully out of the lightning. They told me about a great alternative, Lime Creek Road, which not only had great camping near the creek, but would also reconnect with the highway just north of the first pass. I hung out there for over 2 hrs, waiting for the rain to stop, listening to the owner tell me about how Montana is going to blow up like Colorado has soon, munching on Doritos, and enjoying the scenery of the San Juans. The owner was there with his wife and daughter and claimed that they had traveled a lot, and they lived in Needles because there was no other place they would rather be. Very cool.

Lime Creek Rd was indeed a fantastic road. At first it started out as a nice and smooth dirt road. After a couple of miles, it warped into a nasty rock-filled path that reminded me a lot of Lockhart Basin Rd way back in Moab, minus the steepness. I met a really cool couple from Aspen who were car camping and offered me a beer. Whenever I have to turn down a good microbrew I always feel like an idiot and that my adventure is a failure. This was no exception. I found the words "sorry, but I've got to ride further so I can beat the storms tomorrow on the passes" coming out of my mouth. Disgusting. I could tell they were good company, but I was so focused on timing my trip though the San Juans perfectly that I missed out. Sigh.

Luckily the road started to get smoother when I got down to the creek after a very fun descent. A massive boulder had fallen down to the road, making it impossible to bigger vehicles, but not a bike. It was incredibly beautiful out there. Green green. A little wet. Some good cloud cover and mist, and loads of solitude. Infinitely better than the highway that was somewhere above me. Soon the climbing began, but before I knew it I had rejoined the road. Since it was starting to get dark, I backtracked a bit down the road and camped away from the highway. I awoke the next morning to find frost on my tent and horribly numb hands from packing that thing up in the cold.

Although I'd been told horror stories of the climb up Molas Pass, it turned out to not be bad at all. First I had to get my knees to cooperate. When I first hopped onto the bike that morning, it hurt to pedal. I popped 3 Ibuprofin and pushed the bike for 20 minutes. When the vitamin I had kicked in, I could ride again, and within 3 miles I found myself standing at the viewpoint on Molas Pass amazed with the freakishly red volcanic rock that made up the San Juans in this area. These mountains were so unique that I knew I would be back this summer to hike in them. All that was left was to do the 7 mile descent down into the town of Silverton and have a cup of mediocre Americano and chat with the locals on a sunny bench while I quickly warmed up.

After an hour of conversation, I hopped back on the bike and started the climb up Red Mtn Summit, which I was promised would be infinitely scarier than anything else I'd seen in the San Juans. The climb is so steep that I'd have to rest every 10 minutes said the guy at the Durango library. Silverton locals told me that the lack of the shoulder and a cliff dropping off immediately beside me would have me crying for Mommy. Naturally none of that was really true, and I was treated with one of the best rides on asphalt of the trip. There definitely was no shoulder in certain sections of the climb, but it wasn't an issue since the traffic still hadn't picked up at 11:00 am. Sadly the summit didn't have much in the way of a view, but the descent made up for that in spades. Now this was easily one of the highlights of the trip. Hairpin turn after hairpin turn. Never have I seen so many road signs that depicted twisted spaghetti in my life. The road was so so windy, with nice drops on the other side, views deep into deep valleys, and a fast descent. I took a tip from some road cyclists ahead of me and kept the whole lane to myself. It was slow to try to brake and hug close to the shoulder. Instead I rode aggressively in the middle of the lane so no one would try to pass me. Then when a turn was coming up, I would cut it really wide to keep as much speed as I could. The riding was sublime, and I was flowing all over the street. I will never forget that descent down down down into Ouray. Or "Little Switzerland" as they call it.

When I left Ouray, I could see thunderstorms building up in the higher reaches of the San Juans, now behind me. I had about 30 miles of gradual descent to get to Montrose , and I did that in record time. Somewhere in the last few miles I was passed by the couple that I met the previous night who offered me a beer. They gave me a friendly honk and a wave as they flew by me at thrice my speed. Just as I was entering Montrose, I realized I had made a critical error in constructing my route: I was avoiding Kebler Pass. Instead I had planned to go back on highway 50 all the way back through Gunnison and up to Crested Butte, a route I've been on too many times. Instead I realized that I could go North 20 miles further to Delta, then head east thru Paonia, and climb on quiet forest service roads up to Kebler and down to Crested Butte.

After a bit of research at the library to confirm that it wasn't too much further to go this new route, I took off from Montrose headed for the Grand Mesa which towers over Delta. The wind was coming from the west and the road was still on a mellow decline, and I made it to Delta in less than an hour. At this point I had ridden around 90 miles, and with the upcoming tailwind as I turned east, I was starting to have delusions of grandieur and thoughts of getting in a 150 mile day before the trip ended. As I rode east, I was doing the math in my head and realized that I had to average 18 mph for the next few hrs to get to that point before dark. The road became a roller coaster as I headed east, with constant dips and slow riding through construction zones. Within two hours I realized I wouldn't be able to make 150, and would instead just ride until dark and see where that put me. Once I got to the town of Hotchkiss, I got a flat that had to be repaired in someone's farm. My energy had finally waned and I decided Hotchkiss would be where I'd crash for the night, 117 miles from where i started in the San Juans. Not too bad really. I called the county fairgrounds camp for the night, grabbed 22 oz of bad beer, and called it a night.

My chain had been acting up on me, mainly due to the fact (I think) that in the past few long days, I hadn't made the time in the day to lube my chain. Now one of the links was ready to break off at any moment, causing the chain to constantly slip to a smaller cog, and me to worry about busting my face on a big climb. Once I got to Paonia 10 miles after starting for the morning, I finally made the time to work on that chain. A cup of bad coffee had me focused, and I quickly discovered that I didn't have all of the tools for the job, mainly one more link to replace the bad set. I had brought some links along, but just not quite enough. That's a mistake I won't make on future bike tours (Bolivia anyone??), but for now I had to just pray that the chain would make it to CB, some 50 miles further.

Paonia turned out to be a beautifully lush paradise, complete with multiple rivers meandering through the valley, farms and vineyards, and deep blue skies to complement all of the greenery. Just outside of town there was a goat running on the street. He stayed in front of me, turning around every once in a while to see where I was. Eventually I caught up to him, and he ran alongside my bike for a while. When we were hanging out like this, I was able to clock him on my cyclometer as running at 12 mph. Incredible! At every bridge we would cross over, he would look down to the water, as if he were thirsty. Soon enough I passed him and was a little worried. I have no clue where he came from, and would he find water??

Finally I turned off the highway and started the gradual climb up to Kebler. The road turned to a well graded and maitained dirt one, and the scenery was great. Just as I was thinking how much I was happy with my bike setup, how my lack of panniers made me feel invincible and able to take this thing over anything, my bike failed me. Not the chain, but a pedal. My left pedal had broken off of the spindle, so I was left with riding on a slender cylinder of metal underfoot for the rest of the day. It didn't take long to realize that going uphill with a foot that kept sliding off of the spindle would be horribly slow. No matter what I tried, duct tape, zip ties, magic...I couldn't rig up a way to keep the pedal on the spindle and still rotating. Just after breaking the pedal, the couple, my friends from Aspen passed me again!! This time it was just absurd, and the 3 of us laughed for a bit of the insanity of us running into each other again was. Now we were all on a pretty obscure dirt road. Apparently they had spent last night camping up at Lost Lake with some friends, and now were finally on their way back to Aspen. As I pulled away from their car after finally introducing myself and getting their names, I could hear the girl still laughing about it all. What a cool trip this turned out to be. Still, I had climbing to do, and a spindle to do it on. My right leg would get really tired every once in a while since it was doing the majority of the work on a functioning pedal. Up up up, and the scenery was getting incredible. There were vast tracts of yellow below in the meadows, surrounded by green. Green grass, green shrubs, and green leaves on the aspens. More than once I had the thought "This is the most beautiful place on earth", and to think that I live here!

With that ecstatic mood, I neared the flats near the top of the pass, and got a flat. Naturally the afternoon storms were just starting, and I sat next to my bike, patching up the front tube while a drizzle was slowly wetting my shirt. Finally I got to the top of the pass a mile later, welcomed by Disco with lager in hand. I had been looking forward to the descent into town since I had never been on this road before due to it being closed to snow since I've lived here. Of course nature had something else in store, mainly hard rain, sleet, and cold cold cold wind. The drop down was really fast, on washboarded road, and beautiful when I could see it through my squinted eyes. With teeth clenched, I tried to ignore how cold I had become. With nothing but a windshirt on, I was definitely getting soaked to the bone, and temps were the coldest I'd seen since waking up that frosty morning before climbing Molas Pass. Here, my bike had a joke in store: finally that chain broke. Honestly, I was happy that it happened. It seemed like beautiful poetry at the time. The bike failed me at the exact time where it should, on a fast descent when I didn't really need the chain, and right before getting into town. I let the bike coast all the way down to the valley floor, about 4 blocks from where I wanted to be. The perfect end to a nearly perfect trip.

Fin.

2009-06-01T10:56:00.000-07:00

After drinking a beer given to me by Disco, I dropped down from 10,000+ ft Kebler Pass in the cold cold rain, my chain broke, and I coasted down into Crested Butte.

A respectable update might arrive tomorrow...

Colorado finally

2009-05-28T17:21:00.000-07:00

It feels so so nice to be back in Colorado. The plan was to see the border from the tourist-trap Four Corners Monument, but after realizing that you have to pay $3 just to experience an imaginary line, I saw it a little down the road instead: "Welcome to colorful Colorado". Indeed. Rewind:

The best hitch ever got me from Zion to Kanab. L.B. and I split in Zion, me heading south, her going north. I got a lift from Sam, who was excited to finally meet another hiker and was going to give me a lift to the hwy in La Verkin, which is where I'd get a ride to Springdale, then thru the park back to my bike in Kanab. Once we got to La Verkin, he said he'd give me a ride all the way to Springdale, 20 miles away, if we could switch vehicles from SUV to convertible. Hell yes Sam!!! He had this sweet vintage Oldsombele something or another and we cruised in that to zion. Incredible weather. Incredible. The top was down and Sam says, "It's a holiday weekend, why not just go all the way to Kanab?". I'm never one to turn down generosity, although this was pushing it as it was 90 minutes out of his way, one-way. He was into it, and I could tell that meeting me was fueling his need for adventure. A little bit of drizzle didn't cause us to put the top up, and we cruised past the distusting number of people in Zion for Memorial Day in style.

In Zion I met the owner of the outfitter and got my bike out of his garage, but not after a double shot of espresso from his shop. The ride out of town was incredibly fast. I checked up on flash flood contision (moderate) at the BLM office and filled up on water before backtracking a tiny down the washboardy and very rough House Rock Valley Rd. 7 miles later I was at the Wire Pass trailhead to hike Buckskin Gulch. The clouds were creepy overhead, but I decided to enter the slot anyway. I had seen these clouds before, and they always usually just wind up dropping precip that evaporates before it hits the ground. Not this time. I made it a mile into the slot, working my way thru chokestones and wading in knee-deep puddles, before I got scared by being inside of a slot during the rain. I really didn't want to become "that guy". The guy who went into the slot while it was raining and was killed. That's okay because I didn't have enough time in the day to hike the thing properly. I need a couple of days to hike all the way to the Paria River and maybe down that canyon a ways. Maybe all the way down the Paria to Lee's Ferry. Geez LB was a bad influence....

The next morning showed off it's clear blue skies and I hiked the other direction from the trailhead toward the Coyote Buttes and The Wave. I've linked a pic to The Wave before, and I"m sad that I'm not able to upload any photos at this library of the area. This was probably my favorite section of UT. NO trails other than some crappy cairn work to lead you over and around navajo sandstone that was colored all sorts of pastel colors that reminded me a lot of Bryce: pink, purple, peach, white, orange... So incredible. 2 miles later I got to the wave, which added in red and black to the mix...as well as a knee-deep puddle to wade thru. I was the first person out there, so I had the thing all too myself. What a strange strange area. I'll be back, probably when I return to hike the Buckskin, which was also phenomenal.

Took off and made it to Page, AZ that afternoon. First I had to cross Glen Canyon Dam, which was more disgusting than I had guessed it would be. The canyon itself was beautiful, and I find it hard to completely hate the dam and all it stands for because the canyon is so beautiful with that deep blue water sitting in it. Still, there were power lines and support lines and all sorts of disgusting crap destroying an area that would otherwise be an area that could seriously rival the Grand Canyon.....

Page. Page was insanely crowded, noisy, but surprisingly green. It's 2 miles up on a hill that gives a great view of the canyons below and beyond, but sadly this view couldn't save the town. Fixed a punctured tube, made lots of cookie dough, and got the heck out of there under more scary black skies. I made it about 10 miles out of town, and started to realize that the people around here (surely not ALL Navajos) like the following: liquor, littering, and drunk driving. There were shattered bottles all over the shoulder of the road, I"m talking exponentially more than I've seen anywhere else. I weaved through those and tried to find something to ride on out of the way of traffic. This wasn't easy since there was also a 2 foot wide, teeth-chattering, rumble strip to steal 2/3 of the shoulder from me. Sob story I know. At least I wasn't at work... At dusk I found a way thru the CONSTANT barbed wire fences lining the rd onto some private property and hid amongst the desert shrub staring at the remnants of a nice sunset.

My math told me that I needed to average around 88 miles a day to get back to CB by June 1st. To me that was a good excuse to try to ride my first 100 mile day. 100 miles on a mtn bike, with semi-knobby tires, and out of cycling-shape. Since my internet time is running short, I'll just say I was lucky to get to mile 107 and call it a day to a phenomenal sunset. I had planned to ride less, but the noisy noisy disgusting Navajo town of Kayenta made me get the heck out of there prematurely. At least that town has a cool view of some of the rock of Monument VAlley, which appeared to be more beautiful than I had imagined.

And here I am in Cortez, CO after another 100 miles. Thought I successfully waited out a lightning storm under an abandoned gas station only to find it start up again nearby, and it sure was hard to get the fast pace I had imagined when I was already 80 miles into my day! The lightning was fantastic though...I saw at least 15 strikes less than 2 miles away from the safety, at first, of my clear patch of sky.

Durango tomorrow. San Juans tomorrow! And predicted rain. sigh...

Grand Canyon traverse

2009-05-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, and I'm still not going to be able to give a respectable update.

Lovebarge invited me to tag along for a remote Grand Canyon adventure, complete with illegal permits and bushwacking, and I knew that I couldn't say "no". We met up in Kanab where I was allowed to stash my bike in the local outfitters garage for an indefinite amount of time, and started the hitch south to the North Rim of the G.C. At Jakob's Lake, the road down to the North Rim is closed until May 15th, and since we were there earlier than that, we had planned to hike a mix of roads and part of the Arizona Trail to get to the Nankoweep Trailhead. We got to the rim quickly, and hiked for a couple of days until we got to the Colorado River. Hitched across the river on a raft. Hung out at the turquoise-colored waters of the Little Colorado River for hours, completely amazed with that beautiful water. Hiked many hot hot hot days near the bottom of the canyon where it was consistently 100 degrees or more. Hopped in the river everytime that we could to cool off. After 6 days of hiking, we got to the South Rim to resupply and experience the zoo that is the South Rim. Surprisingly we hadn't seen very many people for those previous 6 days other than rafters at the river. Now there was an annoying amount of people and RVs and such...but at least we got a shower, clean clothing, and an amazing dinner.

6 more days down in the canyon. A hitch across the river. Hiking across seriously sketchy scree-slopes, off-trail, down beautiful and wild side-canyons. In Saddle Canyon, we were surprised to find some really steep slickrock that we had to negogiate. We would sit on our butts and slide down the rock into pools of cold water that were sometimes chest-deep. Had to carry packs above the head to keep contents dry. A few 10 to 15 foot drops off of huge boulders to get down-canyon.

Great great adventure.

I'll make another post, hopefully with pictures, when I get back to my bike in Kanab on Monday.

Zion

2009-05-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

quick quick post from Springdale. No photos, no time.

about halfway done with the trip and in Zion NP. Ran out of food, but luckily there is free shuttle service to the town of Springdale, 1 mile away, which is hiking distance really. Zion is so much more impressive than I would have guessed. I've seen Bryce too. and more stuff. And hiked. Time to get out of here doing trip logistics and get some overpriced food and hike the infamous Angel's Landing Trail. All of the slots are too full with water, so no slot canyons for me on this trip.

Photos and a legit writeup maybe tomorrow if I make it out of Zion and to the town of Kanab to resupply for the next remote remote section of the trip. Details to follow...

a photo

2009-05-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

I'm lazy and don't want to dig the full memory card out of my belongings, so here is the only photo on my current memory card.

Escalante

2009-05-01T18:57:00.000-07:00

oh I hate these rushed entries. I made it to Escalante, UT a little bit earlier than expected. My plan was to stop and camp on Hole-in-the-Rock Road a few miles out of town and zero tomorrow, but grand visions of the splendor of Esclante started to rush through my brain and I just had to ride those last few downhill miles, into a headwind, to town. Well it's not all that great, but I digress...

When was the last entry. Monticello??? Well, I left Monticello and did a lazy 11 miles south and camped on some Forest Service land. It was fun to ride my bike again, proving that my time off in Monticello was a good idea. Just to prove this, I was treated to an incredible sunset, the best of the trip...is this mother nature approving of my rest? The next day wasn't so easy...

I went through Blanding, but first in Blanding I went to Edge of the Cedars museum. It was a really incredible museum that spotlighted the ancient Puebloan culture that was prevalant all thoughout this area of SE Utah. The one thing that really blew my mind was a pair of handmade sandles (of course they were handmade, they were nearly 1,000 yrs old). These sandles were just incredible. What else can I say???

So I left and turned West on Hwy 85(??) Why is it that everytime I head west there seems to be wind? are there typically prevailing winds that always out of the west??? onward.....this road was quiet. Much quieter than I had expected. There was absolutely NOTHING on this road for 40+ miles until you get to Natl Bridges Natural Monument, my destination for the evening. But first ...that wind. hill after hill after hill into the hill was the ultimate frustration. I did see a really incredible Cliff Dwelling a mile off the road set in a beautiful alcove. Really incredible I say. Back on that dang road. Well I made it to Natural Bridges after really loving the fact that I only saw one car every 10 minutes. Found a spot out of the incessant wind next to a tourist overlook and read for hours. Waited for the sunset then stealth camped on BLM land just out of the park. The next day I had planned to hike a 9 mile loop hike passing the 3 main arches of the park, but decided to bail after 2 because I was low on food.

Now the riding was pretty good. Less hills. Less wind. Even less cars. The terrain started to get really strange, especially as I did the long long climb up Clay Hills Pass. The hills were colored purple, grey, red, orange...really really really really oddly surprised and felt like it was one of the most surreal places I've ever been to. After the pass there was easy riding out to Hall's Crossing, 60 miles after Natural Bridges, and my resupply spot. Or so I thought. I rolled in at 5:30 to find the stores closed. I'm so lucky that the heat had stifled my appetite enough to save my dinner.

Next morning I woke up, took the ferry across lake Powell to Bullfrog, and bought cookies, chips, and mac-n-cheese. Lots of uphill to get out of the lake, then it finally mellowed out and I was on the Burr Trail. I had been looking forward to this road for a while since I knew it went thru some really remote landscapes. The only views I got for a while were of the Henry Mtns (last mtns to be names in the US), and the Waterpocket Fold. If you've never heard of the Waterpocket Fold, google it. I followed this 100 mile spine pushing up through the earth for a while, then entered Capital Reef National Park. There were strange strange silver cliffs to my right, and that multi-colored Waterpocket Fold to the west. I took a side trip into Headquarters Narrows, which was a really fun hike into the interior of the Fold. I'm not going to write more about that Fold, but I could do an entire entry on how fascinating it was.

So I made it to the legendary Burr Trail Switchbacks, the only time I've seen switchbacks labeled on a road map. They were really really wide switchbacks that looked like a hiking trail climbing a steep mtn. I walked the bike here since the road was loose gravel and corrugated and STEEP. Pushing was good since I was snapping pics every 2 minutes.

I camped somewhere before long canyon. Was amazed by the sheer cliffs in Long Canyon blah blah blah. Then I hit UT 12, what a road. Went through the town of Boulder, which was a really cool rural town. Started the scenic byway, road up 'The Hogsback" which at parts was a really fun ride up on the top of what felt like a ridge, a ridge that dropped away at both sides and there was only enough space to make a two laned road up there. What a fun road. Sandstone dunes.

So I'm in Escalante now, and amazingly met triple-crown hiker trash LoveBarge here. She's hiking the Hayduke Trail right now and happened to come into town for some water purification stuff. Time to buy a bottle of wine for Utah storytelling...

I love Utah. Next up is 3 days of backpacking in Bryce Canyon. Can't wait.

Road Magic and more

2009-04-27T12:09:00.000-07:00

first some pics from the race in Fruita, then to the cycling jazz:
nice light at sunrise to put everyone in the right mood

the mighty, murky Colorado...

and on a bike:

not a bad site to wake up to from my campsite along the CO Riv...

Fishers Towers. Canyons. La Sal mtns. Dizzying view, and all before getting into Moab.

The shadows were just sick.

who knew it could be so brilliantly green in the desert?
Incredible mesa that I rounded to reach Hurrah Pass
and yea, thats the pass and my bike before it failed me.
best hitch ever!!
nice lookin' road, eh??

here in Lockhart Canyon I got the first chill bumps of the trip
a bit dirty....

lots and lots of rock

duh, that's an arch. Druid Arch
Awesome light in the morning from the Needles to send me off

So many mesas with awesome cliffs on the ride west toward Monticello
fixin' up the bike during the Zero in Monticello's Memorial Park

I'm really not even sure where to begin since it seems like so much has happened in the past 5 days or so when I updated last...

So I tried to leave Moab, was that Wednesday???, and my bike made it 25 miles before the rear rack broke. Luckily that WY couple gave me a lift, a very uncomfortable lift, back to Moab where I affixed a new rack to my frame using random parts from the hardware store. When I left that morning, the rack stayed on, and lasted through the entire 60 mile stretch of rough rough jeep road. Riding that rode was surely one of the best adventures I've had in my life. The road was incredibly beautiful. Remote. DIFFICULT. This was my first time really mountain biking, and I had to establish what sections I could actually ride, which I had to push the bike on, etc. The first 3 miles were primarily uphill, with a few gulches where I had to push the bike uphill over boulders the size of me. Impossible to ride, but that was okay. When I got past that stretch, the road was littered with football-sized rocks that made it hard to ride for longer than a tenth of a mile at a time. Eventually I crested an unmarked pass and could see The Needles of Canyonlands and all of the seemingly infinite canyons below. After eating a lot of cookie dough, I hopped on the bike, and was THRILLED to be able to ride for at least a mile before getting bogged down in sand. Whereas I was only able to ride 20% of the time and pushed 80% of the time before, the numbers had now reversed, and I couldn't have been any more pleased.

After pushing and riding for 35 miles, I got completely exhausted. Leaving Moab, I loaded up on 9 Liters of water, 5 of which were on my back. This made me use my entire body in a way that I hadn't done yet in this trip, and this really drained me. I wasn't really to stop yet since I wanted to take advantage of the cooler nighttime temps, but I found myself pushing the bike on nearly any uphill since I couldn't find the energy to ride it. Somehow I could find the energy a few times and managed to ride a bit. When it was time to get out of the saddle and push, it was a struggle to remain balanced. Keeping the bike balanced while stepping over the crossbar became pathetically challenging and I actually fell once trying to get off the bike!! Luckily no one was around to se me. For 40 miles on Lockhart Basin Rd, I saw no one aside from a group of dirtbikers. This was definitely the most remote road I've been on, and finally felt like I was surrounded by nothing but wilderness and a slim trail which backpacking provides.

It shouldn't be much of a surprise that I hated the asphalt when I finally hit it to get into Canyonlands Natl Park. It felt rough for some reason, oddly sluggish, and completely boring. The road was suddengly flat. I didnt have to look out for rocks, guage the surface to determine if sand was coming up to prepare for or anything. Where I was engaged fully before taking the ride seriously, I was now bored and felt like the bike was only crawling. Luckily I only had to put up with less than 10 miles until I got to the vistor's center.

Here, after dropping $20 in fees (!!!!), I met Cyndi at the Backcountry permit office who allowed me to store my bike gear in her garage since the Park service wouldn't allow it on their premesis. She gave me directions to here house, 1.5 mi away, and I rode there to leave my junk. Her husband Brad was home, and we chatted about my trip down Lockhart Basin since he was hoping to ride it himself and other jeep roads out of the park.

Canyonlands is incredible. Phenomenal. Mind-blowing. etc etc etc

Without question, hiking for 3 days here was some of the best hiking I have ever done. Within the first quarter of a mile of hiking I was using my hands to scramble up some slickrock, and I knew this would be a fun trip. Typically hiking would be like this: start at the bottom of a canyon, hiking on sand around random bushes trees etc with cliff walls hanging overhead. Cross into a parallel canyon via scrambling on a lot of slickrock. More sandy hiking along cactus, brush, etc, repeat. I came to really start looking forward to scrambling from canyon to canyon.

After setting up camp in Squaw Canyon, where I would be the only camper, I set out to hike the Peekaboo Trail. This trail got up high in a canyon, and stayed up on the slickrock for miles...very different from the other trails. This country is so so strange. The rocks were mushroom shaped. One layer would be white. The next would be red. Then gold. As far as the eye could see. The rock was so fascinating that it became hard to actually hike since I wanted to sit and gawk and try to figure it all out. Finally I got to a really cool arch which I had to hike through. This window in the rock is why the trail was named Peekaboo, and a fitting spot to turn around. My foot was starting to hurt and I needed to rest.

The next day was even more fun. Climbing up into Elephant Canyon without a soul around in the early morning light was unforgettable as was the fun scrambling over more slickrock and the introduction of ladders into the hiking game. I had to squeeze through some slots. Finally got to Chesler Park where there is loads of flat ground, greenery, and surrounded by the famous and multi-colored Needles. After pitching my tent in my incredibly windy campsite, I took off for the Joint trail. This was a really fun trail that had you hiking through a narrow slot for at least half a mile. Good stuff.

The wind was really picking up and dropping the drizzles of rain promised by the ranger the day before. I considered going to hang out in the tent for a bit to see if it would clear, but decided to go for Druid Arch. Who knew if the rain would get worse and go through the night or what, so I decided to hike while it was still decent out. The lighting was garbage and flat, so I didn't take too many shots from this time. Needless to say, the 5 miles of hiking were worth it. I met a really great couple from Boulder who I hiked on and off with thru this section, giving me the company that I was beginning to crave. There was a ladder to climb and a bar to help traverse a final section of rock before finally getting a view of Druid Arch. Although I wasn't able to bike in Arches Natl Park due to warnings from people in Moab, I finally got an arch here. And I"m pretty darn sure that this experience was better since I earned it, there weren't cars buzzing by my bike, etc etc. The arch was enormous and towered above us. The wind was also howling and made me leave faster than I wanted to. Still, I saw the arch that I had wanted to see and was humbled by the size of it while standing beneath...

That night I spent a lonely and cold night camping before waking up to a beautifully calm morning with great lighting and more views of the Needles. The 5 miles back to my locked up bike were sublime and left me feeling refreshed and ready to get on my bike again. Once my bike was reloaded, I was ready to be hiking again. The bike was sluggish, asphalt crappy, and I was in a bad mood. I wanted to be hiking, not biking. Although I assumed my mood would change once I realized that this was my new mode of transport, it never did...not for 47 miles to Monticello.

Sure the scenery was incredible. Sheer cliffs in every direction in what I later found out is a climbers paradise. Near Newspaper Rock, where I found literally hundreds of petroglyphs on a large mural, I saw over 20 people climbing in an area that probably had over 75 routes to climb. With only 18 miles to go, I got excited to begin the cut-off road into town, where there was less traffic and views of mountains. Going through these hills would surely provide me with climbing then descending ,etc etc to keep me happy, right? Well, not really. I had to bike 13 miles, 99% of which were uphill before getting to a descent. I don't normally mind climbs all that much, but 13 miles started to seem insane. Then I realized that in a couple of weeks I would begin climbing out of Utah and into the San Juans where there are passes over 12,000 ft and decided it would be healthiest not to think of it. Halfway through the climb, a white car pulled over on the side of the road. It was Meghan who I met at the Visitor Center in Needles, offering me a place to shower and sleep!!

Oh my god this was great news and pure magic. I was tired. My clothing was completely red from the sand of the previous 5 days, drenched in sweat, socks crusty and painful, and I was lonely. Oh what sweet perfection.

The descent was blindingly fast, my legs went numb, but I was in town, and soon enough I would be showered, laundered, and with a Colorado beer in my hand. Meghan, Melissa, and their friend (what was his name????) were incredible company. We laughed a ton, had good conversation and enjoyed each other's company. It was sad to finally leave this morning, giving Meghan a hug and realizing that I had become good friends with people who I had only known for 3 hours. This is why I do this stuff....

bashed

2009-04-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

the jeep road out of Moab destroyed my rear rack today. The threads to the bolts got stripped so the rack would sway side to side. the road had just gotten really intense, tons of unrideable sections where I had to hike with the bike up steep sand and rock staircases and stuff. People take a jeep on these? christ? had to hitch back 20 miles to Moab on an ATV!!!!

reevaluating and waiting for hardware store to open tomorrow morning to fix a rack to my frame in some ghetto fashion. stay tuned, today was intense.

Desert R.A.T.S. report

2009-04-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

First off, the Fruita library won't a,llow me to upload any photos, so all photos from my race on Saturday will have to wait for nearly a week or more until I get all the way to Boulder, in central UT.

Second: I finished the 50 miles!! I finished 3 hrs faster than I had planned, goofily running across the finish line in 10 hrs 6 minutes-ish...somehow placing me in 17th place. good enough...

Some vague details....

I stressfully packed up my things from my campsite next to the Colorado River, and rode my bike the 4 miles to the starting line. There were only about 30 minutes to go before the gun went off, so I had to rush to unload my bike, store it in the staff tent, lock the bike, and explain my story to people who were wondering how the hell a guy could show up on his bike like this.

After a lame round of stretching, the race started. There was a one mile dirt road stretch, not bad in the beginning, but would come back to destroy me at the end of the race. The trail thankfully switched to singletrack, and we began to climb 2 miles or so to the top of Mack's Ridge. The sun was beginning to come up, and it was peeking through the heavy cloud cover, shining a distinct beam of sunlight on Grand Valley below. It's really a shame that I can't hook up my camera here because it was a spectacular beginning to the race.

This was the start of my obsession with photographing the landscape, instead of running. Well, to be precise: I would run a bit, then step off the trail to take a photo, allowing a few people to pass, get back on the trail, pass those people, repeat. Things were starting to get goofy as I would pass the same people again and again as I took photos. One guy saw me taking a shot, and said 'I really need to start noticing these things more'. Well yea you do! It was beyond incredible out there.

The trail hung really close to the edge of some canyons, giving really sweet views of natural amphitheaters and alchoves below. I was able to keep a pretty steady pace, and passed through the first 3 aid stations with ease. These stations were stocked with Hammer gels, tasty electrolite drinks that weren't too sweet, Raw Revolution spirulina bars, salty chips, and P+J wraps. I met a few people running who had run the race before, and were running a few 100 milers this summer. It was fun finding out why they had failed to finish an ultra in the past, and I vowed not to let it happen to me this time.

Somehow I felt incredibly strong, and I had to force myself to pull back and not crash after the halfway point. Apparently riding a bike is sufficient training for an ultramarathon. who knew??? On the next big uphill around mile 15, I had to force myself to walk, and stayed behind two 25 milers who were doing the same. This kept me honest, and especially made me rethink my strategy when I realized that most of the people i was running around and passing were 25 milers. Rookie mistake: running a 50 mile race as if it were a 25. WEll, I should say it would be fine if I had run one of these before, but being completely insecure of my fitness level, I wanted to not push so hard in the beginning. So walk I did. At the top, I ran down to the last aid station before the turn around, and walked about 10 minutes up another big hill.

I nearly took a wrong turn at a parking lot. The trail was marked with yellow streamers around rocks, and I saw 3 rocks with streamers around them leading through the parking lot seeming to indicate the trail went that way. Luckily a woman saw me running, and said 'NOOOOOOO!!!! That way, downhill'. I wasn't totally sold, but did it anyway, and sure enough there was another runner downhill who she had seen before me.

There were people cheering at the bottom of the hill, and I ran pretty fast to the 'finish line' . This was the starting point, ending point for 25 milers, and the turn around for 50 milers. The route was two loops, one reversed. Here I had a drop bag with sunscreen and a new shirt waiting, so I changed into a shirt that was temporarily sweat free, put sunscreen, and sat on the ground to do some stretching. Chowed down on all sorts of food, refilled the water bottle, and took off with some peanut MMs in my hand.

Those M&Ms would haunt me for the next few miles. But first I was really fueled by my decision to finally start listening to my mp3 player. Hendrix's guitar had really never sounded as beautiful. I was feeling incredibly strong, as if I was just starting the race. Muscles nice and loose after the stretch and fueled by rock and calories, those first few miles flew by. Then I started the climb that I had just descended and I was feeling nausious. I knew not to eat simple sugars like that, but assumed the sugar rush would do me good. It did do me good, and I was happy when the unpleasant feeling passed around mile 30.

Around mile 31 I started to deal with a new problem: fatigue. My legs didn't really want to move. From mile 31-38 or so, I was really struggling. I passed a few people, but once I did, I could not climb any uphills. Flat sections even became a problem and I'd begin to walk after only being able to run for a few minutes until my energy waned. Again, the views were too good. Views of the Colorado river. Red rocks. Different colored strata. blah blah blah...if you're into that sort of thing.

All of the mileage numbers are starting to blur at this point, but I remember rolling into an aid station around mile 40ish and telling the guys that ran it that those last 7 miles were the longest of my life. I had run out of water halfway and was DYING for some water. When I got it, I coudln't believe how cold and refreshing it was, and I thanked the volunteers sincerely. I drank 20 oz of water at the stop, then filled up on another 20 for the next 4 mile stretch. The guys had told me that this coming section was flat, so I ran it as hard as I could. This may have been the sweetest section of trail in the entire race. Ran along the lip of a canyon for a while, gawking at the winding trails hundreds of feet below.

A woman passed me at the aid station where I was lingering for way too long, andI could see here on the other side of a canyon, making me run harder than I thought I could to catch her. After a mile and a half I got to her. Then passed another guy shortly after that. At this point I was forgetting how tired I was and had my eyes set on a guy(??) in red shorts at least a mile ahead. I'd seen him on and off for the past 10 miles, and didn't think I could actually catch him. Irregardless of whether or not I could, I decided it was a good goal and would keep me pushing myself. I had long since become completely in love with the aspect of competition, causing me to go way beyond what I thought possible. There were many many times where I wanted nothing more than to stop running and sit down. Better yet: lie down. I knew that if I did that I would never start up again.

I walked a bit up to another aid station, took off and ran okay to the last aid at mile 46. On the half mile descent to the stop I noticed that guy in red again up ahead filling up at the aid station. Here I decided to make my aid stop really quick, wasting no time at all like I had at other stops. Water bottle was already opened and made the aid station guy fill it for me while I loaded my pockets with calories. Everythign looked disgusting, but I forced down a banana piece and PB+J wrap, as well as some gel and spirulina in my pocket. Took off and felt like I was gaining some ground. After a mile I passed him, ELATED. I couldn't believe that I was able to catch him and I was feeling invincible. Any sort of pain and fatigue I felt before was gone and I was running the final climb. There was another guy half a mile ahead who seemed to be going slow uphill, so I decided to see if I could catch him as well. I was shocked at my strenght of the climb, and passed this guy quickly. Here I grew incredibly paranoid that he would pass me on the final descent, and decided that I couldn't let this happen. If he passed me I'd never forgive myself, and the race would probably somehow shift to a failure in my mind.

He never caught up. I crested Mack Ridge, did the rocky and rough descent. Let some mountain bikers pass....slowing me down, but not enough for him to catch me. The last mile was all on the dirt road that we started on. This absolutely killed me. It was a boring and hardpacked road and all of my inspiration just drained out of me and into that goddamned road. I kept pushing, because again, I was soooooo scared of letting the guy behind me pass.

Well I finished to the announcer saying "Can you feel the Payne?". Nice pun dude. My name is indeed Eric Payne. I was hurting a tiny and scared to sit down.

Later I realized how swollen my feet had become, and the big blisters that I assumed were hot spots. The second toenail on my right foot is blacker than after Salida but somehow it hasn't fallen off yet. Sitting down and standing up was incredibly difficult for two days, and I was walking around Fruita like an old man.

Now I'm healed enough, and will be taking off on my bike in less than 30 minutes and will probably cross state lines into Utah sometime this afternoon.

Thanks for reading this nonsense!!

um....Fruita??

2009-04-17T15:09:00.001-07:00

So apparently I'm signed up to run 50 miles tomorrow in my first ultramarathon. This is pretty laughable really considering I've squeezed in maybe 30 miles of training total in the past month since the Salida marathon. This race was going to be my main focus, and the Salida run was really just a training run to get ready for it. Tendonitis (???) in my left foot threw a wrench into that machine, so I had to keep the weight off the foot and on the saddle of a bike.

Maybe all of this is a good thing. No longer do I have delusions of grandieur about finishing in the top 10...now I just want to finish the 50 mile race. All of the pressure is off, and I just need to put in a smart race with a solid walking strategy to stay a bit rested to finish the absurd 50 miles in 13 hrs.

The weather down in the Grand Valley has been cloudy and slighly chilly at an uncharacteristic 40 degrees everyday. Tomorrow is supposedly to be mainly sunny, with highs in the 60s. Should be perfect running weather with a breeze blowing throughout most of the day.

I'm going to leave this comfy setup I've landed in Grand Junction and ride my bike out of here and near the starting line in Mack in a few hours. It's going to be a cold night, near freezing to sit around in insomnia waiting for the start at 6:30 to roll around. I'm really nervous, but extremely excited about running the legendary singletrack on Kokopelli's Trail and through all of the canyons tomorrow morning. It's amazing that its' so close.

Photos and a writeup may follow Sunday or Monday

Wind explained

2009-04-16T20:08:00.000-07:00

Grand Mesa back behinds those dry hills
Nice "road" to follow here to escape the wind

It felt like raw wilderness back there, but I just couldn't hang with the wind. Wimpy I know...

back on the road, wind at my back and mesas ahead

Is this Colorado or Iceland

The nature of wind

2009-04-16T18:04:00.000-07:00

Since it was only 30 miles from Delta to Grand Junction, I took my sweet time sauntering through the town on a flawless day. Since my map-reading skills are garbage, I didn't realize that it was actually 40 miles to GJ. The day wouldn't be quite as lazy as I had envisioned...

The pedaling started off innocently enough. Since I was now riding on Hwy 50, the main road connecting Montrose to GJ, traffic was much heavier than I had experienced in the previous 130 miles and on a 4 lane divided road. Luckily the shoulder was ginormous, so I was constantly glancing at my nerdy rearview mirror out of terror. I left the blooming trees behind for dry dry hills splashed with the colors of gold and grey. Behind these hills, the amazing Grand Mesa was still looming high high above, a natural feature I will never forget after having cycled past it for 2 straight days.

About 25 miles into the ride and across from the Uncompaghre Plateau on the other side, to the south, I was blasted by constant sidewinds. Ah, this is part of the wind advisory I had heard on the radio before leaving Delta.

Note to self: never cycle if you hear on the radio that there is a high-wind advisory for the entire western part of the state you are riding in...

At first I didn't care too much, if it's not a headwind, who cares??? Well after I got a sustained blast while flying downhill at 25 mph, I changed that tune. The bike started to wobble nearly uncotrollably, probably not helped by the fact that I had a huge compression sack lashed perpendicularly to that wind. I slowly applied the brakes, and had to stand still in amazement. If the wind continues this way, I knew I needed to be a bit more cautious on the descents. Note taken. No the wind didn't stop. Sometimes I'd go around a bend and it would turn into a fun fun fun tailwind. Then crosswind. I decided to take a break from this insanity at a pullout complete with an interpretive sign about a visible wagon road, when the wind blew my bike completely over from it's resting place. sigh. time to ride a bit further, find a safe spot for a tent, and get the hell out of the wind.

I thought I had found this spot when I noticed a cattleguard defending a shoddy road onto some ranch property that looked like it had the first nearby hill oriented in the right direction that I could hide behind. So I crossed the cattleguard, carefully parted the barbed wire fence, and hopped on this "road". ha, some road. It was incredibly rough with volcanic rocks in shades of black complete with bubbles in them from their formation and punctuated with tiny cacti. yikes! Time to push the bike and not risk putting pressure on the tires and getting a flat from evil cactus spines. Although the road meandered to the right, I needed to head left to try to find some leeward action behind the hill and pitch my tent. Leaving the road, I pushed my bike over uncountable amounts of rocks trying to find a flat spot for the tent. The wind was still howling, and I had to get quite a ways away from the hill to find a flat spot to rest. That meant away from wind protection and onto flattish ground. After tossing some rocks around to clear out a spot, I had to fight the wind to get the tent pitched. This was without question the worst conditions I had ever tried to pitch the TT in, and it caused lots of cursing at the wind. Finally I got things together enough to use the wind to my advantage, got the stakes in the ground, and took a triumphant victory breath.

And then the wind yanked all of the stakes out of the loose soil.

What a joke, right. It didn't take very long at all to decide that I wouldn't camp here. Even if I had the tent pitched, the wind would have caused me to lose my mind. I lost a tent stake, an absurdy overpriced Titanium one, packed up, and got the hell out of that spot. It was a really beautiful spot though, even with a few spots of trees along an area where water obviously flows from time to time.

I had no clue where I'd be able to find a spot to camp after this. The hills were all wimpy, or all really really far away from the road an on private property. I had long since passed all of the BLM access points, so I was wondering if I'd have to go all the way in to Grand Junction. And then I came across a big cross on top of a building. My positive experience camping inside of the church in Haines junction last year made me think that his would be the spot.

Apparently the Mormons don't like to leave their churches unlocked. With the wind still raging, I knew I didn't want to go further, so started to stalk the area looking for flat ground and wind-protection. Found it on the front side of the building, sort of visible to the traffic on the Hwy, and didn't care. Despite the incessant traffic, I had no problem slipping into sleep after a good cup of ginger tea...

Now I'm taking a few days off at Randy and Nancy's place in Grand Junction. I found these guys through warmshowers.org. Randy actually started this website as a community of hosts for cycle touring folks like myself. Both nancy and randy just returned from Argentina after cycling there from Arctic Canada. Naturally they are planting all sorts of seeds into my head about travels in south america: Southern Patagonia, the rough roads of the Bolivian altiplano, the Salar de Uyuni, Guatemalan hospitality, etc.

Tomorrow I'll do chores around town and get all my stuff lined up for the race in Fruita on Saturday. Can I even complete 50 miles in 13 hr (cant figure out question marks on this spanish keyboard!)...I really hope so.

2009-04-15T09:38:00.001-07:00

Day 3

There was surpisingly a climb out of Hotchkiss. A climb, no shoulder, AND lots of traffic. Not a fun combination by any means. After about 6 miles of stressing about the traffic, the number of cars flying by mellowed out, I passed a desert "pass", and I was into badlands and no grass. Incredible out here. There was quite a bit of road work going on, and as I was flying downhill, I heard one of the ladies holding the 'slow' flag radio ahead and tell another construction worker that "a bicyclist is coming". When I got to the next woman holding a flag she told me that she was expecting me. Down down down to Delta, where the desert ends and the green again begins.

Last night was a really incredible night, with one of the most memorable pieces of scenery I've seen in a while. Really quiet setting around the lake, where I was the only soul (human, that is). To get to this Sweitzer State Park, I had to climb a few hundred feet out of town, and it left me on an incredible plateau. To the south I could see the San Juans, the east the West Elks, the north was snowy Grand Mesa, and west was canyonlands as far as the eye could see. A good night indeed...

This morning the first order of business once I got into town was a single shot of espresso. Oh yes. Then it was time to wander around main street in the 67 degree heat. I've driven thru Delta a few times to get out to Grand Junction, but have never gotten out of the car to feel it out. Turns out the town is pretty cool: bronze statues everywhere, nice sepia-toned murals, lots of benches to enjoy the sun, etc.

Today will be mellow, about 20 miles to camp in the BLM Badlands just outside of Grand Junction. Supposed to snow, so who knows what I'll get out there. Lovin' it...

Sepia Onslaught #1

2009-04-14T15:22:00.000-07:00

I'll miss you Crested Butte...

then thru the windy windy first canyon of the Gunni

a bit of blue

more blue, and deserty scenery

nearing sunset, storm ahead

ah, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison (now brown,sorry 'bout that)
Continually fascinated with the curves in the road...

The Black Canyon again with a bit of ice in the river

Tiny bit of snow up top

Sweet sunset near Crawford Lake

Into the desert, looking back at the West Elk

CB->Hotchkiss

2009-04-14T11:04:00.000-07:00

I'm only on day 3 of my trip, and already it's become the time of my life...again.

Day 1
When I left CB it was cloudy, 10:50, and hinting at snow. I tried to stare at the mountain as long as I could to imprint it in my mind, before realizing that was stupid and went downhill. My speedometer clocked me at 32 mph, which is fun on a bike, bordering on scary. Bye bye Mt Whetstone. Bye bye CB south. Near Almont I was struck by how beautiful the wintergreen trees were when covered with fresh snow.

In less than 2 hrs I was in Gunnison, getting day-old bagels at the coffee shop, and explaining my bike setup to a curious college kid. Nearing Gunni, I started to notice a crosswind blowing from the west. When I turned west, this turned into a headwind, but I wasn't cursing....yet. The clouds were dark, and I was just hoping to pedal thru it quickly and set up my tent to escape the oncoming rain. Within 5 or 6 miles, I was biking really closely to the Gunnison River, and going thru the first tight canyon carved by said river. This is where the wind turned absolutely insane, and the cursing began. Every single time I have driven this route, there has been terrible wind, usually accompanied by snow. No precip this time, but wind, more wind than I could ever notice inside the safety of a car. I rounded a bend, and was happy to find that the wind was relatively calm here. I laid the bike down against the guardrail, hopped the rail, and began taking pictures of the river and cliffs towering above it. The place was strinkingly beautiful under grey skies, and I tried as hard as I could to get it in my camera. I may have succeeded, but won't be able to tell until I see it on a screen larger than 2.5". A biker screamed by flying downhill as I hopped on the bike, into the wind again.

After I got thru that canyon, the terrain opened up, and the wind calmed since it wasn't being funneled thru such a tiny gap of earth any longer. The clouds were starting to break, and I got my first view of Blue Mesa Lake (er...reservoir). There were bits of blue sky between the towering cumulous clouds, and I had trouble putting the camera down and pedaling again. When I did get on the bike, there was a climb to be had. I was around mile 45 for the day when I noticed a downpour on the horizon. Luckily within a mile I noticed a turn to get to the Curecanti Rec Area visitor center, so turned in with a quickness. There was shelter from the wind, thanks God, and shelter from what I assumed would be hard rain within an hour. Once I laid the bike down, I realized I didn't want to pedal the 3 miles further I had planned on doing, so decided to call it a day at 4:00. NOw I realized that this would be a leisurely trip till the end, if I'm able to pedal nearly 50 miles on my first day, and not even take half of the amt of daylight. Good news indeed. I pushed the bike up the handicap ramp to the second floor of the visitor center, where there was windbreak from 4 sides, and I was conceiled from view of visitors.

I sat around for hours...napping, making tea, reading, snapping photographs of the light flooding through openings in the clouds. Soon the darkness came, the clouds parted, and I could see the stars. Things were turning around.

Day 2
When I awoke, the sky was clear, the surrounding mesas were golden, and I couldn't pack up quickly enough to get out into it all. The rain had come, but only for 20 minutes, and the roads were nearly completely dry. The wind had finally died, but I was absolutely freezing in the 45 deg weather on the downhills. On went the breadbags on feet and hands to my relief. The traffic had picked up since sunday, but the 3 ft shoulder had me not really taking notice. After about 10 miles I reached the turnoff for Hwy 92, going south toward Hotchkiss. I crossed the Blue Mesa Dam and started to climb. And climb. and climb. And climb more and more until I climbed out of the Black Canyon. The road was incredibly fun...winding all over the place while it climbing, never boring me. I saw about 5 cars per hour, perfection. the road clung to the mountain on the right, then a sheer cliff fell down to my left, giving me phenomenal views of the Black Canyon below and Cimmaron valley beyond.

When I reached the top at Hermit's Rest, there was 4" of snow that I had to trudge through to get to to the picnic benches and overlook. At the overlook I had a great view of the San Juan mtns, which were covered with the amount of snow that I'm used to seeing on some phenomenal Alaskan peaks. A few road cyclists caught me as I was about to keep going north, at the top of their climb, and about to descend back to their car. From here it was all downhill, CHILLY CHILLY downhill. I was able to get up to 33 mph, nearly reaching the speed limit posted for motorized vehicles in this section. Before I knew it, I was down in a valley where my watch was reading 61degrees, and there were cows eating GREEN GRASS. This little valley reminded me of the southern AT, lets say somewhere in Virginia. To the west were really mellow hills, farms...but to the East were 12,000 ft peaks still shrouded in snow...the West Elks which surround Crested Butte. ALMOST like the south I guess.

The wind had traumatized me to the point that I thought a slight wind, that I was creating, was cold in 60 degrees. I was uncomfortable and was ready to stop. Lots of pictures to take, and finally I made it to Crawford State Park, my stopping point, 52 miles into the day, and at 3:00. I pulled into the park to find that I had it all to myself. Everything I needed was there, silence, squawking geese, chirping birds, running water, and green grass to take a much needed nap on. The running water was key since I had been carrying all the water I needed to be self-sufficient since Gunnison since I didn't know if I would find any. Now I could make all of the tea I wanted. Get well hydrated, etc.

An abnoxious boat motor, one that I can only assume was a piece of garbage, woke me up, sounding like a weedeater. Surely this motor was just scraing away all of the fish he was seeking, and scared me away from the lake. Time for a short run. Lots of sitting around, reading Edward Abbey, then watching the sunset over the lake. This park was beautiful, far more beautiful than I had imagined in my head. There was nothing overwhelming spectacular about it: no insane cliffs dropping into it, no snow covered peaks just behind...just a really serene spot.

Day 3
A really red sunset woke me up this morning. I laid around a bit more, still cold while in my 2 inch layer of down. when the sun had finally come down into the valley, I laced up and went for a jog. Packed the gear, and had a really lazy ride to the town of Crawford, some 2 miles north. As I passed the Country Store, I was afraid that I wouldn't get the omellete and COFFEE I had been dreaming of until the next town. NO worries, I found a few locals parked in front of a diner and walked in. Immediatly I had a mug of coffee in my hand. The omellete was good, covered in swiss cheese and stuffed with shrooms. More coffee until I was feeling jittery, which was greatly enjoyed while overhearing some local coversation about long-haul trucking, hunting sportsmanship ("I refuse to guide those damn tourists down to the river so they can get an elk, and spook all them deer." "I got a guy come down here who hunts with a crossbow secured to his wheelchair!"), and talk of Suburbia not making it to Crawford, and hopefully never will. Maybe I am back in the south after all...

I found a side road to Needle Rock, an incredible monolith I had seen from afar that really seemed out of place in the valley. Back on the main Hwy, I had mostly downhill to glide down to get to the town of Hotchkiss, 11 miles away. More ranches, views of the West Elks, etc etc. In town I stopped into City Market for a resupply, and now on this computer, typing this.

I forgot to grab my USB cable, and don't really wanna unpack everything to get to it. I stil have some lessons to be learned about packing things. I'm going to ride the 19 miles to Delta this afternoon, camping around the state park just south of town. Maybe I"ll upload some pictures at the library there, since I'll have all sorts of free time. Then I've got a lazy 1.5 days to get to Grand Junction, passing by the weird yellow hills that always remind me of photos I've seen of the Badlands in South Dakota.

Adios

2009-04-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

this is it....

miss you. bye bye!

Gear rundown

2009-04-09T20:09:00.001-07:00

Here's a gear rundown for all of the geeks that are into this sort of thing, such as myself.

The two main factors when picking out gear for this trip could be boiled down to
A) cheap!!!
B) ultralight.

Considering I have an ultralight backpacking background, most of the camping stuff I had covered. I knew from the get-go that I didn't want to do the typical panniers route that most people do while touring due to bulk and price. I briefly considered getting only a rear rack, and then bungeeing compression sacks to it instead of panniers to save weight and money, but this fell apart when I ran across what these guys were doing. Not only were they a huge inspiration to push me to pursue another adventure, but their approach to travelling via bike made complete sense to me.

My mountain bike doesn't have rear eyelets/braze-ons to attach a rear rack to like most bikes, which really limited me in rear rack selection to store things on. My options were: 1) buy a special $100 rack from Old Man Mountain which can attach to ANY bike, 2) go to hardware store and get all sorts of clamps and adapters to attach the rack to my frame, or 3) cheap seatpost rack. Since a seatpost rack fits the two criteria I mentioned above, I went for it. You're not supposed to put more than 25 lbs on a seatpost rack, which won't be a problem for me.

On the seatpost rack I'll have the following gear stored in an old compression sack and lashed to the rack with UL ladderlock accessory straps:

-Tarptent Rainbow
-Night time clothing (thermal bottoms, wind pants, spare socks, dry shirt, etc)
-Alcohol stove with small pot
-12 oz denatured alcohol
-Hygiene products
-dinners

On handlebars in compression sack:

-Nunatak Arc Alpinist down quilt
-Titanium Goat bivy sack
-Montbell Thermawrap insulated jacket

I transformed an old backpack lid into a handlebar bag containing things that will be frequently accessed while riding:

-Camera (most important piece of gear)
-Snacks
-Bike tools (multi-tool, chainbreak, spare chain links, tire levers, lube, rag/toothbrush for chain cleaning, Swiss Army Knife)
-Spare Tube
-Book (Ed Abbey to start...cliche I'm well aware...)
-Sunscreen

In the triangle of the frame I've got a tiny Nashbar frame bag that will hold more food, 3L bladder of water on long dry stretches, zip ties for bike repair, and 3 spare spokes. There is a full-size bike pump stashed in the velcro attaching the bag to the frame.

I'm still trying to decide if I'll wear a backpack or not. A huge goal of this trip is to fit in 2-3 day backpacking trips in scenic spots (Canyonlands, Arches, Zion, Capital Reef, Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim, etc) to be a tiny break from pedalling all day and a way to get away from roads and really into the wild. My original plan was to use my ultralight backpack (ULA Amp) while riding, and inside would be my blue foam sleeping pad as the pack's frame, tent poles, and rain gear. With the new addition of the handlebar bag, I may not need the extra space that the pack provides most of the time. There will be some stretches where I go 3 days without going thru a town, and in these situations I may need that extra space. If not, I'll just secure it under the compression sack on the rear rack, and not have the weight on my back. I'll figure that out on the road, as well as balancing the weight on my bike better.

Since I plan to leave my bike for extended periods of time while hiking/canyoneering:
There's a 6-ft cable bike lock wrapped around the stem, which I may get rid of in favor of a smaller ghetto setup of hardware store chain and masterlock....

On my body

-bright green long-sleeve Railriders shirt for visibility and sun protection
-awesome Bell helmet given to me from Yard Sale (he's doing the GDR check here)
-nerdy helmet mirror made by CycleAware (worn only when there is no shoulder)
-cheapo (but good) Aevero cycling shorts
-old-school Old Navy board shorts (versatility: can hike or swim in them, without the lycra cycling shorts)
-Inov-8 trail runners
-Cool guy cyclist hat
-Women's Prana headband
-sunglasses that I'm destined to break and/or lose
-arm/knee warmers made out of long socks from thrift store
-silk liner gloves
-bread bag rain/wind-protection for hands/feet

Warning: I know nothing, really nothing, about bike components. What I do know is that I have quite a bit of Shimano parts that came with this bike. Keep in mind that this bike was given to me for free, so the fact that it happens to have some quality involved is purely miraculous. The crank and derailleurs are all Shimano. You won't find me telling you why my Deore XT rear derailleur is so great, because I really don't know what makes it better than any other derailleur. All I know is that it works, and I've set the limits on it successfully. 7 cog rear cassette. V-brakes. Salsa fork with front suspension. I've added bar-ends, bottle cages (one held on by zipties), and I'm using toe clips, not pricey, and awkward, clipless shoes.

I've only ridden a grand total of 3 miles with the bike fully loaded, and it rode incredibly well. Dare I say it felt better than unloaded???

Loaded

2009-04-07T22:35:00.000-07:00

So, I've got this little bike trip planned. Today I got the last of the gear that I'll need for the trip. Now all I need is some food and I'll be ready to head west.

Oh yes!!!!!!!!!!

2009-04-06T22:50:00.000-07:00

Finally made it to dry ground, and the newly christened Dominguez Canyon WILDERNESS in western CO this weekend. What a trip.

Parked, signed the register with a pack full of 3 days of food, and started the hike parallel to some RR tracks. Sure, it was cloudy and windy, but not that bad really with views like this

Things were a tad muddy, something that would get MUCH WORSE later in the trip, but for now, wasn't so bad. After maybe a mile of hiking, I cut down to the Gunnison River, and eventually had to cross the bad boy to get into the Dominguez Canyons. They had a cute little bridge for feet to cross by

At this point I was truly blown away by the area. The effect of the canyon walls and clouds had me taking entirely too many pictures. I live in a land that hasn't seen dry ground in over a week. When I left it was dumping something like it's 6th consecutive day of 4-6" of white fluffy stuff. With a broken wrist, I had been longing for the feeling of dirt and rock underfoot, and this trip gave it in spades. Jeez

This area used to be a Wilderness Study Area for 2 decades, and less than a month ago Salazar made it a Wilderness Area, protecting it forever. What the area is known for is it's petroglyphs, tranquil canyon beauty, and desert bighorn sheep. I was able to photograph the former 2, but was unable to get the latter, despite the fact that I saw over 25 of these beauties in the ~3 days I was down in there. Still got lots of beauty I might say

I love rock and the high desert and canyon-country is wonderful for this stuff

trees and rock and rock

whale or rock?

Soon enough I was starting to get frustrated. Why hadn't I found the petroglyphs that I was promised near the trail by those guys leaving at the trailhead? I had been looking fairly closely since the canyon got tighter, had curved into Big Dominguez Canyon, not Little, but no sign of man from years back. Had I been taking so many photos of the distant landscape that I missed what was right in front of my face?? I noticed that spotting them was made a bit tricky by the lichen all over the rock. Finally, I got to a rock that I could tell from many many feet away was covered. And I mean covered. Here is a tiny sampling with a bit of lichen:

Soon enough the 200+ mile drive and hiking and godknows what else was making me tired. Plus I wanted to squeeze in a 30 min trail run on dry ground before dark. That meant I needed to score some water before finding a campsite and calling it a night. I could hear the water flowing in the canyon below and a short trip down a gully got me there. ugh:

I was actually carrying a stove this trip, which I didn't do thru-hiking last year, and enjoyed my mediocre Lipton Side to the fullest. Wanted to make a cup of tea, but not quite enough water to justify. argh. Woke up to a nice view though

I had some big plans in my head for this trip. Wanted to hike the length of Big Dominguez Canyon (~11 mi), then connect to Little Dominguez to the southwest to make a sweet loop back to my car. Trails didn't work out that way, so I had planned to connect the canyons via unmarked forest roads. After hiking some miserable miles on logging roads on the PNT last year, I knew what could be in store, so I picked up the hiking pace that morning. It was a bit chilly out, but the views, and the cactus framing the trail kept me going

Lots of cool light for the first few hours. Fun shadows. More great great rock

It had gotten pretty cold that night. I've stopped caring and measuring it on my watch, but my water bladder froze (rookie mistake), as did the rare section of water on the trail

I thought I was making good time, I really wasn't. Whatever, I felt good and didn't care.

It was obvious that halfway thru the canyon, the trail wasn't used very often. I would get to many many spots where a huge slab of rock would cross the trail, and I would be standing there with a stupid look on my face. With nothing but random splatterings of brush, cacti, rock, and dirt in front of me, no trail. If not for these magnificent cairns, I would have been making my own way through the canyon:

The canyon never stopped bringin' the rock

Nearing the top of the canyon, there were more and more trees. The variety was stunning in this 8 mile section of canyon

had to admire this section of trail here

there was even a bit of grass up here, and the word 'lush' may have started to enter my mind a time or two

That was nearly all the way upcanyon. Things started to get pretty muddy up there, but I knew I was nearly to the campground where I would meet those evil forest service roads. Once while climbing a steep muddy slope, I managed to get my cast soaked in mud, which eventually entertained the docter the next day.

Anyways. The road walk.

it was nice. For a mile. Up on the rim of the canyon I was up on the Uncompagre Plateau, and there was a little bit of snow. I had to ford Big Dominguez Creek, which wasn't so bad, just cold. cold. Did I mention how good the views were from the rim? Phenomenal.

Then I slipped back into the trees, but the clouds and easy walking kept me company

Until the mud hit

Every step would have me sinking 1/4" into the dirt. Mud. Yuk. Mud ain't that bad, but the prospect of walking in 4 miles of road covered in it, then 8.1 miles on a high elevation trail kinda sucks. Made the tough decision to bag it. Turned around and descended Big Dominguez Creek.

With less mileage to cover, I started walking slow, really enjoying the hiking. No timeframe to meet anymore, and the views were mindblowing when going downcanyon looking down down down as the canyon sank with the creek. These next few hours were a highlight. yup.

mmhhhmmm

dude!

it just didn't stop

and then it was time for one more last load of water before making camp in the exact same incredible spot I had made before. The water had turned clear after that horrible silty nonsense from the night before. This was a great water source and I was in my element. Naturally I didn't treat this stuff

The moon came up over the canyon wall way before darkness would hit. Just something else to stare at. How could this day get any better?

Another cold night of sleep, but the moon was nearly full, allowing me to read after dark without a headlamp. The cliffs got shadows from the moonlight. I drank caffeinated tea because I didn't want the night to end. Naturally it did, and I woke up after cowboy camping to sweetness

I left the canyon the way I came, but not before sneaking in a nice 45 minute run up Little Dominguez Canyon where I saw at least 10 of those Desert Bighorn Sheep. No pictures because all I had was a water bottle in hand. A lot of those views are etched in memory, perhaps more important than being on a memory card. The stream crossings. The double track trail. The house (!!!) in the canyon. The sheep. Great day.
so yea. Hiked back on a nice and wide trail

and along the railroad