4492 Miles. There and Back Again.

[emgee]

I've owned my Tenere for a year and a month now. Almost 19,000 miles on the clock. Whitehorse was my first big trip. Needless to say it was incredible. Then I took a trip through Glacier, Waterton, Banff, and Jasper later that summer. Also amazing. This summer's main event was the trip to Colorado. Incredible scenery and terrain. Fantastic turnout of great people as well.

I'm not one to take many pictures. Blame my dad. I've acquired his trait of pushing on to the destination. I tried to force myself to stop and take pics, but unfortunately, most of the journey is captured in my head, not on camera. With that being said, here's what I did capture "on film" in the two weeks on the road to Colorado and back.

It all started with an email from my friend Ryan (PNWRider) asking if I wanted to head out to Colorado. "Hell Yes", I said, and there it began. I didn't feel like I was totally prepped for doing the the UT or CO BDR's on the way to and from the rally, so there were a few things I needed to acquire as far as tools and such. After bolstering my tool kit and building a z drag line I felt like I had everything I needed to get me out of "most" situations I was likely to encounter. (This included a fifth of Jim Beam) ;-)

The days passed by pretty quickly and the next thing I know it's time to leave!

Wednesday June 19th
As typically happens, I didn't get totally packed prior to my departure time, so instead of leaving at 8am, I got a bit of a late start. No big deal. The plan for today is to ride freeway all the way to Boise where I would meet up with Ryan (coming from Eugene) and we'd crash at his Aunt and Uncle's place. Weather in Seattle was cloudy, but fortunately it wasn't raining. I start out on I-90 and head east. It sprinkles a bit as I'm passing over Snoqualmie Summit but I'm heading east, so it's got to dry out and get warmer, right? Dry? yes, for a while. Warmer? No. I'm enjoying the ride though despite just being on the freeway. As I pass through Yakima, and the Tri Cities, the weather in the distance is doing some pretty incredible things. Huge dark clouds and what looks to be some thunderstorms off in the distance. As I approach Pendleton, OR, I see that I'm about to ride right into the belly of the beast. I'm underdressed and have been a bit chilly for the last hour , so I take this opportunity to fuel up in Pendleton and dig though my bags to find my long underwear. It helps, but as I ride through the Blue Mountains, it's pouring rain and the air temp on the bike is reading 40*F. Heated grips have now become the best accessory I've ever purchased, but I was wishing for some heated gear too. Additionally, my visor on my helmet wouldn't stop fogging. I had to deal with that for a few hours from Cabbage Hill, to Baker City, to Ontario, OR, where the rain finally stopped.

I'm totally dry, but chilled to the core so I pull off in Ontario to warm up and see where Ryan is. I find a coffee shop that isn't a Starbucks (that makes it okay, right?) and I stop in there to warm up. I notice a F650GS parked outside all loaded up. Inside is a 20 year old kid who is stoked to chat. He's had his 650 for two weeks and he's off to ride through Glacier and Banff. I chat him up for a bit and give him a few highlights of my ride up there last summer. It's cool to see someone so stoked about their adventure. About that time I hear from Ryan. It turns out he's only 30 minutes from Ontario. I decide to grab some food and wait for him there. A while later, Ryan shows up. It's good to see him as it's been almost a year since Whitehorse. Although I'm a little fatter than I was a year ago, Ryan looks the same. His bike however, looks a bit more badass with a 21" front and an 18" rear. Nice!

After Ryan grabs some food, we head off toward Boise and his Aunt and Uncle's. We arrive there and they treat us like Kings. Places in the garage to park the bikes, beds, and a full on breakfast in the morning. Couldn't have asked for greater hospitality.

 

[emgee]

Thursday June 20th

Ryan and I bid our hosts farewell after breakfast and continue east on the freeway. Another day of slab before we get to the mountains of Utah. We didn't really have a plan other than to ride parts of the UTBDR down to Moab and then ride the White Rim Trail prior to heading to Ouray. I resisted the urge to turn north past Mountain Home as I've heard there is great riding up around Anderson Ranch Dam and Prairie, ID. We'll just have to do that another time. Eastbound and down, we were. Stopping for fuel just past the Utah border, Ryan laughed at me for complaining that I was only getting 36mpg. "The bike sucks a lot of fuel over 4500K RPM. Maybe if you weren't doing 90, you'd get better gas mileage." Good point, but it's just too easy to cruise at high speeds.

We pull into Ogden, UT and it's noticeably warmer. Glad we're out of the cold weather. We stop for some provisions and some things I forgot (headphones) or broke (GPS charger) We decide to enter the UTBDR right at the Wyoming border through Coalville. Last bit of freeway before we're finally on the dirt! Woo Hoo!! The RAGNAR Relay was going on but luckily it had passed through Coalville earlier that day. This would be the first of several "events" that I didn't know was going on, or had simply forgot about. Fortunately we unknowingly timed it right and didn't get delayed by the race.

As we finally get to the dirt roads leading up into the Wasatch, we're greeted by dozens and dozens of cows along the side of the road. This nothing like what's to come further up the trail, but we still have to slow down as to not spook them into crossing the road. Despite slowing down, we still spooked a couple of calves. They didn't run across our path, but the poor guys ran full speed directly into the fence. Ouch!

Continuing on, we're doing some high speed cruising up these well groomed dirt roads. It's super fun, and I'm feeling "vacation" finally starting to kick in as we climb higher and higher into the mountains. There were even a couple shallow water crossings to splash aound in. We end up camping that night in the Moffit Basin, roughly 9500'. A nightcap with a pull off the bottle of Beam, keeps our bellies warm. Not sure what the temp was that night, but it was by far the coolest night of the trip.

 

[BaldKnob]

Good RR, Emgee. Keep it comin'!

 

[limey]

::017:: good stuff Mike .

 

[eemsreno]

::012:: ::017::

 

[RockyDS]

::017:: ::008::

 

[emgee]

Friday June 21st

Slept a little later than I usually do. Ryan was actually up before I was, which was a rarity in Whitehorse. I crawl out of my tent to a beautiful day. I fire up the stove to make some coffee and to attempt to make one of those freeze dried "breakfast skillets" taste good. (a tortilla, salt/pepper, and Tabasco sauce will do wonders for the freeze dried stuff) Ryan and I choke down breakfast and start planning out the day. It had come to our attention that the .gpx files that I had downloaded differed from the ones that Ryan had. Mine wasn't the official route and seemed to want to take us down a few random paths, so we mainly relied on Ryan to guide us. That probably wasn't the best plan for me because Ryan had that new 21" front wheel that he seemed to want to try out over all the really rocky alternate routes of the BDR. ;-) My bike was up to the task and made it through unscathed. Since I'm usually so poor at choosing good lines, I decided not to air down my tires in an effort to help protect my rims. Seemed to work out okay. I haven't done a full post trip inspection, but I didn't have any leaks over the course of the 2 weeks.

Not too far into the day I have my first get off of the trip. We came around the corner to find a tree had fallen across the road. Some quads had started to bushwhack a trail around it, so we followed in those tracks. Ryan went first to show me the line. It was a short steep uphill that went between a couple trees, crossed the remnants of a seasonal spring/creek and back on to the road. It really isn't even worth mentioning except for the fact that upon crossing muddy part of the trail, I buried my front tire in a rut from one of the quads and the Tenere ejected me in grande fashion. It was actually pretty funny because it was strange to be catapulted from the bike in that manner despite the fact I was barely moving. I think Ryan sensed that he should have the camera out for this just in case. He should have listened to his instincts. Unfortunately though, there's no photo evidence of this one.

We continue south on highway 150 over Bald Mtn Pass which is a nice bit of road. Beautiful views and a nice twisty road to practice my cornering skills. ( or lack thereof)
After we cross the pass, we turn back on to dirt in the Soapstone Basin. We stop at the campground to fill up our water bottles and a guy on an F650 comes over to chat us up. He lives in Park City and came over to fish for the day. He had a slick little set up with a 4 piece rod that fit perfectly on the bike. I'm not much of a fisherman, but I may look into getting a setup like that for future rides. He was really stoked to see a couple guys on loaded down bikes crossing the passes. If he didn't have to go back to work, I think he may have joined us! (He was really that stoked!)

As we continued on, one thing that struck me were the high alpine meadows and grassy ridges of the Mill Hollow and Uinta NF. It almost had a "Sound of Music" feel to it. We finish up this section with some high speed cruising down Currant Creek and hit highway 40. We hadn't fueled up since Coalville so we had a decision to make. Do we take a detour to Duchesne or try and make it to Soldier Summit? In hindsight we probably could have made Soldier Summit, but we chose to do an out and back to Duchense. It was frikking HOT out there. Let's get our fuel, some water, and get back in the mountains!

After we fuel up, we backtrack and then turn up the Strawberry Canyon. This was a cool red rock canyon that followed the Strawberry river up to Timber Canyon and Reservation Ridge and to our destination for the night, Avantiquin Campground. Strawberry Canyon, although a scenic and fun road was super dusty. I finally had to stop to put on goggles. Even giving Ryan a 10 minute head start didn't do enough to combat the dust. As I look at a blown up portion of the map, I see that adjacent to Timber Canyon is something called "Cow Hollow". I now understand how that got its name as we found ourselves smack in the middle of a herd that was headed that way. The road was narrow and since we were in the canyon, there wasn't anywhere for the cows to go. We passed about 50 cows and then we came across a guy on an 1150GS just sitting there in the middle of the road. He had come from the direction we were headed and simply got tired of dealing with the cows so he decided to stop and wait it out. We talked with him a bit. Since it was a full moon this weekend, he was planning on riding the different trails in the area well into the night, mentioning he would stop around 3am. Whoa! That's pretty ambitious. Ryan and I decide to continue battling the cattle drive and push on. After about 30 minutes of clutching and over 100 more head of cattle, we get to the front and are finally able to use the throttle. Woo Hoo! A nice uphill jaunt from Long Ridge to Reservation Ridge with no cows! Throttle on!

Part way up Reservatiion Ridge, Ryan waits for me. He offers to let me lead as he's going to hang back and take his time. I take him up on the offer, partly because the roads were wide and fast, and partly because I was tired of eating his dust in Strawberry Canyon. (It's about 5pm.) I lead the way and take off up the hill. I'm following my GPS but we're on a main road, so I continue on for about 10 or 15 minutes before finding a nice viewpoint to stop and wait. I wait for about 10 minutes and I think to myself, "This is weird. I don't care how much Ryan "hangs back", he should be here by now." I wait for another 5 minutes and no Ryan. I immediately start thinking that my GPS route wasn't the right one and that Ryan must've taken a turn at one of the 2 or 3 intersections that I passed. I turn around a retrace my route. I go back to the intersections and still no Ryan. "Shit, the road is firm enough that I can't see tire tracks to tell whether he turned here or not." I ride back and forth (a few miles) between the intersections to see if he'd ridden down any of them and had come back up to wait for me. Still nothing. Shit. Now I'm wondering whether or not I'm on the right road. We planned on camping at Avintaquin, so I guess I'll find the campground and see if Ryan is there waiting for me with a beer in his hand. But first, just in case Ryan had the "hard start" problem, I'll ride back to where he let me lead and see if he's sitting there trying to figure out WOT. I make it back to "the start" and no sign of Ryan anywhere. As luck would have it, I drop my bike while turning around. Perfect..

Okay, the likely explanation is that Ryan's route took him a different way and he's waiting at the campground. I'll head south and find the campground and all will be well. (It's now about 630pm) I ride the 12 or so miles south. On my way, I encounter a few people and ask about the campground, whether or not they've seen another motorcyclist, and whether or not any of these "intersections" lead to the highway. Apparently my GPS route was accurate. This was the road to the campground. Nobody had seen another motorcycle, and no, these intersections don't go to the highway. Now I'm getting more than a little worried. Just in case Ryan took a wrong turn, I build giant arrows out of branches on the road at all three intersections pointing the way I went toward the campground. I ride to the campground and it is totally deserted. Everyone basically camps in the bush up here, so there wasn't a soul at the campground. Oh man..... Now I'm starting to get a sick feeling in my gut. All kinds of crazy stuff is going through my head. Where the heck could Ryan be?

I decide to unload my duffels and leave them at the campground just in case Ryan shows up while I go back out looking for him. This way he'll know I've been here, and that I'm coming back. Also, I remeber that I've got Ryan's Spot page on my phone. Perhaps we're close enough to Highway 6 as the crow flies that I'll get reception. I head up to the ridge and viola! Cell service!!!! I call Ryan, no answer. I also send him a text, no reply. Makes sense if he's on the bike. It also makes sense if he's in a ditch, so that really didn't bring much comfort. Then I try and bring up Ryan's SPOT and it doesn't show ANYTHING! I get some error message. Shit. Well, I guess I'll retrace the route once again. (This time trying not to drop the bike) I take it VERY slow trying to look for tire tracks or listening for anyone. Peering off the sides of the roads just in case he took a spill. I make it back to the beginning again (15 miles from the campground) and still no sign of Ryan. It's now about 8pm. I haven't seen Ryan for about 3 hours. This isn't good.

I turn around and start back to the campground. Again, going super slow. Then, about a half mile from where I took the lead, I catch something out of the corner of my eye! It's Ryan! He is about 100 yards up the hill on this little spur of a jeep trail. He's standing there waving his jacket at me. Whew! He's alive. He must've had a mechanical. I get off my bike and go running up the hill. (That's how I remember it, but in all actuality I probably huffed and wheezed while stumbling slowly up the hill. We are around 9000' you know...) Anyway, I get to Ryan and he's laying there with his boot off and leg splinted up. I give him a big hug as I was starting to think the worst before I found him. "What happened?", I ask. "Not sure. Wasn't riding hard. The bike just fell over on my leg." I look up at his bike and the hub had pulled all the spokes out of the rim. Whoa!

Ryan had activated his SPOT shortly after the accident, but search and rescue hadn't gotten to him yet. Since I had cell service, I called 911. As I was explaining our situation, the 911 operater asked, "Are you with Ryan? We're looking for him." Well, you have our coordinates, I think to myself. Apparently USFS Rangers are having a hard time locating us. Not sure why. Even though we're about 15 miles from Soldier Summit on highway 6, we're on a major forest service road. The type of road that people are pulling fifth wheels up. I guess it doesn't matter at this point. They can't figure out where we are. Just then a guy comes by in his pickup. I flag him down and explain the situation. He was gracious enough to offer to put Ryan in his truck and take him the 2+ hours to the hospital in Provo. We take everything off Ryan's bike and load it into the truck and leave the bike on the mountain. We'll figure out how to get it down tomorrow. Meanwhile, I had left all my gear back at the campsite, so I make the trek back to grab my gear. At that point, I'm closer to highway 191 than I am to highway 6, so I take the long way back to Provo. It's about 930 now, and I'm a little nervous about riding at night on the mountain highways. I see a few deer, but no close calls. At 1130, I pull into the hospital in Provo. Ryan was inside being tended to. Meanwhile the good samaritan (Mike) was waiting for me with all of Ryan's stuff. I tried about 6 hotels but they were all full. Apparently there was a conference going on and all the hotels were full. We finally find one with a vacancy and book it. Mike follows me to the hotel, helps me unload Ryan's gear, and as I thank him profusely for his assistance, says, "No thanks needed. Glad I could help."

I head back to the hospital to check up on Ryan. He shows me the xray. Ewww. That is one heckuva break. He's almost ready to be discharged, but I can't get him to the hotel on the bike, so the hospital arranges a ride for him. It's now about 1am. Exhausting day. Physically and emotionally. I see a Sonic Drive In. I pull in and order a burger to take back to the hotel. Ryan eventually shows up in the full glory of a temporary cast and crutches. Turns out he's gonna have to go home and have surgery.

Now, how do we get the bike off the mountain????

 

[limey]

::017::

 

[True Grip]

WOW! Glad u were along and used your head. Ryan has a good riding bud. Can't wait to hear the rest of this.

 

[RockyDS]

WOW! Glad u were along and used your head. Ryan has a good riding bud. Can't wait to hear the rest of this.

X2. It's like waiting for the next episode of Downton Abbey, but way better.

 

[emgee]

I'm not sure it's as nail biting as finding out whether or not Lady Mary becomes a widow or simply following the goings-on of the rest of Lord Grantham's staff, but I'll give it a shot.

Saturday, June 22nd

We wake up the next morning and Ryan seems to be in really good spirits. At least really good for someone who just broke their leg and is facing surgery when they get home. I unintentionally tried to sour his mood by telling Ryan how much more it hurts post surgery. (I broke my ankle snowboarding a year ago) So you've got that to look forward to. I guess I could have kept that info to myself. Sorry man. Just making conversation.

Anyway, we've got shit to do! Figure out how to get Ryan's bike off the mountain and figure out how to get him home. But first we need coffee. Ryan reminded me that we were in Provo, UT and that finding caffeine isn't like Seattle where there is a coffee shop on every corner. I would have just fired up the camp stove and made some in the hotel parking lot but I needed to go to the pharmacy to pick up Ryan's pain killers anyway, so I'll just grab something for us along the way. I get to the store, grab some things for breakfast, some of those bottled coffee drinks, and fill Ryan's prescription. $1.06 to fill the script of generic Percocet???? Wow! And I thought my insurance was good. At this point, I put Ryan's insurance card and driver's license in my wallet. This was a mistake as I forget to give it back to him and later I find out that he basically has to submit to a cavity search and give a stool sample in order to board the airplane from Boise to Eugene without his license. Sorry Ryan.

Back at the hotel, we're going over options to get the bike. We think about posting on this forum or ADVrider to see if anyone can help, but luckily Ryan's uncle from Boise came to the rescue. He offered to come get Ryan and the bike on Sunday and his uncle had a friend in the Salt Lake area that could help us fetch the bike off the mountain later that morning. Sweet! We're set. I pack up my stuff and I ride my bike back up to Soldier Summit while Ryan and his uncle's friend drive the pickup and trailer. I need fuel at Soldier Summit so I stop in to gas up. As I go in to pay, the cashier and another customer ask about the bike. (it tends to draw attention when it's fully loaded) I tell them that I'm headed up to fetch one up on the mountain and the cashier says, "That was you? The Rangers were here last night for quite a while and they didn't know where to go." The customer happened to be part of the local search and rescue and he seemed dumbfounded that the USFS Rangers couldn't get to us. He also didn't know why it wasn't escalated to his crew after a couple hours had passed. I didn't know either. We were seriously 12 miles up a fairly well groomed dirt road. Still shaking my head at this one...

We make it back up the hill to Ryan's bike. Well, most of the way to it. The truck and trailer can't get the final 100+ yards up the jeep trail. We knew this ahead of time, so the plan was to take off my rear wheel and put it on Ryan's bike so that I could ride it down to the truck and onto the trailer. Well, this should be fun. I've yet to take off my wheels. Ryan walked me through it and what do you know? It was pretty simple! We get my wheel off and then hike up the hill and put it on Ryan's bike. I almost have a hernia lifting Ryan's bike despite the fact that his uncle's friend is probably doing most of the heavy lifting. This thing is heavy when trying to lift at odd angles on the hillside! We get the bike up and it fires right away. I ride it further up the hill where the jeep trail connects with the main road and cruise back down and onto the trailer. Simple enough. Now it's just a matter of securing Ryan's bike to the trailer, putting the wheel back on my bike, and we're ready to roll. We get everything settled and then it's time to say our goodbyes.

I start off south with a feeling of deja vu. Before yesterday, I've never ridden this road, but in the last 24 hours I've gone back and forth on it so many times, I feel like I know it like the back of my hand. Not more than 20 minutes after Ryan and I go our separate ways, I run into another Tenere heading north. We stop and chat for a bit. It's Andy from Louisiana! (AndyCBR) He's headed to the rally the LONG way. North on the UTBDR and then south on the COBDR. Sweet! See you Thursday at dinner! He gives me a brief rundown of the trail I have ahead of me. "Just a little sand by Green River" he says. I should have asked him to define "a little" as you'll understand in just a bit. We fire up the bikes and continue on our merry ways. I cross hwy 191 and start down the Argyle and Nine Mile canyons. I don't see anyone on the road until about 5 bikes come flying around the corner (didn't notice the bikes but I think there was one or two KLR's) They even had a sag wagon to carry all their stuff. They were riding with purpose and showed no desire to stop and chat so I continued on. As I pass all of these ranches that seem to be 50 miles from the nearest road, let alone the nearest town, I think to myself, this would be one loooooooong trip to the store for a gallon of milk.

Right about then, I come around the corner into an open field with 6 horses grazing. These definitely aren't wild horses, so there's probably a ranch nearby. There is some shade on the road and I decide this is a good place to stop and grab a snack and some water. What I didn't anticipate was that I was about to be "attacked" by some super curious, super friendly horses. They surrounded the bike sniffing my bags for food and licking the salt off the bike. They certainly weren't shy. After a brief rest, it was time to go but I didn't want to spook them by firing up the engine as they are practically on top of me. So I pushed the bike forward a few feet and that was enough for them to give me some space where I felt comfortable starting up my steel horse (thanks Bon Jovi) and continuing down the road.

There are some petroglyphs on this section of the trail, but it was getting late in the afternoon and I needed to push on, so I didn't stop to take any pictures. This gives me an excuse to come back and do it again! The paved road to Wellington is pretty fun and twisty. A word of caution. You MUST obey the speed limit warnings for the flash flood crossings on the roads. When they say 15mph, they mean it! Those dips are HUGE!

I fuel up in Wellington and continue south. This section of trail is REALLY fast. The majority of it is basically like a gravel freeway. I read that I'll likely make up some time on this section of the route so I'm inclined to ride fast and push to Green River. All goes as planned for the first 3/4 of this section. Then, as I pass through a gate and drop down into Cottonwood Wash/Calf Mesa my front wheel gets a bit squirrely in the sand. Next thing I know, I dump my bike about 5 feet off the road down a sandy wash. No big deal, I just kinda laid the bike over but as I investigate, there is NO WAY I'm pulling the bike back up onto the road by myself. This would have been a challenge with two people. Hmmm.... What to do? I built that z drag line. I guess I could put that to use. Instead, after giving a few minutes for the adrenaline to wear off I follow the wash through the bushes and it opens up quite nicely. Hmmm. I wonder if I could just ride the bike to here where I can get it on firmer ground and then bushwhack the 30 feet back up to the road. I'll give it a shot. The sand in the wash was deep. Buried it up to the axel a couple times but I just laid the bike down and filled in the hole from the rear wheel. I finally get it to the point where I'm on somewhat terra-firma, and I attempt to get it back up on the road. Lots of tire spinning and some high revs, but I manage to get it back on the road. I don't think my headers looked like JaimeV's but they were hot. No harm, no foul. 15 minutes and I'm back riding. Unfortunately, I had 4 other "incidents" where I dumped the bike in the sand. I'm not sure if I'm on an alternate route at this point or not, but despite the fact that this isn't Lockhart Basin, this is slightly more than what I would define as "a little sand".

Anyway, it's now dark. I'm exhausted after repeating this step 4 times. Drop bike in sand. Unload duffels from bike. Walk duffels 200 yards up the road to firm ground. Walk back to the bike. Pick up bike. Ride bike up to the duffels. Load bike back up. Continue on for 1/2 mile. Drop bike in sand. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

The final time I dropped the bike, I was ready to set up camp right there. I'll deal with this in the morning when I'm fresh. I check my GPS and it appears that I'm less than 1/4 mile from the main dirt road. Okay....one more time. Load the bike up and off I go. I had made it through the worst of it. Finally, hard pack dirt! It's about 10pm and I'm in no mood to set up camp, so I make it to the highway and head for Green River. I find an inexpensive motel to shack up of the night. I must've looked tired and dirty as the proprietor offered me a beer before I finished filling out the registration form. Thank you, and good night kind sir!

 

[gmtech]

haha good thing for those TT boxes on your bike it doesnt drop as far!

mike is working on the gopro video of us on corkscrew pass and hopefully should have it done in a week
then well post it on youtube with a link on here! ::003::

 

[emgee]

Sunday June 23rd

Up and at 'em! I wake up Sunday morning refreshed and looking forward to today's ride. I've mountain biked around Moab about 15 years ago and one of my favorite rides was North Beaver Mesa to Onion Creek. Luckily the BDR follows this same route just in reverse of the way I've ridden it on the bicycle. This dirt road climbs from the Colorado River up into the La Salle mountains and it crosses Onion Creek 27 times! They're all really short and shallow water crossings as well, so they're fun to carry some speed through.

Anyway, I head east on I70. Two things are going through my mind. #1, I hope there's not a ton more sand. And # 2, I'm not sure where I'm going to spend the night tonight. I don't have to be in Ouray until Monday afternoon. Ryan and I were going to be riding the White Rim trail today, spending the night in Moab, and then heading for Ouray on Monday. I'm obviously not riding the White Rim trail, so maybe I'll push on past Moab and try and get to Telluride tonight. Making that plan up on the fly, I decide to skip the Book Cliffs portion of the route and head straight for the Onion Creek portion. (another reason to come back!)

The paved road in the canyon of the Colorado River should be a fun one, but it's hot and there are more tar snakes than I've ever seen in my life. The sun was making them squirrely even riding totally upright. Needless to say, I took it easy through that section. I finally get to the turn off for Onion Creek and it looks the same as it did 15 years ago. I'm excited to be riding it uphill this time (with a motor) I take off and make all the water crossings relatively quickly before the road starts climing up the canyon through the ranchlands of the Fisher Valley. I wish I had stopped to take some pictures because this place is really cool, but I was focused on riding. Climbing Cowhead hill up to Thompson Canyon was a little rockier than I recall, but it's no big deal. It's hot though and it looks like some thunderstorms might be brewing. I don't want to get caught out here in a storm so no time for breaks! I finally get up to Beaver Mesa and a well groomed dirt road. Time for more high speed cruising. Not too long and the road becomes paved and turns into the La Salle Mountain Loop road. It's nice up here. A little cooler. Twisty road with very few people on it. I'd like to go up and over La Salle Pass like the main BDR follows, but I'm uncertain if have enough fuel. I decide to head toward Moab to fuel up. I look at the map and see an alternate route that goes around the southwest side of the mountain. It's rocky but not that technical as it winds its way around the flank of the La Salle's. Just before the trail intersects with the highway, I encounter another really sandy section. Damn it! I don't even know if I'm using the right technique for the sand. My weight is back, I'm giving it plenty of throttle, and my hands are loose on the bars just trying to let the front wheel float. Well, it floated the front end right into the ground again. ;-) Turns out this would be the last laugh the UTBDR would have with me as my route takes me through La Salle and onto Colorado 90 to 141 and Telluride. I can stand some pavement for a while. It's actually quite nice to relax a bit.

As I pull into Telluride I see signs for a music festival. Hmm... It's Sunday evening. Maybe it ended this weekend and town will be mellow. Unfortunately not! I completely forgot that the Bluegrass Festival was going on and the place was absolutely packed. Town was a zoo. People were camping EVERYWHERE. I do a lap through town and decide that I'm not staying here tonight as planned. I'd like to grab a quick beer though as I've been on the bike all day. I stop in at Brown Dog Pizza, grab a beer (a really good one btw. Wish I could remember what it was) and then head back out of town to look for a campsite. I should have oriented myself a bit better with the map. If I had realized that hwy 62 to Ridgeway was so close I probably would have taken that route to Ouray. Instead I turn south on 145 in the hope of finding a campground. I found two of them. Both of them packed, mediocre, and EXPENSIVE! $24 bucks for a tent site at a USFS campground? I pass and continue down the road.

It's 8pm and starting to get dark, but it's supposed to be one of the largest full moon's this weekend AND I've got this set of Baja lights I bought from Jaxon, so why not head over Ophir Pass and just get to the KOA tonight? Sounds like a plan! I head up the road past all the houses. It's very well marked as they must have a ton of jeeps and ATV's going through their neighborhood. The ascent starts and gets rocky pretty quickly. I can see the trail well so I'm just picking a line and staying on the throttle. It's probably good that I'm not paying attention to anything but the road as I'm told the dropoff is pretty steep. I see a couple sets of lights coming down the mountain. I make my way up to them pretty quickly. It's a couple of pickups out for a nighttime 4x4 session. I try no to blind them with the Baja's so turn them off as I approach. The trucks stop at a wider level section to let me by. I stop and talk to the first truck. "The rest of the road any gnarlier than this?" "Also, how far is it? My fuel light just came on." What a junk show I am.... The guy says that I've pretty much ridden through the worst of it. A few other sections before the summit and a little bit on the back side, but shouldn't be a problem. Also gives me distances to Silverton and Ouray. Fuel won't be an issue. Whew!

I make it down the other side to the million dollar highway but being dark I'm taking is slow. There will be plenty of time in the coming days to ride this road. As I drop down into Ouray I feel a sense of relief, excitement, and anticipation of the rides to come and the people to meet in the next several days. I fuel up in Ouray and head up the highway to the KOA. The office is closed and I'm a day early for my reservation, but I find an empty campsite and pitch my tent. It's good to finally be here!!!


Unfortunately I don't have many pictures of this portion of the trip. Just two of the La Salle Mountains. My Spot seemed kinda "spotty" as well. You'll notice a waypoint at the beginning of the west side of Ophir and then nothing else until I hit the Million Dollar Highway on the other side. Unfortunately, this doesn't give a good indication of the actual route but you can kinda see where the road would go just by the elevations. It also didn't capture anything from Telluride until Ophir which makes it look like I went right over the top of the mountains instead of down hwy 145.

 

[limey]

Good RR mike. ::017::

 

[pnwrider]

Nice write up!

Shoot, I knew what was going to happen and I still could not handle the suspense.

Here are a few more photos to fill in...

The photos are not showing up but here is a link to a web album with a few more pics.

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=22CD6EE6959D00AB!1446&authkey=!AIEhA11zFpXYlhA

It's fun reading your story!

-Ryan

 

[limey]

Hey Ryan how you doing ? Was looking forward to meeting up with you in Ouray. Had an amazing time rideing with mike as you can see by my avatar.

 

[limey]

Hope you don't mind Ryan I down loaded the pics .

 

[RockyDS]

Flash some leg and thumb a ride? I guess it worked. ::025::

 

[tc9988]

OK while RockyDS was eyeballing your leg : I was eyeballing your rim. What type and where did you get it laced :question: speedy recovery, glad it ended well

 

[pnwrider]

Hey Mike when are we going to get the rest of the story, I want to see some pics of this water crossing I keep hearing about.


Paul
Thanks for posting the pics.
I am doing great, I got a plate and 10 screws put in a couple weeks ago and now I am just relaxing and healing. Looks like I missed a good trip, glad you and mike were able to keep it epic.

I got the rims and spokes from Woody's but I laced them up myself. I put them together like the old rims with the spoke nipples in the hub, but these were designed to be put in like a motocross wheel with the spokes in the rim. I was in a hurry and just did not put enough time into them. I guess I learned the hard way.
Zack at Woody's was very very sorry to hear about the wheels and is going out of his way to help me out with rebuilding them.

-Ryan