Day 11: Cedar Mountain - We choose you!
Today I'm writing early. We stopped in Cedar City, Utah for lunch and I saw the restaurant, Main Street Grill, had WiFi and I don't think we will tonight. We don't exactly know where we are going to land tonight, either at a campsite 13 miles away from here, or 21 miles from here. They are National Park campgrounds so I don't believe they'll have many amenities. I could be wrong, and if so, I'll add an addendum to this post at the bottom.
Something we have to do often is refill our water bottles. It is not uncommon for us each to drink 2 gallons of water in a day. This morning Jon was refilling our water bottles in a gas station and this little doggy peed on his bicycle! I must say it made me laugh. I'm glad his panniers (bike bags) are waterproof!
So far we have traveled 57 miles today, and are not sure exactly where we will land because we are going up a giant mountain. We will pedal up to 10,500' to nearly the top of Cedar Mountain. We start in Cedar City at 4000' above sea level. So we will be climbing 6,500' in only 26 miles.
If you saw Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, you will probably remember Tom Cruise doing all sorts of stunts on the worlds tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. It is 2,722 feet to the very tip.
So imagine 2 and 1/3 Burj Khalifa's stacked on top of each other. Ride your bike up there.
Alright! So we made it up halfway.
We started climbing up from Cedar City towards the Cedar Breaks, but we didn't make it all the way there.
We stopped about 7 miles short which made it a shorter day, but with a big climb in elevation. We totaled day 11 around 71 miles.
In case you're keeping track, we did 64 miles today. We couldn't go the next 53 to the next campground, we will be waking up tomorrow though for (hopefully) a 113 mile day! Going to see two "towns".
We stopped at a beautiful campground on the mountain that was run by an older couple. The wife watched me as I searched through all of my bags to try to come up with the 15 dollars. I found $8. Jon had $1. Turns out that she was from Ohio, and thus had a big mid-western heart. She and her husband actually both knew the tiny farm town my mom grew up in. They were very kind and let us camp for 9 dollars. No showers though, which meant 3 days in a row without a proper bathe... uh oh.
Something really nice was that we picked up this deck of playing cards at the Great Basin National Park (which we were not able to spend any proper time at). We cooked up some dinner. They were questionable choices: Baked beans, chowder, macaroni and cheese, and southwest chili. Today was smelly, and not because we didn't shower.
The cards built excitement though, because on Day 12 we visited a national park and a national monument, Bryce Canyon and The Cedar Breaks.
We played Gin with the deck of cards into the dark, and the stars came out in full force as the babbling creek next to our campsite soothed us into a calm state of mind. It was nice. We are go-go-go all day.
DAY 12 Over the Mountain and through the Woods.
This morning we woke up at 5:00 am, and started riding. Yesterday morning we were FREEZING in the morning and so when we were in cedar city we grabbed gloves from a bike store. They worked like charms. We climbed and climbed until we got to 10,500' and saw the Cedar Breaks National Monument.
Can you believe how beautiful that is?!?! We worked very hard for it (see below).
Warning: bad selfie.
What's awesome about getting to the top of the mountain is the ride down. Lucky for us, at 10,000' in September, the birch trees starting changing color. We cruised 12 miles going between 35 and 45 MPH with the most gorgeous views. Unfortunately it is hard to whip out your camera when you're white-knuckling your handlebars. I did yell a few times though, "JONNNNN!!!! STOPPPP!!!! I WANT TO TAKE A PIIICKKKK TUREEEEE!!!!" He obliged.
Later in the day we rode through Red Canyon.
It was really neat. The reason the rocks are so red (more red in person) is actually because they were underwater 35-50 million years ago. They are limestone, and then rusted.... or something like that. That might be an over-simplification, but if you want to correct me, please comment!
Today was already an amazing day, but we finished in Bryce Canyon. UNBELIEVABLE! Utah has been so interesting. It is full of crazy feats of nature.
We are now parked just 1 mile away from Bryce Canyon at Ruby's Campground. They have a hot tub! It closes in 40 minutes, so we must head there now! If I forgot anything about today I'll add it later. There were many interesting people we met today. We get asked a lot about Detroit, and it is interesting to hear how people on the other side of the country view it. One man hadn't ever heard of it... Lots of beautiful things happening in the city, but also a lot of hunger. This is a friendly reminder that we are raising money to help end childhood hunger, and that we really appreciate your support, and you telling your friends about our trip. Sharing our blog or website is a great way to contribute. Thanks!
All in all today was about a 78 miles day, jam packed with tourist-ish stuff. This is our campsite for tonight!
DAY 13 MEETING OTHER TRAVELERS!!!
The morning started with this fine gentleman giving us $100. It was really a random act of kindness. We bumped into him about 4 times around the campground, every time he had a new question to ask about our trip. He would shake his head and say, "That's so amazing. I'm jealous."
His name was David, and our trip reminded him of canoeing the Mississippi with his son. They did it every year until his son moved to Paris.
He slapped the money in my hand and said, "Have a good time. You're riding for a really good cause." Really nice and genuine guy.
We started from Bryce Canyon this morning and climbed a mountain.
We saw pretty things.
We biked from Tropic to Escalante along the National Monument The Grand Staircase. It was 40 miles of amazing breath-taking views.
At the Petrified Forest State Park Visitor Center we ran into two guys who have cycled across the states multiple times. They didn't even know each other! How crazy is that? On the left is Harden who is 68 years old and staying fit. He is in the area writing a book about trails. On the right is Rob, a retired Marine who seems to be almost completely nomadic. They both knew our route better than we did and were able to finish all of our sentences.
We dropped into a canyon, and then flew through some of the most beautiful red rocks. Then we had a monster climb up to this view:
We were going as fast as we possibly could to try to reach Boulder, Utah by 5:00 to get the care package our mom sent us from the United States Postal Service.
Unfortunately it closed at 1pm. We seriously biked so hard up those mountains to get there by 5. It was so sad. Here's Jon right after the fact.
My cable I need for editing is in that package, so starting tomorrow I'll start being able to put stuff tougher. But until then, here is a few raw clips from today!
There is 3 motels in the small town of Boulder, and no campgrounds. We called the first two: NO VACANCY. The third? No answer. So we scurried over there. It was a small house and no one was home. On the door though it said, "Take this key and open room three if you need a room. We won't be around until the morning. You can square up with us then." So we took room three, and there were 2 beds!! and it was super homey!
It was a really hard day even though we only went around 78 miles. I ordered this slice of pie: Ginger Berry. It was completely locally sourced. We both got a cup of locally roasted coffee. It was heaven.
We felt like Dale Cooper.
Day 14 Dirty Shortcuts / DEATH-MARCH
Yesterday was a long, interesting, beautiful, difficult day. It all started in Boulder, Utah. After missing our package the day before we spent the evening in town. At dinner, we met this lovely couple. Lance approached us about our bicycles and gave us a suggestion: The Burr Trail. It would cut off about 70 miles from our route, and would cut out a lot of climbing. We saw them again at breakfast and took this picture.
Sidenote: They own a hops farm in Colorado, and supply a local Colorado brewery with hops. We learned a lot about the business.
It is one of our few rules to NOT DEVIATE FROM THE MAP. But this deal just seemed to perfect. After some research we decided to take the shortcut and after collecting our package at 10:30 am in the morning we were off on the Burr Trail.
Coincidentally the man who delivered our package remembered us from a few days earlier in a town where we ate lunch, Penguwitch. "I ate lunch next to you guys."
Let us first say this: The Burr Trail is a crazy gorgeous road and we started off on cloud nine. Shortly thereafter we descended into this canyon.
We took that road!
Along the way we ran into this fellow named Robert E. Lee (you heard it right). He took us down an unmarked trail on the side of the road into this crack between the rock faces. (Interesting side note: Robert's grandfather was a Hollywood horse trainer and the stagecoach driver in Stagecoach, the John Wayne/ John Ford movie).
It was totally surreal. It felt like we were on Mars. At this point we we're totally psyched about our decision to take this shortcut.
Our day ended in Baker after 68 miles. Baker is home to the Great Basin National Park Visitors Center, which we visited upon arriving. The trail is about 70 miles long. The first 40 are paved, and the next 30 were not. Things started getting tricker when we hit dirt roads, but we were expecting it, so it wasn't all that bad. Plus the dirt road led right through the Capital Reef National Park. The Park was incredible, with some of the largest, most beautifully unique rock formations we've ever seen.
As we continued on out of the park, the dirt roads got a little dirtier. It was a pretty wild ride for our fully loaded bikes, which were bouncing around like wild horses. We were relieved when we came upon a paved road intersecting our own dusty trail, but decided that our next turn to get to Powell Lake couldn't have come up so soon. So we kept on going.
And going, and going and going. We ended up trekking down this dirt road for 25 miles. The dirt trail turned into a sand trail. We fell over a few times, and then started walking. As the sun set we finally decided that we'd made a mistake.
We we're in the middle of nowhere with no lake in sight. We were out of water and way beyond our expected miles for the day. As hard as it was, we turned around and headed back. Because it was dark (the most stars we had ever seen) we couldn't ride very well in the sand. It was like pushing your bike in beach sand. When we tried to ride we would just fall over. But we had to head back for the paved road in hopes of getting some signal to call for help. We trudged, mostly by foot, for four and a half hours through sand, mud and dirt under a starry sky with a flash light.
By the grace of God Chris got a signal when we made it back to the intersection. We called the Rangers and they came to the rescue with water, gatorade and MRE's (meals ready to eat). We were so hungry and so thirsty we could barely stand. It's not often that we are truly hungry. Our adventure through the desert was a good reminder of the importance of fighting hunger in our Country's youth. Being hungry doesn't just make your stomach growl. It drains your energy, steals your focus and makes the simplest actions feel impossible.
In the end our Ranger friends Kelly and Zach helped us set up our tent and made sure we were in good shape before they went on their way. This morning we rode 25 miles into Lake Powell and took the day off to recuperate from our dirty shortcut.
