We wanted to get an early start today so we woke up before the sun and did all our in-tent stuff (change into bike clothes, pack up sleeping bags and mats, etc.) with headlamps. Our confidence level had gone back and forth since yesterday afternoon but we were feeling optimistic about finishing the loop today.
The guide book says in one place "self-contained bicycle trips may be able to obtain extra water from vehicle supported trips" and in another, "although the White Rim is not a heavily traveled road, someone will probably pass your location within a day or two." A day or two is a long time to wait for water, so we definitely hadn't counted on it -- hence the 27 liters.
Yesterday we'd only seen three vehicles and two of them were before lunch. The third was a truck that drove right by us as we were trying to figure out that second flat. "Thanks for stopping to see if we're ok," Bill muttered. But yesterday was really crappy weather which had been predicted days in advance -- surely more people would be out today, especially as we got nearer to the park entrance.
Pushed off around 7:30 AM. Long shadows this time of day. Look at that nice calm blue sky and packed sand... ahhhh...
Solar charger bungied to my pannier, iPhone safely in the pocket. Don't judge, you off-the-grid types. It's my camera, audiobook, note pad, movie theater etc. We rarely had a signal so I only checked Facebook once.. maybe twice... in three days.
It wasn't long before we passed the first 4WD going the other way and the guy stopped to talk to us, offer water etc. He told us that at the campsite a few miles ahead -- the one we were supposed to have reached last night -- there were several bikers and we could probably score a tube or patch kit from them. With this motivation and the lack of wind we made good time and easily reached them before they packed out. Very nice family, kids aged 10 and 12 who were biking sections while the parents took turns driving. We talked about the weather as one does (they had a very tall tent which caught the wind and now had a new window), they gave us two tubes and we were off up Hardscrabble Hill.
A pause in climbing Hardscrabble. At this point I was hoping against hope that I was at the top and was simply going to ride the left of that giant rock wall ahead. I stared at the contours for a while and later put in the green arrows showing the road.
As I rounded the bend my suspicions were realized... we were going all the way up and around. Having timed yesterday's 18 minute push I knew it wouldn't last forever and I was getting used to this. Later we saw that family again (who gave us the tubes) and confirmed that those little kids had ridden up this.
Bill enjoys the view of the river to which we're about to descend, giving up all the elevation we just gained.
When I teach bassoon lessons I often use sporting and movement analogies to convey the idea of preparation, anticipation, follow through, and musical line in general. A tennis swing has motion before and after the racket hits the ball... if you look at your ski tips, you're likely to go down so instead look ahead and pick your line... when crossing a river, sometimes you need to plot out a few rocks in advance and commit to the whole series of steps. Occasionally I pull out the driving imagery as a last resort -- "Remember when you were learning to drive and you overcorrected turns at first, but once you learned to look ahead, turns almost took care of themselves?"
This trip is the first time I reversed the analogy. This is pretty music-dorky but it really helped me so I'm including it here, with gratitude to Marcel Tabuteau and David McGill who developed and perpetuated this way of counting. When we learn music we usually count ONE, 2,3,4, ONE, 2,3,4 etc. This can result in ONE having a lot of emphasis and the other numbers trailing off. If you instead count 1,2,3, FOUR, 1,2,3, FOUR, you have more forward motion.
The way this translates to my biking through sand is that if I pedaled to a rhythm where emphasis increased toward FOUR, I stayed upright a lot more of the time. I started making up chants.
My name is SUE,
My packs are RED,
I see my BILL,
He's up a-HEAD.
Saying "I see my BILL, I see my BILL" had the added benefit of reminding me to look ahead at Bill and not down at my tires or the tracks he had left.
Here's a place where Bill had clearly walked, straddling his bike. At first I'd panic and put a foot down when I saw this, but eventually I got good enough at my little rhythm game to pedal right through spots where he'd bailed.
I see my Bill and he's pushing his bike.
Wipeout (note boots). Still not 100 percent successful but greatly improved.
iPhone selfie courtesy ProHDR app
Leaving the park. That warning about the rough road ahead (i.e. what we had just completed) suggested from here on out we'd have smooth sailing. We still had 30 miles to go, mostly uphill, but we were going to make it for sure.
Of course crossing the park boundary doesn't mean an immediate end to the gorgeous landscape. We were entering Mineral Canyon and soon would be climbing the switchbacks on a road that Butch Cassidy supposedly traveled. Switchbacks = climbing so this seemed a good place to stopped for a snack. We even dumped some water since we knew we had enough and wanted to shed weight. Soon a bunch of mountain bikers arrived. They had done the loop in two days and the driver of their support vehicle offered to carry us up the hill. No way, we're climbing this... just... very... slowly. They all passed us easily including the guy who had put his bike in the vehicle and ran instead. It's about 1.5 miles long and gains around 1000 feet.
Mineral Canyon switchbacks. I only pushed a few feet of this, mainly if I'd stopped for a photo on a steep part and needed a smooth place to get started again. Bill rode the whole thing.
He passed me easily.
Bill's good at spotting car-casses, and we saw several here. At first we assumed these were drivers who had lost control, but one of the other bikers thought it might have been people getting rid of their junkers.
The mountain bikers' loop had started/finished here so they were still in the parking lot celebrating when we finally reached the top. They cheered exuberantly and offered delicious cold hydration. They might have been twice as fast, but we're twice as old. Yay us.
This is 4% and can be found in supermarkets. Stronger stuff including some good local microbrews are easy to come by these days in Utah. Also plenty of coffee shops, despite common misperception.
From here we had about ten miles on easy gravel road (and another 1000 feet of climbing) then another ten on pavement which also had a lot of uphill. It seemed like it would never end and the scenery was pretty bland compared to where we had been. A long grind for sure but compared to yesterday, at least emotionally it was relaxing. On the occasional downhill I heard myself saying "WHEEEEEEE!!!" and realized I had not felt that downhill giddiness once during our trip. I think we need different bikes if we're going to do more off road touring. [post script: we did get off road bikes in time for our Tetons-Boulder trip, also blogged at this site, and both climbing and descending were much more secure and enjoyable.]
The next day, in the Goblin Valley State Park visitors center I thumbed through a description of our ride in a book on mountain biking in Utah. This definitely made me feel better about how difficult I had found the trip.
Who knew we were such extreme badasses?