It began, as these things do, in a garage.
This garage was my garage and we were here on this Wednesday night for a loadout meeting; a chance for everyone to get together with their gear and figure out of there is anything last minute we needed to get. I can’t even image we could have possibly forgotten anything is this hoard of gear, but if you’ve ever been on even the smallest camping trips you know what a pain not have a can opener or lighter or cutting board can be.
I say that it began at the loadout, but that’s not true; The truth is this trip has been in the making for nearly 2 years. As an idea at first and then starting just 4 month ago (the maximum advanced permit request time) and from there it took a lot of work from permit to trail. There was also a feeble attempt by some (me) to get in shape, but thats another story. We would be camping 2 nights on trail and 1 night before hand and would need to be fully self-supported for those 3 days. It’s a strange thing to know that if you don’t have something you need, or you have a problem it’s all on you to deal with it or make it right. That knowledge consumed more than one night of sleep. Water, fuel, and weight calculations as well as important fixes, mods, and updates to vehicles were in order. I think the thing that surprised me most about this planning was how quick and easy it was to reach max and over max Gross Vehicle Weight Rating with gear and people. And because these vehicles would be supporting bikers, mix in bike repair, maintenance and spare parts to the fray. Then we would need cooking, cleaning, sleeping, sitting, shade and all the normal camp accouterments that you would expect, it was a lot to plan.
Back to the trip; The plan was to pack up all day Thursday, a job that took 2 guys 6 hours, and then get off before traffic became a problem.
Our first stop, aside from a quick roadside meal, was the arch view campground and gas station to get gouged fuel and water before heading up towards the campsites we hoped would still be available. With the addition of fuel and water the cruiser was now 300 lbs over gross max. Thanks to new TJM progressive rate coils and dampers however, things were just fine.
With a little luck we were able to get a nice spot at the Horsethief campsite, named after Sir William Horsethief, the archduke of Moab….probably.
It’s hard to articulate, especially for a literary boner (which Thesaurus.com tells me is a synonym for butcher) as myself but the emotion of being at the start of something like this that has taken months of hard work to plan and is filled with such apprehension and anticipation is immense and it’s a wonder at all I got any sleep.
In the morning we get our permits and head out for the start of the trail. This is a good time to talk about my travel companions; 7 people, down from a max of 11 people that wanted to come initially including a mix of family and friends. 7 is a lucky number and a good number, it felt…strange…but more on that in a minute. Traveling remotely and especially biking and working together will help strangers become friends and friends become better friends; you’ll learn more about a person in 3 days on the trail than you could from years of facebook…and probably more than you wanted to know too.
Day 1
Today we needed to cover 28 miles on bike, switching drivers every 5 or 6 miles for the cruiser and the Tacoma. The big part of day 1 is the Shaffer switchbacks, cut into the mountain side by hopeful uranium miners looking to strike it rich during the uranium boom of the 50’s. The switchbacks are steep and intimidating on first glace but wide and well cared for; low range and relax. Fun fact about uranium mining: the tiny town of Moab was once home to more millionaires per capita than any other place in the world while today the big jobs are cleaning up the tailings of that messy past and catering to tourism of which we saw a part of on our trip.
After Shaffer switchbacks we stopped briefly at the Colorado river overlook. If you have even seen those pictures of the river bending from the top of a big mesa, this is where we were, except on the other side. Its stunning, even for a jaded Utah boy like myself.
The next stop on the trail was Musselman arch, named for the muscle bound 20 foot giant that punched it out of the cliff face during reformation times…or so the legend goes. It’s a pretty cool arch made even cooler by the fact that you can walk right out on it. I’m on record as saying I don’t like heights; mainly for the strange and newly named “High place phenomenon” which describes the urge to leap from high places with no desire to kill yourself…weird and true. As you can expect, a 3 day trip along a continuous and enormous cliff face had its moments for me.
After pretending not to be afraid (that’s when the musselman giant gets you) for the picture I promptly hopped off and got back on the bike.
After a mostly uneventful ride we rolled into goosberry…well I say uneventful but every single place my eyeball vectored was new and utterly amazing and it’s the truth that no matter how many amazing places you’ve seen in the American southwest or anywhere you will find something new and amazing about this place. The white rim is basically a giant geology lesson and I don’t have the rock chops to give you the details other than hard cliff faces are giving way to softer layers in something like a 7 layer dip of amazingness and the formations are unique and awe inspiring.
We rolled into out campsite at Gooseberry around 330 and promptly set up chairs and fell asleep under the shade of the fortunately placed juniper tree at site A.
The riding today was easy and fast since its mostly downhill. The trail is easy fun, if not terribly challenging.
Day 2
We left the amazing Gooseberry campsite after packing up both trucks again, a feat we would get quite good at, and headed out knowing that at some point today we would have to climb Murphy Hogback. Murphy was a hog farmer, you see, trying to create a race of super hogs in the uranium mines and so this large ridge with a Tolken-esque road carved into it bears his name…rest his zombie sole. Before that comes the mid point in the trail, a little 1.4 mile jut out into the expanse called white crack. I wish there was a lens wide enough or words elegant enough to convey the enormity of the site which lies before this point; you simply can’t take it all in. The most amazing part of this view is the endlessness of it, look in any direction with any power level zoom and all you will see is more amazing formations, spires, buttes, hoodoos and mountains. It’s like standing in the epicenter of an enormous sandstone fractal with no start or end. I’ve said it before; I’ve seen a lot of high desert and this blew my mind.
It was about this point in the trail that I started to notice the amazing greenery of where I was, it seemed the whole desert had come alive to greet us with white blooms, blue bells, cactus flowers and these green/yellow cattails everywhere we went. Between that and the amazing places this trail takes you. The main trouble that I had, as a photographer was getting in close and getting wide enough to convey the size of this place; I carried a 15mm fisheye up to a 280mm zoom and neither were sufficient.
What’s interesting is that, in good conditions like we had, you could drive this whole route in a Subaru outback, though the park ranger we met told us that his winch was used mostly pulling Colorado Subaru owners out of the mud on this trail, so bear that in mind ye Coloradan who believe deeply in the beauty of all wheel drive.
Murphy hogback in particular is one place I was glad to have low range. It’s hard to show in pictures the steepness of this hill, but I can say that biking up it is enough to make you fall over backwards if you aren’t careful. Because I don’t like offloading liability or risk on others I made it a point to drive this section myself, saving me from riding it myself, but those who did were damn near dead at the top. We stopped at the summit to have lunch and realize what a great idea it was to rent a 50 quart ARB fridge with ice cold soda inside. Seriously, for something that only draws 800 mA running and cost only $50 a week to rent, this was a no brainer I would do again in a heartbeat. On a related note, eggs do freeze but are still edible afterwards. The trail down from Murphy hogback is just as exciting as the drive up, with the exception that because I was now downhill traffic and people tend to ride counterclockwise (we rode clockwise) we had to wait for uphill traffic. A fun side note was that while waiting halfway down the hill a fellow land cruiser owner on a bike used up one of his precious panting breaths to tell me he liked my truck, even near death a car lover is a car lover.
Murphy hogback in particular is one place I was glad to have low range. It’s hard to show in pictures the steepness of this hill, but I can say that biking up it is enough to make you fall over backwards if you aren’t careful. Because I don’t like offloading liability or risk on others I made it a point to drive this section myself, saving me from riding it myself, but those who did were damn near dead at the top. We stopped at the summit to have lunch and realize what a great idea it was to rent a 50 quart ARB fridge with ice cold soda inside. Seriously, for something that only draws 800 mA running and cost only $50 a week to rent, this was a no brainer I would do again in a heartbeat. On a related note, eggs do freeze but are still edible afterwards. The trail down from Murphy hogback is just as exciting as the drive up, with the exception that because I was now downhill traffic and people tend to ride counterclockwise (we rode clockwise) we had to wait for uphill traffic. A fun side note was that while waiting halfway down the hill a fellow land cruiser owner on a bike used up one of his precious panting breaths to tell me he liked my truck, even near death a car lover is a car lover.
The second day was muddier in parts but never bad, a recent rain storm came through the week prior and put in a few pools here and there, which made for great fun in the cars and easily avoided on the bike. It's been interesting how the trail has changed as we get more miles under our belts, the terrain from day 1 is definitely different from yesterday. Having heard tales of difficult technical sections from various sources, I drove the last part of the days ride and…well this was about has hard as it got.
It was a bit of a letdown and a reminder that the trail, so long as its dry, wont present much of a challenge to even the wimpiest of all wheel drives. Seriously, you could take a Ford Flex on this trail if you were careful.
Our next site was Candlestick, named for the view of the Candlestick butte which if you look at is obviously named for the murder weapon used by colonel mustard in the front room.
This site, although lacking in shade trees, necessitating some ingenuity on our part, was ripe with amazing sights and we had exclusive front row seats to the sunset show. If I was to be anywhere when the apocalypse started, I think it would be here.
It was also here that we decided that we had brought too much water and decided it was time for some bike rack assisted showers on the rocks. I used some reasonable math for the water calcs, but we ended up only needing about 20-25 gallons max. One of the great things about vehicle based travel is eating well and tonight we had a fine meal of Hawaiian haystacks. We’d been eating well this entire trip really, pancakes and bacon or eggs and bacon with OJ in the mornings, sandwiches with chips, beef jerky and fresh cold fruit for lunch and tasty snacks throughout. My theory on camping is; why suffer. We didn’t, for food that is, total Mileage for the days was just over 30. The butts of all were thoroughly sore today and just sitting down after standing up over a rough patch was tough.
It was a bit of a letdown and a reminder that the trail, so long as its dry, wont present much of a challenge to even the wimpiest of all wheel drives. Seriously, you could take a Ford Flex on this trail if you were careful.
Our next site was Candlestick, named for the view of the Candlestick butte which if you look at is obviously named for the murder weapon used by colonel mustard in the front room.
This site, although lacking in shade trees, necessitating some ingenuity on our part, was ripe with amazing sights and we had exclusive front row seats to the sunset show. If I was to be anywhere when the apocalypse started, I think it would be here.
It was also here that we decided that we had brought too much water and decided it was time for some bike rack assisted showers on the rocks. I used some reasonable math for the water calcs, but we ended up only needing about 20-25 gallons max. One of the great things about vehicle based travel is eating well and tonight we had a fine meal of Hawaiian haystacks. We’d been eating well this entire trip really, pancakes and bacon or eggs and bacon with OJ in the mornings, sandwiches with chips, beef jerky and fresh cold fruit for lunch and tasty snacks throughout. My theory on camping is; why suffer. We didn’t, for food that is, total Mileage for the days was just over 30. The butts of all were thoroughly sore today and just sitting down after standing up over a rough patch was tough.
Day 3
Last day…damn. Tomorrow we head back to jobs and kids and lawns and such. Oh well, time to make the best of it. Today’s mileage will be a less intense 23 but includes hardscrabble hill named for an intense game of scrabble that cost three miners their lives in 1953, this butte as tall and as steep as murphy hogback but with more switchbacks.
Pictures, again, don’t do this hill justice. Since this was my last day, everyone had had significant seat time in the trucks and spurred on the mocking of my fellow travelers for skipping out on yesterday’s big climb I decided to let someone else drive this one and ride. Whew…what a hill. At the top we all voted that skipping lunch in favor of a big fat burger in green river so we pressed on. From here on out we get closer and closer to the green river.
Pictures, again, don’t do this hill justice. Since this was my last day, everyone had had significant seat time in the trucks and spurred on the mocking of my fellow travelers for skipping out on yesterday’s big climb I decided to let someone else drive this one and ride. Whew…what a hill. At the top we all voted that skipping lunch in favor of a big fat burger in green river so we pressed on. From here on out we get closer and closer to the green river.
Wait, weren’t you following the Colorado? Yes, from white crack you can actually see the confluence of the green and Colorado rivers, so at the start of the trip you follow the Colorado, then you see where they mix, then you follow the green; see what I mean about big? As we get closer to the river it gets cooler and sandier, and frankly it because a lot less interesting of a ride as it simply levels out. I hate riding in sand and had it not rained the week before this section wouldn't be pleasant at all. That being said if you have never been to the southwest, this ride alone would probably blow your mind all over the 1000 foot cliffs we are riding beneath.
At the end of this road is another road, one with a squiggly line sign attached, because it goes from the river bottom to the canyon top in another feat of mine engineering as it is literally carved into the Cliffside; Its exactly as awesome as it sounds to drive. Yeah we drove it, we were tired and hungry and even though the “proper” thing to do would have been to ride it, we decided it was nothing more than a drudge, so we left it alone and got on the road.
Once you get to the top it’s a relatively short 20 miles to the highway and once there, stopping to grab a soda and air up the trucks tires, we bombed into Green River for a great burger with a Nissan Xterra Owners club and an Land rover owners club…the tension was palpable…before heading back
Conclusions
What to say, I loved it and you would have to be made of stone of some type of stone substitute to not love an experience like this; its expansive and freeing and it’s something we all need. In just 3 days we experienced the joy and freedom of being independent from everything that wasn’t our trucks and our bikes in a place that suggests to the mind that the world is big, open, and full of possibilities and beauty.
