June 15, 2022
Right into it folks… part 2 of this adventure to my most recent trip to the San Rafael Swell and South-central Utah. I had spent the last few days with Ana at Supercross, and motorcycle riding, then an overnight with friends in the area. Where we left off last was my friends pulling away in their rig, and me being left alone in the mid-day sun. I’ve been waiting for this. Ready to get humbled, and it happens pretty much immediately. The feeling I always experience when visiting this region….. dominance. It is strong, and it is scary,… there is a presence to it which commands respect. It is bold and looming. We are subject to it, and that’s a feeling that I love to experience in nature, and this region brings it every time.
With the new bike setup, this was my first solo multi-day backcountry trip. I love the freedom and the intimacy that I feel with nature and with adventure on solo trips. Of course, outings with friends are the most fun, but solo trips into the wilds of the desert offer a different experience, which is easily equally rich, but different. It feels serious…. it is serious. You go out and have to depend fully on your abilities to take care of oneself in the wild. There’s a lot to know and to calculate in the many different decisions that have to be made in order to be safe, and at the same time accomplish the goals that you have set out for yourself. It’s a wonderful way to test and push ones own individual limits.
Sing “Ooh baby I love your way” by Peter Frampton in your head. Now you understand.
I will be a little bit vague in sharing locations that I’m going to share in posts. Why? We gotta leave some stuff for the explorers out there. Perhaps my greatest joy from the pursuit of photography is seeing new-to-me places. While this blog and photos won’t be getting widespread attention like it would on social media, I’m trying to do my part to leave the mystery in the air so areas do not get exposed and drive more traffic to them. So, I’m not trying to be a big jerk by not sharing, it’s just to try to keep the obscure areas obscure.
Now that friends are gone, the sun is blasting, no clouds in sight….. what’s a photographer to do? Welp, I didn’t have a plan. Time to look at the map. I download satellite imagery to my phone for the the region I plan on exploring, and have my phone mounted to the bike. This imagery shows roads, trails, and property boundaries. Today, I’m going to ride down to towards Lake Powell, and take faint ranchers roads into a pocket of grey hills that I’ve been looking at on Google Earth for years. But first, I take advantage of the stream at my friends camp to take a silver miners bath. Ahhhh.. fresh as daisies. Open road here we come.
I don’t remember if I mentioned the remoteness of this region in the previous post. But it is REMOTE! One of the most remote areas in Utah. The couple of towns that do exist out there are tiny, maybe a one stop-sign type of town. This is one of those places where fuel up areas are about 100 miles apart.
To my great surprise, shortly after making my way up an improved dirt road into the grey spines of this landscape, I saw other people! Ranchers in fact. These people are the livin’ real deal cowboys and cowgirls. Bad mama-jammas… This place is harsh, absolutely brutal. The wind here can be relentless and it can be hard to find places to hide from it. The winds when I came up on them were blowing at constant speeds of 40mph, and there they were herding cattle like it’s just another day in the office. It was 2 men on horseback, and one of their young daughters braving these elements on her horse as well. And those cows….. rough life man. Not exactly the green pastures I’m sure they long for. This place is dry, and insanely barren. No place for man nor beast.
I rode some pretty fast, moderately well maintained dirt roads until it reached the wash. Once the road headed up the wash, the riding became more technical. Boulders and washouts would turn around any vehicle besides a 4 wheeler or a motorcycle. These roads out here in this condition get used almost exclusively by ranchers on 4 wheelers. They are indeed roads, but non-maintained, and the more remote, the more faint they are. After the wash, I followed my satellite map which I had charted before leaving camp that morning, up to a mesa top. The views were beautiful. I would love to get back to this location with a few clouds in the sky.
I shot through blue-hour and decided I needed to get out of that wind! It was still rolling pretty good, and I needed some shelter for the night. I really wanted to get off of that mesa before it was completely dark because the road was so faint. I’d be all good when I got into the wash, and I’d be happy to have the adventure of night riding to find a camp in the dark.
I dropped into the wash and was steady grooving on the ride. All smooth so far. It’s dark now, still windy. I’m cruising the wash back, and there are multiple line options for the bike. All was normal, cruising at about 10 MPH and popped off a little shelf onto a flat area which looked like all of the surrounding terrain and..….. splat. Immediately down to zero miles per hour…. well, at least the bike was. I was probably 4 miles per hour flying over the handle bars. Well that was shocking. But I do know what happened….. quicksand. Ain’t the first rodeo with this situation. Turns out this stuff was more like quick-clay, but it sucked me and my bike in just the same. It didn’t get me much, but my bikes rear end immediately sank down until the rear wheel was not visible. I have 425 pounds worth of bike and important camping gear getting progressively more comfortable in that grey soup, and I want to get it before it finds itself a new home in that wash. No time to photograph the hilarious snafu. Well, wasn’t funny at the moment, it was more of a panic management/no time for panicking because action is needed immediately sort of situation. No messing around, took all the gear off the bike to lighten the load. If you ever get a bike stuff in deep sand, or mud, rather than try and lift the wheel out, tip the bike on its side to break the vacuum affect which holds the bike in the medium and then drag it to the side, then you can stand it up. I expected the quick-clay to be even more grabby than what it was, which was a massive relief. Only about three minutes worth of wrestle-mania action and the bike was free from its evil captor. Free… and muddy and needing a bath ever more than I did.
After my short bout with this demonic mudhole, I loaded my steed and (enter whip sound) YEEHA! We were off. Ready to chill out and get some sleep. There was one section of the valley that I marked in my head mentally that had large boulders that would likely make for a protected camp. Got to camp, heated up a dehydrated meal and crashed out quickly.
These grey ridge-lines which I arise to an hour before sunrise photograph great fro the air! I had my drone with me and decided that I’d get up at sunrise and use that as the camera. I had a really fun time shooting the different textures and the first light of the day. No wind this morning, and of course had the place to myself. After hitting the cancel button for the aircraft to come back to me due to low battery a couple of times, it started to land itself where it was….. which was not near me. Time for coffee and a morning walk. Made up some instant coffee in the jetboil and hiked up and over a handful of ridges to find my flying robot. After following the gps feature that led me to the drone (awesome feature by the way), I hiked the couple miles back to camp where I drank more coffee, looked at satellite imagery and planned my day, then packed up and headed out to get fuel for the bike.
Camp Hamel
After riding for 50 miles or so I hit the gas station. Fueled up, and bought a drumstick ice cream cone. They forgot to put the cone on at the manufacturing plant however, so when I unwrapped it, there was only a thin cone shaped chocolate layer, with ice cream directly behind. That creates a time sensitive ingestion period. Tense moments my friends. After the ice cream I jumped on my bike to relieve the ice cream eating stress induced trauma. Back into the hills, far out again. I had a general idea of where I wanted to go for the next day, so I started riding a route to get out that way, but with no specific agenda. Today was a day to ride and see what I see in an interesting zone along the way that I had mapped out.
A heavily forested area
Bizarre creatures in the desert
As it got towards sunset I rolled into an interesting section of canyon country. There were some vibrant colors, and the landscape looked very diverse, so this seemed like a good place to stop for the day and enjoy some exploring by foot and some photography. I’m really happy that the timing of location/sunset worked out how they did this day. I probably would not have stopped to hike around this area if it wasn’t towards the end of the day, and I was really entertained by the scenes that I got to see. Add in some decent light, and you’ve got a happy photographer.
Oh, I also found a nicely shaped arrow point out here, which I left where it was found after gawking at it for a bit. By the way, that is the proper etiquette for that sort of stuff for anyone who is unfamiliar with that. View, take pictures, and leave behind so someone else can stumble upon it and be filled with amazement.
I’ve been sleeping absolutely amazing every night. Crashed out hard. There have been a lot of hours of riding each day, you’re never allowed to break focus, and that sort of extended focus is quite tiring. By the end of the day, the body is dead, and the brain is ready for some rest. This night was no different. I laid out on a patch of slickrock and slept through sunrise. I got up leisurely and walked around that area for an hour or so just looking around. Eventually I realized I was just about out of water, and I still had a chunk of riding to get to water access, so had to get moving. I rolled into the nearest town and refueled and filled up 7 liters of water from the outdoor spigot. 3 liters on my back, 4 in my side bags. Onto pavement because I’ve got a new side of the mountains to explore. Through the years I’ve looked at this area on google earth and had numerous specific zones to check out. One was an overlook, and one was a slot canyon. I decided to try for both of these on this day.
First mission was the overlook. It would be a sunrise spot, but I wanted to scout it in the day. Little did I know that the road accessing this would become more and more challenging as it progressed. Challenging, and committing. By committing, I mean that once you’ve decided to take on a particular obstacle, there’s no coming back. Changing your mind after you’ve started rolling into it would do much more harm than good. Committing. Stop and assess. Think about the potential things that could go poorly. Make a game plan, and charge at it full on. That’s a fun game. But boy, I probably shouldn’t go out and ride this sort of stuff daily for years on end by myself, because gotta say….. I was really pushing my boundaries, and I was really far out by myself in an unrelenting and inhospitable landscape. I started to hit sections of road washouts. Each washout became progressively more challenging and technical the further as I got. I was TOO CLOSE to the destination to throw in the towel. I kept taking on the next obstacle, seeing the next one and thinking “perhaps it’s time to turn around”. But I’m so close. One more. The washout pictured above is the last one I crossed. Somehow I didn’t take a picture of it, but my rear tire didn’t make it across and got sucked into the rut. After taking my gear of and wrestling the bike out, I realized crossing back over it to come back was going to be much harder, if possible at all. I figured this was a good time to start making my way out of here. This was a situation I had to get figured out, and going up to what would be likely bigger and more committing obstacles ahead, it seemed obvious that it was time to head back. I did not win the game of king of the mountain.
The rut was really bad, for this obstacle you more or less wheelie over the rut and let your rear wheel take the impact. Problem was thatat the angle you’d have to take, the hillside on the other side was off camber and the bikes tires would break the dirt away, and then fall into the washout. There was pretty much no way to cross back over. And if the bike goes down front wheel into that rut. That bike isn’t coming out with only one person. And bullying the bike down that rain channel would only get you into a bowl that looked inescapable. So…. gotta get this bike across. Doesn’t look rideable, there are no alternate routes, so what do we do?? …. We’re building a bridge. A bridge made from boulders from the hillside above. I took about 45 minutes to walk around collecting and positioning the rocks enough to fill the gap needed. While 45 minutes felt like some time in the baking sun, there is a popular adage in off-road motorcycle riding worthy of note…. “Slower is faster”. When stress levels rise with these situations, I just want get out of it as fast as possible and have the situation dealt with. So there is a somewhat intuitive drive to just go for it, and try and get it done immediately, but that’s an emotional response. It’s an unpleasant anxiety to think you may be in trouble and it’s challenging to resist the urge to try and get out of that immediately. But slower is faster. By being slower now, in the end I will get out a lot faster by taking this time even thought it feels like the slow way of doing it. If the bike gets stuck in that drainage, that’s a massive amount of time, and is would be a borderline dangerous situation. Take the time to make a nice crossing, and I will return to safety a lot quicker.
Got the bridge built, looked for the best run-in line, walked it, stared at it, put my hands out in position in front of me on my invisible “air bike”, twisted the “air throttle” and made child-like motorcycle sounds with my mouth as I moved towards the crossing. I imagine how it will feel on the real bike. Ok, now we go for the real thing, pretty sure this is going to work out just fine. Mounted up, cracked the whip,…. “YIPEEKEEYIIYAAA”! We are on the other side, me and the bike, together, and we’re both happy about this situation. I pat her on the head, give her a hug and we pony up to one more committing obstacle, and we’re through it. Home free. Mission not completed, but hey, we gave it our best and we’re getting out of there together.
Now onto the slot canyon I wanted to check out. I road the distance over there, riding next to a small stream until I got to my GPS pin. The canyon walls were obviously tall and the canyon pretty deep, so I would have to try and enter from the bottom of the canyon or the top. I decided to start from the bottom. Talk about some bushwacking in a slot canyon! A good sized chunk of navigating this canyon was me moving my arms in a swimming motion in front of me, borderline crawling through tamerisk. I also wasn’t expecting water, but submitted to it pretty quickly and just walked through it with my regular shoes. I have moto boots to ride in, which is where my feet have lived for most of the trip. Finally I hit some slotty sections with nowhere for plants to grow. There were a few fun, easy obstacles to climb up, and I was having a blast exploring this remote and obscure canyon. Eventually the canyon ends with a large dam that some cowboys made at some point. Pretty impressive.
I was really hoping to not have to hike through that jungle of gnarliness to get back to my bike, so I resolved to take the first exit I could find out of the canyon. The first one I saw involved a little technical climbing, but all of the rock had great integrity, nothing loose on it, and looked reasonable. It was one spicy meatball though!
Once I hiked the couple of miles back to the bike, I was really tired from the day and was ready to head to camp. That was a bit of a ways out still, maybe an hour and a half on the bike. I wanted to be there specifically for sunrise the next day. I rolled in after dark, and found a wash where I could lay down and protect myself from wind if it were to kick up. Ate, crashed out fast and slept through sunrise. Slept like deadman. But no problem, I needed the rest and the light wouldn’t have been great that morning anyways. I woke up late, drank too many Starbucks instant coffee packets, and rolled out. I needed to get back to Zion area today. I decided I’d ride through Capitol Reef National Park, out on some dirt roads, which would then connect me into some high elevation mountains to the west of the park border. Capitol Reef…. what a place. If you know, you know. I had a dreamy ride through the beauty of Cathedral Valley, and up into the mountains where dandelions were in bloom and green was the predominant color over the red’s and grey’s have been looking at the past several days. Refreshingly different.
The dirt road going into the mountains was exactly as expected. Large, well maintained and fast. The road that I presumed to be the same to get out of the mountains was heavily weighted in the opposite direction. And somehow this was the only other road in and out of the mountains. Who woulda thought? The road down was pretty steep the entire way, and filled with “baby heads” pretty much the entire way. What’s a baby head you ask? A rock the shape and size of a baby head. This is a very commonly used term in the off-road world. Baby heads skate around quite a bit because they are not planted, so they can sometimes be a source of adventure to the motorcycle rider. But, smooth sailing. Love this bike, can’t even tell you. It beast moded that trail. I dropped onto pavement and road a pretty uneventful 3 hours on blacktop, then 1.5 hours on dirt to get back to the Zion area. Got to see and kiss my love, and I was home safe. Something like 1,600 miles this trip, much of that on dirt. It’s incredible how long this trip felt, even though it was only a week. So many moments packed in that it felt more like two weeks. Boy do I love this approach to photography, it’s bringing me so much joy and my zest for photography is high right now. Having photography as a career has certainly changed my relationship with it. It’s been all over the place. But I feel like I’m finding my favorite interaction with the medium right now, and it’s through this approach of adventure exploration. Good times, and more to come. I just got back from another adventure motorcycle trip that was mainly focused in Utah near the 4 corners. Wow, more mind altering terrain out there that I was unaware of. Already can’t wait to go back, especially the last week of September. That will be a special scene that week which should be peak fall foliage. My next post will be about that trip, and I hope you’ll continue to follow along.
