There comes a time...

[Tourmeister]

Wow! Did the deer impact on the bike, and hopefully not your leg?? If your gunna get hit by a deer going full blast, that was a good way for it to happen! Wow!

The head/shoulders hit just in front of the right jug which snapped the back of the body back around against the side of the bike and my leg, but not real hard. Years ago I had a similar impact on my 1150 GS out on Pumpville Road West of the Pecos River but I was running 65mph and the deer hit on a trajectory closer to perpendicular to the bike path. That one was killed when the left jug hit it in the head and its body slammed into the left side of the bike and my leg. At first I thought it might have broken my ankle or lower leg, but it just swelled a bit and was fine. This deer was trying to veer away from me as I was doing the same and it was closer to being parallel to my line of travel so did not impact anywhere near as hard. Also, I was only running about 30-35mph this time as we had already seen so much wildlife.

 

[Tigerkf]

How the heck did you stay up when you hit that deer?

 

[Tourmeister]

How the heck did you stay up when you hit that deer?

It didn't get into the front wheel and the impact was not that hard. It barely even nudged the bike sideways. The deer definitely got the worst of it but still managed to get up and run away. No idea if it survived. I'm just glad it wasn't a Moose

 

[ntklr650]

Man that deer hit was scary. I had a couple close calls like that over the years and that definitely ranks high on the pucker factor.

 

[Tourmeister]

Day forty four (forty five), Telluride, Ophir, Lizard Head Pass, Rico, Trout Lake, and Last Dollar Highway.

Tuesday, September 26th.

So we actually got up and got moving at a decent time, leaving the parking lot around 8:45am. I think that might have been a record for us. The plan for the day was to run an out and back route down to Dolores on CO 145 via Lizard Head Pass. We ran South out of town on Dave Wood Road. This started out as really nice pavement. It used to be dirt but a lot of REALLY nice homes have sprung up out here, so... nice road now. Eventually it turns to dirt, really well groomed dirt, and is wide. It runs along the East edge of the Uncompahgre NF and eventually drops us out on CO 62 West of Ridgway. Given the construction on US 550, it really isn't much longer to go that way and it is way more fun than US 550! Sarah really enjoys this road even though the last few miles had a good bit of loose gravel. The trees along the South end of the road were really nice and were full of color. Leaving Montrose the road climbs from around 6000 feet up to just over 9000 feet at the highest point before dropping down to around 8000 feet when we reached CO 62. The last few corners right before 62 were steep, tight, and loose without much run out room before the stop sign at 62. I was right behind her watching and Sarah did perfect on it, but she thought she did terrible. Her perfectionist streak is strong...

We ran CO 62 over to Placerville and cut back toward Telluride on CO 145, following the San Miguel River canyon the opposite direction as yesterday. This end of the canyon has much more development and some high dollar homes. The walls of the canyon rise almost 1000 feet on both sides. The road steadily climbs until we come around a corner and can see up the valley toward the infamous steps and switchbacks of Black Bear Pass. We stayed on CO 145 and headed South from Telluride, soon climbing toward Lizard Head Pass. There were pockets of nice trees changing colors and bits of snow here and there in the high parts of the mountains, but no much. We stopped at the top of Lizard Head for the obligatory sign photo and met a lady in a nice Corvette. She was waiting for the rest of a Corvette club to arrive at the pass, which they did while I was taking pics. She volunteered to take a few shots of all of us with my phone. The weather was PERFECT. It was cool on top of the pass, but not cold. The sky was totally clear. Amazingly, there weren't even many contrails from air traffic, something that would normally be all over the place. We took off after it started getting crowded with all the vettes pulling over to stop and continued our run South. At Rico we decided we'd look for something to eat and turn around here rather than make the rest of the run down to Dolores. Ideally, this would put us back at the hotel earlier and we were still tired. We thought we had found a food truck when we saw a sign for one, but we could never actually find one. Daniel took the opportunity to ride up some pretty steep roads in town while I got pics of the Courthouse/Library. I really like the architecture from the late 1800s and early 1900s when buildings were a bit more interesting. Sarah just waited patiently for us to stop goofing around so we could find some food. We did eventually stop at a small cafe, apparently the only place in town that was open, Fireweed Cafe. It was one of those hip/trendy, natural, organic, home grown, blah blah blah places. The sandwiches were decent even if a bit pricey. Location location location after all... The kids were NOT impressed with their Root Beer! They would not even drink them after tasting them. I have to admit, I had to make myself drink mine just to wash down the sandwich. We met a nice older brother and sister that were out exploring. Her son lived in Dolores and they had both come to visit him. They mentioned ending up on some roads in a car where they thought they might have to call for help, but they managed to get out alive and were greatly relieved! They were quite interested in hearing about our adventures to date.

After eating we turned back North and just backtracked our route with a few exceptions along the way. I wanted to show the kids the back side of Trout Lake where there is a cool old train trestle. To get there we had to start riding dirt at the top of Lizard Head Pass on CR A63. It is not a hard road even though there are a few bumpy sections. The kids liked it and thought the trestle was really neat. We ran out the back side of the lake on Trout Lake Road back to the highway past a lot of nice homes. Then we zipped up the road to Ophir and I decided to ride back into the East end of town to let them look up into the pass and see the massive rock slide that makes up the side of the mountain. The road cuts through this rock slide and is definitely the most challenging part of the pass. It can be VERY rough. We turned around at the edge of town and headed back to 145. Up in the valley leading to the pass there were numerous nice pockets of trees changing color. Just outside of Ophir there is a road running down into the San Miguel River South Fork Preserve. I've wanted to run this for years and decided now was a good time. Sarah wanted to stick to pavement. This comes out not far from where 145 enters Telluride, so I told her to just ride up there and we'd meet her. The road wasn't real long. She liked that idea. Daniel and I headed down into the valley. We encountered some construction related to internet infrastructure upgrades that required us to wait a few minutes, but were soon on our way. The road drops almost 1000 feet from where it starts at Ophir. Once at the bottom, it just follows the river and is a really nice ride. Again, there were some very nice homes in the area so the road was in very good condition. There were nice pockets of changing trees down in here as well. It did not take long to reach Telluride, but the last mile or so had deep fresh gravel. Our tires were grinding and sliding as we worked our way up to the highway and got headed back into Telluride to find Sarah. We ended up stopped at a gas station just outside the edge of town, but she had stopped at one just South of the roundabout. Once I got her on the phone we were able to figure out where we all were and got the group back together. We celebrated with ice cream!

Daniel and I wanted to ride Last Dollar Highway. Sarah did not. That turned out to be a good thing. She just ran 145 back to 62, and then 62 to US 550 back up to Montrose. I already had a route in her GPS for her to follow. So we split off and headed North into the mountains. The road started out nice and wide, hard packed, and with VERY nice homes on both sides. Their speed limit was 15 mph because they ride horses on the road. None of the cars coming toward us were going even close to 15 mph. Maybe they weren't locals? Anyway, the road wandered around the sides of the mountains up above CO 145. The views were incredible. We eventually end up in what looks like a large parking area and overlook. In one corner of the lot there was a narrow two track road that headed into the trees and started a steep climb almost immediately. We saw some jeeps going up it so we parked and waited to let them get fairly far ahead. They would be going slow and I didn't want to come up behind them in the middle of the climb and lose all of our momentum. Some dude in a two door sports coupe style car pulled up behind us while we are waiting and it was clear he intended to go up this road! I walked back to talk with him and let him know the road was about to get quite rough and he might not want to risk it in this kind of car. His reply? "No problem. It's a rental!" "Okay... well, you still might want to reconsider..." With the jeeps well ahead of us, Daniel led the way up the hill. It only climbed a few hundred feet in elevation, but it did so in a very short distance. There were some serious potholes that could not be missed if you were in a car/truck that might require some decent ground clearance. One spot in particular was quite steep, loose, and rough. At this point I was leading because Daniel had stopped for a "nature break". I parked at the top and grabbed my phone to shoot a video of Daniel coming up. As he was ascending, I spotted the car behind him doing a 10 point turn around to get the heck out of there! I guess he finally decided that it didn't matter if it was a rental or not. We continued on and encountered a longer climb that was pretty rough and eventually I spotted the jeeps crawling their way up. So I stopped at a relatively level spot in the climb and we waited again. There were also some Southbound vehicles coming toward us and I wanted to let them pass. We made it the rest of the way to the summit without issue. I think it was around 10600 feet or so. Then it was all down hill from there... We weren't done with the rough stuff yet. We caught up to the jeeps and they nicely pulled over and let us get by them. Shortly after that we arrived at a popular scenic pullout with a dead end road out to the end of a promontory. I thought for sure Daniel would want to ride up this and get a picture of his bike, but once he saw the level of exposure to steep drops and the limited area, he declined. Instead we parked at the bottom and walked up to take in the view. Once done with this, we set about repassing the jeeps and making the rest of the run up to CO 62. The road descends steeply for a bit but then starts to level out somewhat, but it is very twisty and has high weeds/bushes of some kind that basically form a wall at the edge of the road, meaning lots of blind corners on what is essentially a two track road. Sure enough, we had a jeep come around the corner right in our face. Fortunately, we were hugging the outside line and he reacted fast enough to get over and leave us room to get around. Also, we weren't hauling but because we were worried about this exact scenario. It was a good object lesson for Daniel. Just because you CAN go faster, it doesn't always mean you should go faster!

At 62. we cut back over to get on Dave Wood Rd., to head North back to Montrose. With the wider road and better sight lines through corners, we ran a bit more spirited pace than we had run earlier in the day. Still though, we had to keep an eye out for deer even though it was still early in the evening and not even remotely starting to get dark. We had a great run and soon rolled into town to find Sarah and think about getting dinner. We were supposed to meet her at a Wal-Mart but could not find her bike or get any response on the phone. About the time I was starting to slip into Dad Panic Mode, she finally called me. Apparently, she was inside the Wal-Mart and had no signal. Also, she parked her bike way off on one side where we couldn't see it. I was quite relieved to hear from her after nearly 20 minutes of not being able to contact her. I mean what 18 year old girl waits 20 minutes to respond to ANYTHING on her phone!? Regrouped, we grabbed a nice dinner at an Applebees, headed to the hotel, and then walked a bit to go get some ice cream to top off the day. We met a really nice couple while there and had a good visit with them. Like so many people, they were amazed at the trip we were doing and how young the kids were. Then it was back to the hotel so I could try to upload pics and videos.

Daniel decided he needed to do a walk in for a hair cut. He was getting a bit shaggy

Typical for much of the unpaved part of Dave Wood Rd.

Heading South out of Telluride on 145, note lack of snow on them mountains and of color in the trees

Not much snow here either

North side of Trout Lake

Looking back to the Southeast of Trout Lake

Looking mostly South

The road that heads back around behind Trout Lake

Courthouse and Public Library in Rico

Excuse the finger, I was trying to block the sun and eliminate a nasty lens flare

Headed back into the woods to find the Trout Lake Trestle

The Trestle, closed to ANY form of travel...

Trout Lake Road

Water tank for trains when the rail line came through here

Looking South while sitting in the Ophir valley

Probably the most snow we've seen on this trip

This really ought to be called Rockslide Road... I did it years ago on a KLR 650. It wasn't really hard, but it was a bit nerve wracking as I was still a relative newb at riding anything even remotely rough.

Not sure where those switchbacks on the left go...? A mine maybe?

Down in the San Miguel River valley

The Black Bear switchbacks, closed indefinitely because of land slides. The steps are upper left in that V by the BIG dark rock. Locals told me they did not know if it would ever be reopened as there was talk of permanently closing it because it would be so difficult to clear the landslides safely and restore the road. Some people think this would be a great shame, others a good thing. Quite a few people have died on this pass.

Just around that corner is where things get fun...

Looking down a steep section that the camera makes look perfectly flat

Nice mostly level and smooth spot to stop and catch our breath while we wait for traffic to clear

We eventually end up at the top tree line going out of the image to the left

The view from the promontory

Sharon and Gary Eshelman, super nice couple!

 

[AdventureSeeker]

Mega awesome mountain pics! Thanks for sharing!

 

[SpiritAtBay]

Enjoying all the images and stories.
Esp love the photo of the couple (last pic in previous post.)

 

[William Wolfen]

It'd be a real shame if black bear didn't reopen. I haven't gotten to ride it yet!

 

[Tourmeister]

Day forty five (forty six), Out and back to Durango on the Million Dollar Highway

Wednesday, September 27th.

We got another "early" start, around 8:45am. The people a few rooms over with the other BMWs were out loading their bikes so we visited with them a bit. Then we headed South on US 550 toward Ridgway. Traffic came to a stop again and we had to wait a while. Once in Ridgway, we go onto CR 23 to head South out of town. This is a dirt road that eventually drops out on the South side of Ouray and is a nice ride. About half way to Ouray, I was supposed to get onto CR 17 but I wasn't really paying attention and we stayed on 23, which eventually put us back on US 550. This was fine though because the traffic wasn't bad. We rolled through Ouray pretty quickly, only getting on a few side roads for a few minutes before heading up the switchbacks on the South side of town. Once South of Ouray, we started the section referred to as the Million Dollar Highway, supposedly because it costs $1 million per mile when it was originally made way back in the day. It runs through the Uncompahgre River Canyon and has extremely steep drop offs right at the edge of the road with no guard rails. Many of the corners are 20-25 mph corners. It really isn't a go fast road. It is more of a try to keep your eyes on the road because the scenery is so amazing! It has a tunnel or two, some cut through rocks and at least one that is a concrete avalanche shield. There is a nice pull out just South of Ouray where you can watch Mineral Creek drop down into the river canyon below. I spotted a little dude eyeballing me and the GS when we were getting ready to leave and asked him if he wanted to sit on the bike. He wasn't real sure until his Mom gave him the green light. I texted her the picture I took and only later realized my mirror was partially obstructing the view of his face, doh! I love getting kids excited about the bikes. If it sticks, they won't have money to spend on bad habits when they are older

We got back on the road and traffic was a bit heavy. Just before Yankee Mine we had to stop again, this time for a good 15 minutes or more. It was hot sitting in the sun so I pulled over onto the wide shoulder next to a truck and we visited with the couple inside. There was a big helicopter flying just over the ridge, apparently installing some kind of remote avalanche triggering devices, and people could be driving below where they were working in case something fell onto the road. They finally landed the helicopter near the Yankee Mine overlook area and we got moving again. We weren't at the front of the line, so it was slow going for a while. The run down into Silverton was really pretty and right near town the trees were really in full on yellow mode! We kept going until we reached an overlook that looks back to the North over Silverton. The narrow gauge train was backing up onto a spur to get turned around for the run back down to Durango and I wanted to get video of it leaving town. Unfortunately, they took forever so we ended up leaving before they did. We soon crested Molas Pass but did not stop. I figured the pics would be better later in the day when the sun was at a better angle. Between Molas Pass and the Purgatory ski area, 550 is a lot of fun, but once past Purgatory, it got a bit on the boring/droning side of things and the traffic really picked up. It also started getting quite warm as we dropped down out of the mountains into Durango.

We grabbed lunch at the Serious Texas BBQ on the North side of Durango. It was very good, especially their Mac-n-Cheese! Daniel got a second helping. Then we headed back up US 550. We stopped at the Pinkerton Hot Spring. I've driven by it countless times over the years and just never took the time to stop. It was actually pretty cool. I had no idea how large it actually is. We got back on the road and were soon back in the twisties. This time we stopped at Molas Pass. I had to visit the powder room. It was locked. I tried the ladies and it was FULL!! I held it. In Silverton we ran back up in the valley along the Animas River toward Animas Forks, but we didn't go all the way. We stopped at Eureka Gulch, about where the road starts to climb and get a bit rougher. We cruised back to town and ran a few of the roads back off the main road so we could check out some of the homes and churches. Some were in horrible condition and others had been restored, much like many other towns with the old buildings from the late 1800s. I like the style of architecture, but it is very maintenance intensive to keep it in good condition. We stopped at the Yankee Girl Mine overlook and read all the historical stuff.

As we rolled back into Ouray we turned off onto Amphitheater Road, which was very narrow and steep, climbing up the side of the canyon to a cool campground. We really had to watch for other cars because many of the corners were blind and they thought they were the only ones on the roads whenever we met them! The views of the town were really neat from up high. There are some hiking trails in this area, but we didn't take the time to check them out. Instead, we dropped back down and ran over to the Box Canyon. I've seen the sign for this for years but have never checked it out. When we pulled into the parking lot it was mostly empty so I wasn't sure it was even open, but it was. It was a very short walk back into the falls along a steel walkway embedded in the rock face of the canyon. It goes back up into a tight "box" and there is a LOUD waterfall pouring down into it. The whole walk takes maybe 10-15 minutes and is really cool. When leaving, the exit road from the parking lot is gravel and kind of steep with a few sharp corners. I drops out right where I wanted to be earlier in the day where the little backroad would have brought us if I had not missed a turn. In town, I think this is called Oak Street and it basically runs along the West side of the Uncompahgre River. Outside of town it becomes CR 17. Also, as we get out of town, the homes get bigger and obviously more expensive. The road was in great condition and is a very easy ride. It is just nice staying off of US 550, which usually has a lot of traffic. The views are also nice as we get further North. Right were we rejoined CR 23, there was a large pasture on the right and there were around 10-12 large deer grazing near the fence. They did not seem too worried about us. We rolled into Ridgway and got back on US 550 to head up to Montrose. That last bit of highway was SUPER windy for some reason. The skies were still basically clear and no storms were brewing. We could see the smoke from the controlled burns on the North end of the Uncompahgre Plateau stretching off across the horizon to the East on the wind, making for a cool sunset.

Once back at the hotel, we quickly made our way over to a nearby steak house that closed at 8:00pm. We wanted to make sure we got there before closing this time. It was pricey and average quality. Nothing really to get excited about. The hostess that greeted us was super nice, but when she greeted people, she sounded like Uni-Kitty from the LEGO movie when she said, "Hiyee!". We were seated close to the entrance and had to hear that the whole time and it was hard not to start laughing. At least she was enthusiastic about her job though. That seems to be a RARE quality these days... We had thought about staying one more night. We had arrived on Sunday night and it was now Thursday night. I tried getting a room in Ouray, but they were all full with leaf peepers. Apparently the same was true in Montrose. After talking with Beth, we decided we would go ahead and visit Moab. After all, when would we ever get another chance like this? So I planned a route that would take us to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Lake City, Slumgullion Pass, along Cebolla Creek, over the Blue Mesa Reservoir to Hotchkiss and eventually back to Cedaredge at the base of the Grand Mesa. From there we would run back over the Grand Mesa to I-70 and beat feat to Moab via UT 128 along the Colorado River. The kids liked this plan, so I made hotel reservations and set about creating the GPS routes. Then it was off to bed. I'd given up on uploading pics and videos for the ride reports because our internet access in this town was horrible whether on the hotel wifi or the local 5G cell network with four bars of signal!

US 550 just South of Ouray

That is the road running along the left side of the image

I came through here back in 2016 I think and it was 28 F at the time. There were frozen waterfalls over there!

Plaque at the pull out near Mineral Creek

Future hooligan...

Getting some decent color in here

The switchbacks at Hendrick Gulch

Always the contrails and power lines

Stuck waiting on the helo to finish lifting avalanche control equipment into place just North of Yankee Girl Mine

Silverton

That was the train backing up onto the spur in the lower left corner of the image

If it weren't for the contrails, it would have been a cloudless day

Turned around, but waiting for a long time before pulling out, so we left.

Good food here... and ice cream

I believe this is just North of where the South end of Lime Creek Road meets US 550 (Lime Creek Rd is awesome, but outside Sarah's comfort zone for sure!)

Parked near the spot where Coal Creek passes under the highway. There is a cool waterfall not far from the road if you don't mind a short hike. We didn't make that hike today though.

Waterfall on the inside of the corner at the creek

Waterfall on the outside of the corner at Coal Creek

Looking NW from Molas Pass

Looking kind of NE from the overlook at Molas Pass, almost no snow at all!

Trees just outside Silverton on US 550 South

Animas Forks Rd., East of Silverton, looking South

Ore carriers that stretched from the processing plant up to the mines high in the valleys. Miners would ride in these carts to get to work...

Remains of a mining operation in Eureka Gulch

It would have been cool to see this when it was in full operation

Turned around heading back toward Silverton

The road that continues to Animas Forks

Looking South on Animas Forks Road

Yankee Girl Mine center right of image

It is possible to ride back up into the mines, but I didn't feel like dragging Sarah down through there. Also, flats are common from nails that have fallen out of old boards.

Watch your head!

Working on my "hip" selfie look...

Imagine the monthly payment on this!? They are probably paying cash though

Daniel's typical end of day routine... editing and uploading videos, or texting his non-girlfriend

 

[Texas T]

You must have taken good notes at the end of each day. There's no way I could have constructed all these reports from memory.

 

[Tourmeister]

You must have taken good notes at the end of each day. There's no way I could have constructed all these reports from memory.

Nope. That was the reason for the review video I did each day. Even doing that, I would still often go over everything with the kids to make sure I had it all right in my head. However, most of the time if I sit down and look at the GPS track, things will start coming back to me because I remember where they were on the route. If we stop somewhere on the side of the road for more than a minute or two, the GPS tracking will start clustering track points in that spot, making a blob that can be seen later when viewing the track. As far as names of places, rivers, mountains, etc,... and terrain elevations, my GPS topo maps have all that on them.

 

[charliez]

You might not be comfortable answering this, but did you "carry" anything with you on your ride? Some people don't wish to so if they did or not. I'm asking because I would. Besides bike trips, I have a jeep that I'm thinking also about taking on some overlanding trips and will most likely use a normal dome ground tent. And of course it would be easier to do so in a 4 wheel vehicle. One place I watched someone do a trip to yesterday, that I'm interested in dong as well, had bears and other wildlife. Being in a tent, that is a possibility that you might meet up with one and other thing in the night. Which also brings up food storage on a trip like this, which could attract them.

 

[tex68w]

I carry every single time that I ride, but it's more for two-legged predators than four lol.

 

[Tourmeister]

You might not be comfortable answering this, but did you "carry" anything with you on your ride? Some people don't wish to so if they did or not. I'm asking because I would. Besides bike trips, I have a jeep that I'm thinking also about taking on some overlanding trips and will most likely use a normal dome ground tent. And of course it would be easier to do so in a 4 wheel vehicle. One place I watched someone do a trip to yesterday, that I'm interested in dong as well, had bears and other wildlife. Being in a tent, that is a possibility that you might meet up with one and other thing in the night. Which also brings up food storage on a trip like this, which could attract them.

Yeah, see the report for the day we crossed into Canada briefly...

I had originally wanted to visit Washington, Oregon, and California as well on the trip. Then I started looking into their carry laws and dropped them from the plans. All the states we did visit are WAY more carry friendly!

 

[charliez]

I guess the carry laws need to be added to my plans on any out of state trips. Doh.

 

[Tourmeister]

Day forty six (forty seven), Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Lake City, Slumgullion Pass, Cebolla Creek Road, Bear encounter, and back to the Grand Mesa

Thursday, September 28th.

I spent part of the morning trying to contact the Court in Manila, UT., to take care of my ticket from a week ago when we were up near the Flaming Gorge. They keep ridiculous hours, 9am-11am M-F only, and the DO NOT answer their phone! I've left numerous messages as they say to do but they have yet to call me back once. I made sure to have their number in my contact list so the phone would ring if they called, but no calls or messages from them. So we didn't get away until after 9:30am. We were leaving Montrose and heading to Cedaredge near the Grand Mesa via Lake City and Slumgullion Pass. Loaded up we headed East on US 50. We pulled into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison park. It was a fun ride up to the park entrance. From there we went down into the canyon. This road has a 16% grade! In years past, the road had a lot of gravel on it. This time it was relatively new black top pavement. As I am taking pics corvettes start going past me. It looked like the same group we'd seen at Lizard Head Pass a few days before. We had also seen a few of them in Montrose last night at the steak house. Most have vanity plates on them, which is how I knew they were the same group. Sarah wasn't wild about the exposed edges on this road, but she got down to the bottom without any issues. We ran East over to Crystal Dam where there was a parking lot... full of corvettes. We ran the other direction back to the camping area, which is not large. I looked like a nice place to camp right on the river. We headed back up out of the canyon to visit some of the overlooks on the edges of the canyon. The road back into the park is fun and twisty, but it has a low speed limit. The walls on the North side of the canyon are sheer drops. At most of the overlooks, we could stand as close to the edge as we wanted without any guardrail present. Sarah braved one of these spots so I could get a few pics of her. There weren't many trees in this area, but there was a lot of ground cover in the form of some kind of large bush. These bushed were changing colors and they rival the beauty of the trees, covering entire mountainsides in some places. We still had miles to go so we got back on the bikes and headed back down to US 50 to continue East.

If you look at a map, you will see that US 50 turns Southeast at Cimmaron and is relatively straight, but then starts to get curvy as it bends mostly East. Right at that first serious curve we came over a hill and the traffic was stopped. The line of cars disappeared around the corner of the next curve in the distance. It was obvious we were going to be here for a while. I don't like being the last vehicle in a stopped line on the blind side of a hill and curve, so we moved to the should next to the last vehicle, a Jeep with a couple from East Texas. They were super friendly and even offered us snacks and drinks while we waited. We politely declined and listened to them tells us about their experiences trying to hunt elk in the area. They were heading home early because they had not even seen any elk in places where they would normally have expected to see lots of them. After 15-20 minutes traffic finally started moving and we were being led through a LONG construction zone by a pilot vehicle. They were repaving the road, which will be nice when they are done. This lasted all the way to the spot where US 50 makes a hard right turn due East along the South side of the Morrow Point Reservoir. A few miles past the end of the construction zone we turned South onto CR 25, also known as the Lake City Cut-Off. This was a wide and well maintained gravel road that crosses Pine Creek through a bluff and climbs onto the top of Pine Creek Mesa. Most of this was fast and flowing through open pastures dotted with nice patches of bright yellow Aspens. At Willow Creek Mesa a series of fun switchbacks got us down to the Gunnison River, dropping close to 1000 feet in about 1-1/2 miles. We quickly reached CO 149 and started the run down the river valley to Lake City. If you have never done it, the run between US 50 and Lake City on 149 is a lost of fun and very scenic! Upon reaching Lake City, we stopped for a great lunch at the Southern Vittles Restaurant. They were busy but the service was quick. Also, the prices were very reasonable, especially compared to so many places we'd been eating in weeks past!

After lunch we gassed up at the little gas station across the street from what used to be Poker Alice's Restaurant, which is now closed down. The gas station store was not open, but the pumps were working. There was some kind of construction project going on behind the store, but I didn't ask what it was. I just used the nice clean restroom and was on my way. With our tanks topped off, we continued South on 149 out of town past Lake San Cristobal. The road started climbing into the mountains immediately. We stopped at a small over look that had a short hike to an even better overlook that provided great views looking to the West over the lake and at the changing trees on the face of Red Mountain. As we are getting back on the bikes, a pack of corvettes goes cruising past us again! It would appear we have a similar itinerary. Sarah and Daniel got out ahead of me because of my incessant picture taking. Also, I stopped at the Windy Point Overlook that gives great views of the massive Slumgullion landslide where the entire half of the mountain let go and slid down into the valley below, and it is still sliding to this day. As is often the case, some of the people at the overlook started asking me about where I was from, where I had been, and where I was headed. It is nice that so many of these people wish us safe journey after speaking with us. Our experiences with random people encounters has been nothing but positive on this trip. It is refreshing in the face of so much gloom, doom, despair, and the breakdown of common decency that so many people subscribe to. I stow my phone and set out to catch up to Sarah and Daniel. The views are fantastic. It does not take long to reach the summit where I find them waiting at the Slumgullion Pass Campground.

At the summit, we see some other adventure bikes heading toward Lake City. As we start heading down CR 50 along Mill Creek, several more adventure bikes pass us heading to the summit. The KTM 690 and Husky 701 seem to be the most popular bikes right now by a long shot based on what we've been seeing on our trip. The road is a little rough, but not bad. It is essentially a nice two track that twists and winds with the creek, losing elevation fairly quickly. Sarah is bringing up the rear. Daniel and I passed through a short patch that was pretty rough and I asked him to sit down and check the mirrors to make sure Sarah gets through. No sooner than he does, I hear Sarah on the comms telling him to get out of the way! Apparently she was in the groove and hanging right there on our tail instead of being further back like normal! Daniel then got out front and ran a quicker pace while I rode with Sarah. We started seeing his bike pulled over but no Daniel. He was hiding and taking pics and video of us as we'd come past him. Mill Creek meets Cebolla creek a few miles from the summit and 1500 feet lower. From that meeting point, the road and Cebolla Creek take on a more gentle slope running down out of the valley toward the "town" of Cathedral, where the road and creek both head North. Near the Powderhorn Guest Ranch the road becomes CR 27 for the rest of the run up the valley to the small "town" of Powderhorn. They are really more like collections of a few homes rather than what you might think of as a town. Sarah really likes these roads as they have some challenging spots, but mostly they are relatively smooth and flowing with a hard packed dirt surface and very little sand!

At CO 149 we decided to just keep heading up 149 to US 50 rather than backtracking CR 25 to US 50 as I had originally planned. It would be slightly further, but we could run higher speeds to make up for that. Also, I kind of wanted them to see the Blue Mesa Reservoir. The water in the reservoir was MUCH higher than the last time I saw it. Then people were driving their vehicles way out into the lake bed from the shores to get to the edge of the water. Now it was much closer to its normal banks. We cut back West on US 50 along the North side of the reservoir. There was a good bit of traffic and we were heading into the sun, so we didn't do much passing. At CO 92 we cut across the top of the Blue Mesa Dam and stopped at the overlook that gives a view of the spillway side of the dam and the start of the Morrow Point Reservoir. After grabbing out pictures we pulled back out onto CO 92 and as I was accelerating up to cruising speed, a bear shot out of the weeds/rocks on my left and cut across the road right in front of me. I did a bit of HARD braking to scrub speed and avoid T-Boning it. I think Daniel got it on video, but I've not seen it yet. I'd guess this bear was a cub, maybe 100 lbs or so, basically like a large fat dog. It moved pretty quick! I was immediately thinking of Momma bear and was scanning wildly for signs of any other movement while thinking of where my bear spray was stashed and how quickly I could get to it! It was easier to just keep moving and not worry about it and we never saw anything else other than tons of deer and cows in the road! The deer and cows were NOT impressed by the amazing sounds of our engines or the intensity of our horns. They took their sweet time deciding whether or not to get out of the way. It was getting late in the day and we were often riding into the sun on many corners. Curves going into the side of the mountain were in deep shade, often hiding grazing cows. So caution was definitely the order of the moment! I caught up to the kids at the trail head for Hermits Rest Trail. This was a nice pull out with a large parking lot, picnic tables, and a restroom. Sarah and I had stopped here years ago to wait for Roger "Rsquared" to catch up to us. He never did, apparently missing the turn off 133 in Hotchkiss! He eventually met us at our hotel in Gunnison, having taken the long way round. I got a shot of Sarah sitting on the fence back then and we recreated that shot for this trip. We set off to catch up with Daniel. He doesn't like to spend much time stopped and was usually the first back on the road at any stop. The run down off the mountains into Crawford was fun, but the sun was starting to get low and the deer were getting thick in the pastures along the highway. When we cut West after reaching Hotchkiss, we could see the smoke from the controlled burning stretching for many miles across the sky. Now the sun was directly in our eyes no matter what we did. I ended up holding my left hand up to block it until we reached Austin and cut North on little backroads to Orchard City on CO 62. The sun was going down fast and it was already getting cold. We stopped for gas and asked about places to eat. We were told there would be plenty of places up the road in Cedaredge, which is where we were going to be staying anyway. We found the hotel and got checked in. The lady behind the desk mentioned a place a few blocks away. Being that it was getting late in the evening and many places have been closing early, we decided to just get on the bikes and head there right away. That turned out to be a wise choice because they closed at 8:00pm but were happy to seat us. We got a seat outside so we could enjoy the incredibly nice evening and had a great meal. Then it was back to the hotel for showers and to see what the internet access might be like. Daniel and I also enjoyed the hot tub, perhaps one of the best of the entire trip so far!!

This critter was waiting to see us off in the morning right outside our hotel door

Heading down into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Note the guard rail directly above my bike along the top of the hill. There are several sets of switchbacks on the left side of the image.

Nice clean pavement now, better than it was years ago when I first visited (2000?)

Down at the bottom and heading toward the dam parking lot

On the way back to the top

There are many switchbacks on the left side of this image, Sarah waiting patiently

Looking down from one of the overlooks

According to my topo maps, it is around 1800 feet to the bottom from the top

The cut into Pine Creek Bluff on CR 25 to get us on top of the mesa for the run to Lake City

Start of the switchbacks dropping down off Willow Creek Mesa to the Gunnison River

CO 149 heading South at Hobo Gulch

Looking North on CO 149 at Hobo Gulch

Currently THE place to eat in Lake City, sits right near the start of the road up to Engineer Pass

Looking West over Lake San Cristobal toward Red Mountain

The spot where all the vettes passed us again

The view from Windy Point Overlook

Looking West from the top of Slumgullion Pass.

LOTS of dead trees from pine beetles many years ago. New trees are growing back!

Sarah heading down CR 50

Cool spot near Wood Gulch and the Mineral Creek trailhead on CR50

Campground at Fish Canyon?

Typical of the road surface for much of CR 27 all the way up to CO 149

Part of the Blue Mesa Reservoir after US 50 crosses back to the South side of the reservoir

Spillway side of Blue Mesa Dam

Some kind of park with hiking trail on South side of the Morrow Point Reservoir just beyond the dam. Note stairs and trail in lower right.

Cool cacti in parking lot of the overlook

CO 92 at Johnson Gulch

That sign is there for a reason and people REALLY seemed to struggle with that issue!!

The original... She was eleven then and eighteen now.

Our dinner for the evening in Cedaredge. Very good and not crazy expensive.

Yeah, the bugs and dust both were pretty bad today. To be fair though, it hasn't been washed since the BMW dealer cleaned it on Salt Lake early in the trip.

 

[Tourmeister]

I guess the carry laws need to be added to my plans on any out of state trips. Doh.

https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/resources/ccw_reciprocity_map/

 

[Tourmeister]

Day forty seven (forty eight), The Grand Mesa, party at the Harley dealer, and Moab.

Friday, September 29th.

We had a nice breakfast at the hotel. They had a lady that would cook custom omelettes if you wanted them. I just did a few bowls of Raisin Bran because I am old... Anyway, we got the bikes loaded up and managed to get on the road not long after 9:00am and headed North out of town for the run up over the Grand Mesa to I-70. It was a pretty day, but there were more clouds than what we'd been seeing recently. There wasn't as much traffic today as there was last Sunday when we came over the Mesa from the North on "Color Sunday". I stopped for some pictures and then never saw the kids again until I was on the far side of the Mesa. It was kind of annoying because I wanted to explore the "Old Grand Mesa Road". They were well outside communicator range and I was never able to catch up to them, so I had to stick the pavement until I finally found them waiting on the outskirts of the town of Mesa. Oh well. Have to save stuff for next time... right? When CO 65 reaches Plateau Creek it turns West and follows the creek to the Colorado River through an amazing canyon. When there is no traffic, this road is a real hoot! With even a little traffic, it is a nice scenic ride... We had a nice scenic ride.

Once on I-70 we started heading toward Grand Junction. The wind was really whipping through the canyon and blowing us around pretty good. As we were passing the airport on the North side of town, I spotted a bunch of white smoke coming from a parking lot just off the freeway. It looked like a big dealership was having some kind of special event. I saw Harley, KTM and BMW on the sign and asked the kids if they wanted to turn around and check it out. They did. It took forever to find the next exit where we could actually get turned around and then we weren't sure how to actually get to the dealership because it was tucked back in some kind of commercial real estate park or something. I spotted a Harley riding in that general direction and figured he knew where he was going and followed him. Sure enough, we came around a corner and saw tons of bikes parked all along both sides of the road and all over their parking lot. They had live music, demo rides, BBQ, drinks, and some kind of stunt show. We parked and wandered it to take a peek. They had lots of sweet new GSs, KTMs, Royal Enfields, and Harleys. The place was packed. We stuck out like sore thumbs though because we were the only people in the place wearing any serious riding gear.

The kids went outside and there was a stunt rider doing crazy stuff on his bike. Very impressive! I started visiting with a lady salesman that noticed my gear and was asking about our trip. When I mentioned the kids being on 390 Adventures she said one of the other salesmen ran into some kids North of town last week that were on 390s on a big trip with their dad. He had taken pics of their bikes to use for showing potential buyers that the 390s were good for long trips. So at least now I know the guy that got pics of them last week was legit! Daniel and I started to do the paperwork to test ride some KTM 890 Adventure Rs, but then I mentioned he wasn't 18 yet. The salesman was a bit shocked, but said it was a no go unless he was 18, but I could still go. Well... I couldn't do that to Daniel so I passed and went to drool over a new R1250 GS Rallye, the newer version of my current bike. I declined a test ride on that as well because I knew that might really cost me! We hung out a bit longer, got cold drinks, and finally decided we needed to get rolling rather than waiting around for the BBQ to be served.

We got back on I-70 and continued West out of town. Once again, the wind was REALLY cranking from out of the Southwest and pushing the bikes around quite a bit. It was also a strong headwind, which should have made me think about gas sooner, but I didn't. It wasn't until we were almost to the exit for Old Cisco Road (which connects with UT 128) that I thought to ask the kids what they were showing for remaining range. Daniel had something like 43 miles and Sarah maybe 50 something. I still had around 90. Moab was over 60 miles away still... Hmmm... We went ahead and exited and then stopped under the interstate in the shade to consider our options. I had a 3 gallon gas bladder and I could make to a gas station and come back while still having enough gas for my own bike to reach Moab. That would take a LOT of time and leave the kids sitting on the side of the road. We did a quick GPS search and it showed a gas station 28 miles away in Thompson, assuming it was actually there and open. I figured that even if it wasn't open, it would still be a better place for the kids to wait for me to return with gas than sitting on the side of the road somewhere. So we got back on the interstate and cut our speed down to 70mph instead of the 78mph or so we'd been running. The speed limit was 80mph, but there wasn't much traffic so we weren't as worried about creating a rolling traffic jam like we might have on other interstates we've been running that were also 80mph. We eventually rolled into Thompson and the gas station was open. Daniel put in almost the full capacity of his tank, having maybe a tenth or two gallons left before empty. Normally, they have been hitting close to 250 miles on a tank, but I guess the high winds and high speed must have really cut down their mileage. We took an extended break because it was warm and also so we could fix the windshield extension for Sarah's bike that was damage way back on day two when she went down in the sand. We kept meaning to fix it and just never got around to it because it really wasn't an issue, until we got in the crazy wind today. She was getting a LOT more buffeting of her head than usual and wanted to know if we could get it on to see if that might help. We cut up a Red Bull can to get the strips of metal we needed and got it back together. We also met Glenn Hibbert, a fellow rider from the Bastrop area here in Texas. We had a nice visit with him and his fiance and exchanged Facebook info. Then it was time to get back on the road. I REALLY wanted the kids to experience UT 128, so I convinced them we had time to run back up the freeway and run the road back into Moab. They agreed.

UT 128 starts out running over a wide open area until it meets the Colorado River. However, the road is not boring. It has a lot of fast elevation changes and some fun curves, sometimes both at the same time. Gassing hard over some of the quick rises would often loft the front end of the bike. Normally, this might be fun. With the strong winds it was a bit unnerving as a strong gust would really move the bike around. So I backed off and just focused on keeping us between the mayo and the mustard. Once at the river, the giant rock walls appeared and the curves came one after another in quick succession. Still, even down in the canyon the wind just would not let up! I've ridden this road quite a few times and have never experienced wind quite like this. I was pointing out Fisher Towers to the kids and then thought, "Let's just ride out there and get an up close look!" We hadn't done any dirt today and this would be short and easy. After all, minivans, RVs and cars drive out there and back all the time. It was easy. It just had a lot of wash board and loose gravel. It was worth it though as the rock formations are really cool up close. We grabbed our pics and shot back to the highway. There we made the run into Moab and to our hotel. The Best Western was very reasonably priced and right smack in the middle of town so everything was in easy walking distance. We had a nice dinner just across the street at Zax Restaurant on the second floor patio seating. Then we retreated to the hotel so I could get a bit more serious about finding SxS to rent or a Jeep.

Heading up the South side of the Grand Mesa on CO 65

Here are some of the videos Daniel got from the dealership

The windshield extender we fixed for Sarah. She said it helped.

Fisher Towers

They looked MUCH bigger in person...

The ice cream was good...

We had a ground floor room just in front of my bike. The rooms were very nice.

 

[Tigerkf]

I think Sarah is becoming less camera shy!

 

[Tourmeister]

Day forty eight (forty nine), Jeep exploration near Moab, Shafer Trail, Canyonlands NP, Mineral Canyon, and more...

Saturday, September 30th.

I got up early and called the Jeep rental place as soon as they opened, 9:00am. They had ONE Rubicon left. Sweet! The lady drove it over to the hotel to get me and take me back to their office so I could do the paperwork. There was a long list of prohibited trails and I had to sign a special page indicating I would not take the Jeep on any of them. They do track the Jeeps, so they would know. It didn't matter. They were all trails I would not attempt at my skill level because I don't want to die Daniel was bummed that drivers had to be 25 or older. Paper work done, I headed back to the hotel to get the kids. The rental company included a cooler with ice and water bottles. We stopped on the way out of town to get more water and some munchies for the road. Then we headed West out of town on UT 279, a nice paved road that follows the Colorado River out of town. Very quickly we are in a canyon with massive cliffs. The Jeep had barely rolled to a stop before Daniel was trying to scale a wall. I had to remind him that going up is always easier than coming back down... I didn't realize it when we first headed out, but there were multiple places along the way where there was rock art, supposedly done by prehistoric people. Not sure how they'd know that, but whatever. We keep heading west and the road wound its way closer to the Potash farm and became dirt, well... rock actually. We came up on our first "challenging" part of the road (not really). It was a little rough and steep, but the Jeep rolled up it with ease. None of this was hard by any stretch of the imagination, it was just slow going because it was bumpy. If we tried to go more than about 25 mph, we just got tossed all over the place inside the Jeep. We stopped at a few cool overlooks above the Colorado River for pics and eventually climbed up to Shafer Basin Rd.

Shafer Basin Road roads lead to a series of switchbacks called Shafer Trail, apparently an old cow trail!? Regardless, it is STEEP and goes WAY up in a hurry! This is a road Sarah would definitely NOT want to ride up on her bike. I did it years ago on my KTM 530 and it was fun. Even in the Jeep, she got a bit nervous about how close we were to the edge a few times. The views as we climbed were amazing! Also amazing was the lack of traffic! We stop a few times along the way to the top to take pics and eventually end up at the Canyonlands NP Visitor Center. Outside is a 1250 GSA loaded like a pack mule! The rider is originally from Czechoslovakia but now lives in Oregon and he was a BIG dude, very tall. He mentioned having just riden Ophic Pass in Colorado a few days previously and had no issues with the bike being this heavily loaded. He also mentioned he was about to do the White Rim Road alone... He was planning to camp somewhere along the way though and take two days to do the whole loop. I wished him well but was glad I wasn't the one that was going to be riding that bike! We spent a bit of time in the visitor center and then decided to head down to the South end of Grand View Point Road to the overlook of the Colorado and Green River junction. The road was paved again and wandered along the top of the plateau/mesa/whatever this formation is called. There were several other overlooks along the way, but we just headed straight to the Southernmost end of the road. The views were amazing again. The Grand Canyon in Arizona is huge, like... REALLY huge. But unless you get down in it, you don't really get the sense of just how huge it is. These canyons are smaller, but you can get in them more and it makes them feel larger. While at the overlook, we ran into another group of riders, a husband and wife, and their friend from home. We spent a good 20 minutes or more visiting with them and sharing adventure stories. It was getting late in the day and I still wanted to run the kids out to the Mineral Canyon Road switchbacks that are at the Northwest corner of the White Rim Road loop. So we said our goodbyes and started the slow drive back up through the park to the start of Mineral Canyon Road, which is just outside the park.

Mineral Canyon Road runs West across the North side of the Canyonlands NP. Justbefore reaching the Green River, there is a long set of switchbacks, not quite as long as the Shafer Trail, but just as steep and impressive. It was a pretty good run to get out to them and there was a parking lot area at the top. We stopped and walked around a bit, taking in the view, taking pics, and watching Daniel climb stuff that makes me cringe... Then we got started going down and stopped a few times along the way, especially at the spot where there are the remains of several older vehicles that did not make it down without issues... I am unsure why they were never recovered, but they have been there a very long time. I first saw them back in 2015. Sarah was not amused. Eventually we reached the bottom and started heading South along the White Rim Road for a bit. The first four miles of the road are NOT on the national park. If we had gone past that point and were stopped by a ranger and found to not have a permit, then we would have been in trouble. They now limit the number of people allowed on the White Rim road each day and a permit is required. I did not have to do this the last time I was here, so I am unsure how difficult it might be to acquire a permit, especially if you want to do so on short notice. I was watching the GPS to make sure we didn't pass into the park. We found a nice spot to pull off the road into a camping area and turn around. Whoever camped there last left a really nice pile of fresh firewood ready for the next people to use! There is a lot of sand on the part of the road where we turned around and the Jeep floats through that nice and smooth. As we were getting close to the bottom of the switchbacks, I noticed a motorcycle headlight in my mirror and immediately pulled to one side to let him out of our dust. The rider stopped at the base of the switchbacks so I pulled up to talk with him. I asked if he was alone, thinking that we would follow him up the switchbacks in case he dropped his bike and needed help. "No. My wife is right behind me!" And sure enough, another bike came rolling up behind us to park next to him. She was on a Honda CRF300 Rally and he was on a BMW R1200 GSA. We talked briefly and then I told them to go ahead of us so they would not be eating our dust or waiting on us because we'd be going so slow. The wife wanted us to go first because she was embarrassed about being "slow". Well... she had just completed the entire White Rim Road, no small thing! I insisted they go first, so they took off... quickly!! She and I had different ideas about what it means to be slow! I tried to go as fast as I could in the Jeep, but they pulled away in no time. We were soon watching them going back and forth on the switchbacks. One in particular was quite tight and had a lot of silt in the corner. She did stop for that one. She paused, collected herself, and then charged the rest of the way to the top. By the time we arrived, they were already making dust over a hill. I had hoped they might stop in the parking area and we could visit a bit more. I took off down the road after them. We'd occasionally see them crest another hill in front of us. At the top of one of the last hills on the road, we saw them stop side by side and give each other a good high five for having done the loop. They were silhouetted against the sky in front of them. I wish I had captured it on video or even a still photo. It was a really cool moment. Once we crested the same hill, I hammered down on the Jeep and we made good time back to the parking area at the start of Mineral Canyon Rd., at UT 313. They had just pulled over and were removing their helmets, so of course I HAD to stop! He was from France. She was from Australia. They currently live in Los Angeles. She only started riding two years ago!!! I didn't catch their last name, but his first name was Jerome and her's was Jess. They were a really cool couple, VERY enthusiastic about adventure riding! They wanted to get back to town where they were camping so they could start thinking about dinner and a beer. That sounded pretty good, so we said our goodbyes and hit the road. We just cruised UT 313 back to US 191 and then ran that into town. We had dinner at a place called The Spoke. The food was good. The ice cream was fantastic. Then we headed back to the hotel.

We needed to do laundry. The hotel had a laundry room over by the pool and hot tub. So after dumping our laundry in the wash, I walked out to check out the hot tub and pool. There was an older couple there hanging out and we got to talking. Daniel and Sarah came out and joined his wife in the hot tub. I just hung out and visited with the husband. This was Janet and Eddie Jensen, currently from Florida, but originally from Brooklyn (NYC), NY. I recognized the accent immediately because I lived on Staten Island for a year when I was in the fifth grade. We lived in Fort Wadsworth on the West end of the Verrazzano Bridge and he lived in Fort Hamilton on the East end of the bridge. I mentioned the bad winter and the city wide black out that occurred in 1976/1977 and he called it the blackout blizzard year. It was kind of neat to make a connection like that. Anyway, it was around 9:00pm when we got there and a little after 11:30pm by the time we got back to the room. Like Jerome and Jess, they were a really cool couple! I love running into people like them on trips. We finally got our laundry done and got back to the room. We had the jeep for one more day. I rented it for two days because I didn't want to have to get it back early today and wanted to get an earlier start for the next day. It had to be back by 5:00pm, and it had to be cleaned (spray washed). We were all surprised how much fun we'd had riding in the Jeep. Sarah confirmed that she would not have been having fun on her bike on those roads! Daniel though... yeah, he still doesn't know his limits. I was good with the Jeep! I spent a bit of time figuring out where we'd go tomorrow and then went to bed. It had been a great day.



"I can climb that..." Pretty much the first thought that goes through his head when he sees anything taller than him :lol2"

Me: You know that's a trip to the ER if you fall from there... right!? Daniel: I won't fall... Me: Right

When he actually admits that coming down is harder than going up!! There is hope for him after all

Probably the smoothest part of the unpaved roads we would see for the rest of the drive. The Potash Farm dead center.

Salt run off of some kind from the Potash Farm

There was a short steep climb back where Daniel is walking from. He videoed me driving up it.

I can't explain it. There is just something really cool about the variety of rocks and formations out here.

The top flipped open over the front seats. We were not allowed to remove the doors or top.

Looks like some alien city...

That's going to make a nice dent in something some day when it finally comes down!

I think there might be a bit of concrete in there... I didn't get a close look though.

More salty water run off

A salt pond

Hawk just watching the annoying tourists going by all day

Layer upon layer upon layer upon layer... That's pretty much the theme out here.

Crazy bent layers is another theme...

The camera was level for this shot. This is what the road looked like and the rocks were all at an angle like that.

And layer upon layer.... The mighty Colorado flowing below

That rock formation behind her is WAYYY higher than it looks!

And it is a longgg way down to the river below

Step off that rock and it is a straight drop down

As close as I was willing to let her get to the edge! But, I don't think she would have gone further if I had let her

Daniel is still not quite feeling the potential of his mortality... which frequently makes me justifiably nervous

This arch has a name. I don't know it.

The road just follows that ledge. You can see what a sheer drop it is off that ledge...

That was a RAM 3500 for scale

The white dot on top of the ledge on the left is that same truck

You can see the road center left starting to climb up toward the intersection with Shafer Basin Road and the White Rim Road.

Have you ever seen rocks like this!?

Shafer Trail switchbacks start center right where a huge overlander van is parked and go up slight off center left. You can barely see them.

Here we go...

That big overlander van is on the road dead center of the image

You can see it better here

Approaching a 180 degree switchback

Full sized Bronco coming up behind us.

Still not even close to the top...

Getting there eventually...

GAHHH!!! WHY WHY WHY!?!? I think he does it just to torment me

Jeep truck heading down

This thing has to be all of 700 lbs!

Bags and cameras everywhere

Grand View Point Overlook

The White Rim Road down below

Over there on the left, if you are moving to the right, there is a corner just behind a hill. Come over that hill and miss that corner... There is NO run off...

I zoomed in as far as possible to show you this Jeep!

Getting more comfortable living on the edge

La Sal Mountains in he distance

Heading out Mineral Canyon Road to the switchbacks at the Green River

Parking spot at the top of the switchbacks

Top of the switchbacks

"I can climb that..."

"See!?"

Down at the bottom

Arches everywhere

Janet and Eddie Jensen

 

[Tourmeister]

Is anyone having issues seeing the videos embedded in the reports? For some reason, all I am seeing is a black screen for them and the video never loads

 

[SpiritAtBay]

Is anyone having issues seeing the videos embedded in the reports? For some reason, all I am seeing is a black screen for them and the video never loads

No problems here.

Thanks again for taking the time to put this report together and share y'all's epic adventure

 

[ntklr650]

No issues for me Scott. Thanks for putting this together.

 

[Tourmeister]

Hmmm... Not sure what was going on, but the videos would never load for me, even if I went to the YouTube site Seems to be working now though.

 

[FE_Rex]

Hmmm... Not sure what was going on, but the videos would never load for me, even if I went to the YouTube site Seems to be working now though.

This morning I had trouble with YouTube not playing well with my do-not-track / ad- blocker software (Ghostery etc). YT may have made some changes in the last few days.