GixxerJasen's Utah Dual Sport Trip

[gixxerjasen]

Prologue:

It's been a while since I had a proper motorcycle trip and I was determined to take one this spring. Initially things started to come together for a return trip to Arkansas with the same buddies from before. Unfortunately plans unraveled for a variety of reasons including the launch of a project at work that we've been planning for 2 years now. I also received an invite to go dual sport riding in Utah, and the stars aligned for me to finally get a proper Utah trip under my belt. I've ridden through on my FJR and took my family there in the big Ford Expedition, but I needed some of that dirt.

Things started lining up, we were going to be basing out of Hanksville, near Captol Reef National Park and Goblin Valley State park. After much discussion on where to stay and thoughts about camping including some boondocking, we ultimately decided to rent a Travel Trailer while there. Several others were bringing theirs so it only made sense to base out of Dukes RV camp right there in Hanksville. This ended up being a well positioned basecamp with very nice facilities, and some good restaurants in the area.

I was determined to not be working on the bike the night before departure, so I started getting things done early. Doing some minor repairs and basic maintenance was definitely in order.

Then came the decision about tires. I needed tires that could be really good in a lot of terrains, while still being able to handle some pavement riding to and from the trail heads. I needed a really good compromise tire. Many would suggest a good gummy tire for the terrain, but those will get chewed up quickly on the pavement riding. Tires that are good in the rocks aren't so good in the sand, and vice versa. After conversing with many folks, and some paralysis by analysis, I made a decision.

Front tire was decided pretty early on, I went with the Goldentyre GT216AA, known as a "Fatty" tire in a size 90/100-21.

The rear tire I agonized for quite a while and ultimately decided on the Kenda K772 Parker DT in 120/100-18.

I ended up being very happy with both of these tires.

I had the whole bike prepped almost two weeks early, just needed to pack up, no need for any maintenance, right?

Wrong! My wife asked what that squeaky noise was coming from the back rear of the Expedition. So there I was a few days before the trip replacing brake parts on the Expedition. Thankfully, Amazon got me the parts quickly and I had all the tools so it was a painless process.

On Friday I bolted out of work early and got on the road. One of the guys I'd be riding with had an Airbnb in Fort Sumner, NM, so that was my target. Just northwest of Lubbock, I ran into a nasty storm line. I pulled over just before getting into it and looked at the radar and movement. The worst was a line running parallel to 84, but was just south of it and generally moving south, so I should be good. It was pretty nasty and one of the guys running about 30 minutes ahead of me saw a tornado in this storm.

I got to the Airbnb and went to bed on the living room couch pretty quickly as the next day was a pretty big day driving wise. In the middle of the night a storm came through and we got a tornado alert. The house had a metal roof and we could hear small hail making a lot of noise on it, and there was thunder and lightning popping about every 2 to 5 seconds. Hard to sleep in all that and when we peeked out the front door, we could see the hail splashing in the flooded front yard. It was pretty close to the front door but the storm passed through without anything too concerning and I went back to sleep.

A short while later I woke up again and there was heavy rain. No hail and no lighting, so I went back to sleep. When I woke up, I swung my legs off the couch and my feet came down on a wet rug. During the second storm, the water had come in under the front door and flooded the living room. Much of my stuff was wet including the decorative couch pillows I'd tossed on the ground. Looking at the wood floor, this wasn't the first flood. I guess this is going to be an adventure after all.

Me and John H were on the road early and we made our way to Hanksville without any issues. I dropped my bike and carrier at our RV spot and got back on the road. I had to run 100 miles to pick up our Travel Trailer and then tow it back over the mountains to Hanksville. Gas mileage was terrible of course.

We got it all set up in time to get settled in and go to bed, preparing for our first day of riding the next day.

 

[gixxerjasen]

Note:
These first few days will come pretty quickly, but just know that this RR will be slow in coming due to how I'm putting things together behind the scenes, while being pretty busy overall.

Day 1
First we need to talk about the weather in the Hanksville area for this week. Highs will mostly be in the 70F's reaching 80F one or two days. Overnight lows are in the mid 30F's. That's pretty cold for a bunch of folks from Texas. Now, I'm the guy who is all about being up and riding at the crack of dawn. This week would be a test of my patience because as I was itching to ride, but 36F is too cold, and I didn't want to have to layer up and then find ways to store them later in the day. Thus we usually got going about 10:00AM - 11:00AM on most days. That said, we usually were back in time to clean up before dinner and I was usually pretty tired from the riding during the day that I didn't really feel like I was missing out on ride time, but it did do a number on my head each morning.

This day especially, we were all pretty tired from the travel days, so we enjoyed our morning coffee, checked over the bikes, and got things ready to go. We still didn't have our entire group as a few would be arriving later in the day. One of the riders had a mechanical breakdown of his truck and would arrive even later.

We headed out west of town and grabbed a dirt road through some really cool rocks and dirt mounds. When we stopped at the end a few folks were taking pictures so I went to grab my phone. Problem, for some reason my zipper for my phone pocket is unzipped and there's no phone. My stomach felt empty thinking about dealing with this trip with no phone, and then all the pain I'd need to go through getting it replaced and getting things set back up again. I told the group to go on and I'd retrace my steps, but they insisted on following me. I rode slowly all the way back to the main road and didn't see it. I traced the road back to the RV park and nothing. I'm about to throw up at this point. Then I had a memory of that morning of me pulling my phone out to top it off on the charger. I get in the trailer and there it is, with a full charge. I'm stupid, but apparently I'm the good kind of stupid because at least I didn't completely lose my phone. You know I was triple checking that zipper pocket all week long.

With that solved, we headed out to Factory Butte. It's some 50-60mph dirt roads running out there, but then you get into the section that extends all the way over to Swingarm City that is basically an open playground for motorized vehicles. There's a lot of super soft dunes to play on, and clearly we weren't properly equipped for some of the climbs, but we played and had fun anyway.

Yes, my camera is crooked, I fixed it.

For those counting, I dropped my bike twice thanks to soft terrain and short legs. But you are bound to drop it if you are playing and having fun like this. I did follow one of the guys up a big dune and kind of got myself stuck and had to ride down a super steep slope but it was all good. I was horribly disappointed when I got down to realize that my camera was off the entire time.

John climbed up one of the dunes to admire the view.

After that, we rode over to moonscape overlook.

I'd like to point out, we were dealing with some super severe winds out there this day. It was so gusty, that my bike blew completely over while on the kickstand. If you are counting, that's 3 drops, but that one really wasn't my fault. I did bust up some plastic though on this one.

Thanks to the gusty wind, no one really was stupid enough to walk out on the Instagram point here.

Utah has a lot of folks with sweet rigs out enjoying the desert. Here's one fine example at the overlook.

We finished up there and then blasted back across the desert to the RV Park just in time to greet some of the folks arriving and help them get settled in. Dinner at the RV Park restaurant completed the day.

 

[Jeff S]

Not to distract too much... but I wanna learn about your "glasses and goggles" setup there! What glasses, what goggles, how's it work overall? How long have you done it, etc...

 

[gixxerjasen]

Not to distract too much... but I wanna learn about your "glasses and goggles" setup there! What glasses, what goggles, how's it work overall? How long have you done it, etc...

First trip with them. Just my regular daily use Nike brand glasses. Now that I'm required to wear glasses while riding/driving, it's been a bit of a challenge to figure things out. I literally took my street helmet to the eye doctor to try on glasses under my helmet. One thing I hadn't thought of though till this trip was goggles. Turns out, there is such a thing as over the glasses goggles. I picked up the Leatt Velocity 6.5 Goggle 2024 on closeout from rocky mountain. I don't have much to compare them to, but they worked pretty well for the trip. They did the job of letting me see while keeping the immense dust and dirt out. I did have some issues with slower riding and having the glasses fog up under them, but a second or two lifting the goggles would relieve that. Pretty sure I could have sprayed some anti fog stuff on my glasses but I didn't have any handy. Only other issue I encountered was learning how to put the goggles on. I had pain the first day from them pressing my glasses into my face, but making sure to pull outward on the edge foam so they went AROUND the glasses resulted in very comfortable pain free riding.

 

[Grommet]

Along for the ride.

I mean, I was along for the ride. And still am. Looking forward to the pics and videos here.

 

[gixxerjasen]

Day 2

Today we have a largish group headed out to Cathedral Valley, Capitol Reef National Park. It's me on my 500, John H on his KTM 350 EXC, Mike is bringing the big KTM 890 Adventure, and JT and Gina are on their brand new CFMoto Ibex 450's. The weather most of the day would be cloudy with highs in the 50F's, and we'd successfully dodge the rain storms all day long.

Our first stop was at Temple of the Sun.

JT and Gina with Gina' Ibex 450.

We headed out from there the short ride over to Glass Mountain.

We headed deeper into the area, and I got to get some good practice on my sand skills. The road was hard pack, that was covered with sand. Then, there'd be just deep sand, and it all looked exactly the same, so I started calling it "Surprise Sand." Because, well, you know....you are riding along and then, surprise! There's Sand! Nobody went down and Mike is a super good rider and made it hard for us to keep up with him on his 890 and us on the 500's. Gina hates the sand and eventually she wasn't having any fun in it, so she and JT turned around and went off to find their own adventure, and so then, it was just us three.

We rode around a bit, stopping only occasionally for photos. The weather made it more of a ride day than a photo day.

Eventually we rode through the Bentonite Hills, and while they were cool, they weren't lit up and vibrant like you'd see in other pictures thanks to the cloud cover, so we rode through them. We also hit our first river crossing of the trip. The entrance and exit were such that you had to ride up the river a little bit. Mike had heard a tip to cross directly and then follow the opposite bank and out. This worked well for us. Another rider coming through later had the instructions reversed and flooded his boots. Not so much fun there.

We hit the pavement back to the RV park and no sooner than we got inside than the rain we'd been dodging all day finally got us. It was nice to have the camper to take shelter in for this. Once it moved through, we cleaned up and hit a local restaurant for dinner.

 

[gixxerjasen]

That's going to be it for a bit. The rest of the days were more epic, and I have a TON of video to sift through.

 

[LicketySplit]

Hopefully not too long. I am looking forward to seeing all of that Poison Spring video.

Great job!

 

[gixxerjasen]

Hopefully not too long. I am looking forward to seeing all of that Poison Spring video.

Great job!

Behind the reef first!

 

[Tourmeister]

Glad the rain did not get you while you were in the Bentonite!

 

[SpiritAtBay]

Great RR and appreciate the video work.

After caging Poison Spring, I’m eager to see your video of riding it.

 

[Tourmeister]

Great RR and appreciate the video work.

After caging Poison Spring, I’m eager to see your video of riding it.

Compared to past bikes, how did you like the IBEX on this trip?

 

[SpiritAtBay]

Compared to past bikes, how did you like the IBEX on this trip?

I’m thinking JT and I might have to do a separate thread on the bikes. For now I’ll say that we both like them and expect them to be great long distance adv bikes.

 

[gixxerjasen]

Great RR and appreciate the video work.

After caging Poison Spring, I’m eager to see your video of riding it.

Well, since I rode it three times (out, back, out) I should have plenty of content to show you!

I'm glad I got to follow you guys a little bit to get you featured in the video. Did you notice that I caught JT getting a bigger wobble in that soft sand than you did?

 

[cdc]

Great report, looking forward to the next installments.

 

[cdc]

I’m thinking JT and I might have to do a separate thread on the bikes. For now I’ll say that we both like them and expect them to be great long distance adv bikes.

Please..

 

[jredford]

Fantastic report Jasen!

 

[SpiritAtBay]

Well, since I rode it three times (out, back, out) I should have plenty of content to show you!

I'm glad I got to follow you guys a little bit to get you featured in the video. Did you notice that I caught JT getting a bigger wobble in that soft sand than you did?

JT actually noted that!

 

[gixxerjasen]

Day 3

Thankfully once day 3 arrived, the less than optimal weather had moved out. The wind and the rain were gone and we would have great weather the rest of the week. Day 3 had partly cloudy skies and temperature highs in the mid 70F's.

John had watched a video by Ridefreaktv and has been chomping at the bit to go ride this trail called "Behind the reef." It ended up being just the two of us headed out to tackle this trail.

John had a fun route to get us there that he had plotted and wanted to scout out. It starts out on the same road we did the other day running past Factory Butte, and then runs out Little Horse Wilderness, past Goblin Valley State Park, around the Temple Mountain area back to the trailhead.

I stopped for some drone work just past Factory Butte. Unfortunately, I'd only get it out this one time today. I kept misreading my maps thinking I was in one park or the other, where drone flying is currently prohibited. In reality, we spent a lot of time outside the parks and I'd have been ok. For the next couple of days, I'd spend more time doing recon with our projected tracks and my maps to figure out where we'd be and when we'd be crossing park boundaries.

This was around the Temple Mountain area.

We started climbing into the back country toward the trail head. I wanted to stop and check out this old house, but John needed some shade, so he rode on up to the top and waited on me. It wasn't very hot but the sun at altitude can be pretty intense.

Looking back from the house.

When the sun is in the middle of the sky, it's hard to find shade in the canyons, but John found this tree and was sitting under it sipping from his camelback when I arrived.

The road ahead looks good to me.

Eventually I found John in this position, having turned around mid hill. We scouted down the hill and it was pretty steep (always worse than it looks in pictures) with a lot of loose rock. It was late in the day and we didn't know how far the trail ran, or if it even came out anywhere. We didn't know if the trail got more difficult, but John mentioned not really wanting to have to ride back up this hill later in the day. I'm a fan of not riding down something you don't want to ride back up, so we conferred on it, walked it a bit, and I let John make the call here. His last ride in Utah ended with a helicopter ride out, so I'm not pushing anything here, and was happy with the decision to turn back at this point. The ride in was amazing, so riding it again in reverse was a nice bonus.

Yea, doesn't look bad, but it was steep enough that it took the two of us to drag John's bike around and point it back up the hill. Pictures never lie, except about the percent grade of a hill.

We stopped back at the trail head to get a picture of the bikes in front of the sign.

Trail marker had it marked as "Most Difficult." I don't know if it was all that, but in a 4 wheeled vehicle, it might have some tight sections and require some ground clearance in places for sure.

While we were drinking water and getting ready to go again, this guy pulled up in a minivan and pointed up the trail asking if it went all the way through. John referred him to the trail sign and politely told him that he might not attempt it in that vehicle. We both agreed that there were a few points right away that the guy would have found himself high centered and stuck.

We made our way back home, and I stopped to take this picture. Hard to believe it can be so flat out here just a short distance away from all the mountains and canyons.

That night Gina and Mike treated us to some delicious chicken fajitas cooked on Mike's Blackstone. We are definitely eating well on this trip.

 

[TNC]

Blaaah!...gixxerjasen, that "little", uphill approach on BTR looks like nothing more than a paved, concrete driveway. I don't get it.

Man, I get it. Steepness like that with loose rocks and kitty litter over smooth rock and hardpack can be treacherous. About the time you think momentum and traction are winning, the rear tire busts loose and you get to have all that fun of trying to get the bike turned around in a tight spot and work your way back down to take another stab at it.

I ran into the same thing last December at Fresno Canyon. Rounded a tight corner and was committed to that one and only steep, fairly long downhill before I could change my mind. I get LS's thinking on not really wanting to bite off something like that if you have a choice. Took me two tries to get back up, and a jeep guy had to help me pick up that beast of an XR650L in a precarious position. Live to fight another day.

That BTR does come out at S. Temple Junction which then makes a huge loop back to W. Temple Junction and then main Temple Junction. I've done that Temple Junction loop in the past and didn't even know about BTR at the time. Looking on google sat, I see there is also a connector off BTR called Little Horse Canyon, but on the sat view it looks a little rough and eroded itself. I'd like to try BTR all the way through, maybe this fall if it works out. My main riding buddy is swapping his KTM690 Enduro R for a Beta 500 RRS soon, so he is feeling more frisky now and may try it with me. I feel a little more confident now on the CRF450RL.

Nice pics, vid, and writeup, jasen.

 

[humanrace]

Reading, watching and taking notes for my next trip to Utah.

 

[LicketySplit]

I usually get myself into trouble. Something in my Fallopian tubes worked this time.

 

[Tourmeister]

Very nice pics. Using your phone or an actual dedicated camera?

I hear you on the steep thing. I was leading a ride in Southern Utah years back when I had my 530 EXC. The 450 followed me down several very steep switchbacks before we noticed the guys on the 690 Enduro and DRZ 400 had stopped at the top and refused to go any further. We managed to get turned around, but getting back up it was a challenge. It was one of the very few times I've ever seen Rsquared's bike on the ground. He's quick about getting it back up as most of my pics of his bike are of it resting on his hip as he lifts it rather than actually being on the ground.

Roger working down toward me. Sharp corner right behind him going up and right.


The other guys coming down to check things out and let us know they parked at the top.


Trying to give some scale here. Roger is standing where we just came down.


I walked down to the next switch back for a look see... You can see my bike upper left of center.


It was mostly like this all the way where I could see, steep but not terrible.


Turned around and wondering how to get momentum in two feet...


Looking back down toward the first serious switchback near the top


See... never catch it on the ground!


We never found out if this "road" went all the way through, which was our goal. Gas was also starting to be an issue for the 690 and DRZ. My 530 and Roger's 450 could hit 300 miles without too much trouble because we had the 6.6 gallon Acerbis tanks. Somewhere I have the track out to this road. It is wayyy out in the middle of nowhere and gas will be an issue for most folks. It doesn't show on many maps and if it does show, it has several names. It drops over 1000 ft in about 1/2 mile as the crow flies. You can find the switchback portion here, N37° 53.860' W109° 39.006'. We were trying to get across North Cottonwood Creek and Hop Creek to Shay Mountain Road so we could work our way back to base at Monticello. Instead we had to do a massive backtrack down to Blanding. Someday I would love to get back out there and see where it goes...

 

[gixxerjasen]

Very nice pics. Using your phone or an actual dedicated camera?

Just my phone, even my mirrorless camera can be too much bulk on a motorcycle sometimes, especially on a DS where I'm trying to minimize as much as possible.

 

[TNC]

Very nice pics. Using your phone or an actual dedicated camera?

I hear you on the steep thing. I was leading a ride in Southern Utah years back when I had my 530 EXC. The 450 followed me down several very steep switchbacks before we noticed the guys on the 690 Enduro and DRZ 400 had stopped at the top and refused to go any further. We managed to get turned around, but getting back up it was a challenge. It was one of the very few times I've ever seen Rsquared's bike on the ground. He's quick about getting it back up as most of my pics of his bike are of it resting on his hip as he lifts it rather than actually being on the ground.

Roger working down toward me. Sharp corner right behind him going up and right.


The other guys coming down to check things out and let us know they parked at the top.


Trying to give some scale here. Roger is standing where we just came down.


I walked down to the next switch back for a look see... You can see my bike upper left of center.


It was mostly like this all the way where I could see, steep but not terrible.


Turned around and wondering how to get momentum in two feet...


Looking back down toward the first serious switchback near the top


See... never catch it on the ground!


We never found out if this "road" went all the way through, which was our goal. Gas was also starting to be an issue for the 690 and DRZ. My 530 and Roger's 450 could hit 300 miles without too much trouble because we had the 6.6 gallon Acerbis tanks. Somewhere I have the track out to this road. It is wayyy out in the middle of nowhere and gas will be an issue for most folks. It doesn't show on many maps and if it does show, it has several names. It drops over 1000 ft in about 1/2 mile as the crow flies. You can find the switchback portion here, N37° 53.860' W109° 39.006'. We were trying to get across North Cottonwood Creek and Hop Creek to Shay Mountain Road so we could work our way back to base at Monticello. Instead we had to do a massive backtrack down to Blanding. Someday I would love to get back out there and see where it goes...

I got curious when you mentioned Shay Mountain Road as I've primitive camped up road 101 west out of Monticello to ride a lot of that area in the mountains and the Needles area...good, cool, base camping up there. I was wondering where y'all were headed from when you were trying to make Shay and then down to Monticello.

I'm not very good at detecting or calling out coordinates. When I look at those coordinates on google sat view, it looks like its at Richmond Springs Road well SE of Blanding. I'm pretty sure you're describing the Abajos well east of Monticello. Again...I'm a luddite on coordinates. Minor thread shift for a moment...or PM me.