All posts by bpheasant

national park, roadtrip, travel, USA

A day of a big drive & big cliffs

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Taking some time out from driving & doing anything really – sitting in a small park in the centre of a small town with a nice breeze blowing through the trees waiting for some more mountain bike buddies to show up for a weekend camping. Anyway, back to Wednesday.

It was up to early again, breakfast, car packed & gassed up & on the I-15 North shortly after eight. LV was going for another scorcher & it was already in the high-nineties by nine o’clock. Probably because there isn’t any at home, I still find desert mildly interesting – I’m sure this will wear off after a thousand miles or so. There was plenty to look at – mostly hills & mountains of various sizes & rather large mining & quarrying operations sort of in the middle of nowhere, but close to the freeway all the same. As I was driving by myself & on the freeway, any time I saw anything worthwhile I got to practice my point, don’t look & shoot photography technique. As I had forgotten to clean the windshield when I last filled up, there was little success.

Quite a bit of climbing through a gorge & it was back in to Arizona & then in to Utah. Here the mesas were becoming more pronounced & spectacular – & also a lot redder in colour. Got to Hurricane (SW Utah), where I was due to spend the next two nights at about ten, found the local museum & information centre – the charming old guy in there pointed me around the corner to the local bike shop. Here I met the first person yet to guess I was from Australia – she had just got back from there (which is better than the cop on the mugging night who commended me on my ability to speak English – “you speak English good” – shudder) – & got some good tips on what rides I might do the following day. Enough of that, it was time to hit the road again.

Crossed back in to Arizona (I later found out that I had changed time zones without realising it – Utah doesn’t do daylight savings) & the next hour or so of highway was lined with more spectacular mesas.

The road then hit the hills & climbed up to six thousand feet & I was soon in the Kaibab National Forest (designated so by Theodore Roosevelt, who used to hunt around there a lot). As the road got higher (7000 ft+) the forest turned really pretty & then opened up a bit in to big meadows. The superb road curved its way through these meadows & trees – I’m not sure I have done a prettier or more enjoyable drive for quite some time.

It was straight from Kaibab in to Grand Canyon National Park. I was visiting the North Rim – the less visited side of the canyon (it only gets fifteen percent of the visitors) – as it fitted better with going to Utah & my time constraints & dislike of large crowds. I was surprised at just how many trees were around the top of the canyon – probably because most photos I have seen are from South Rim – the reason for all the trees is that it is getting up towards nine-thousand feet high, so isn’t really desert like the North Rim. Of course the views were breathtaking & all the different layers in the rocks fascinating. I won’t wax lyrical, although I could, but put some photos from my puny camera up instead. I took a short walk down part way in to the canyon (got passed by three mule trains – very dusty & smelly) to get a slightly different perspective. I only went down twenty minutes; on the way got chatting to some guy who was making hard work of the last bit of the climb to the rim. It turned out that he had started walking at four-thirty that morning from the South Rim, walked along the bottom & was almost at the top of the North Rim. What’s more, he was planning on doing it all again tomorrow in reverse – crazy old guy! Feeling sickened by that, I promptly got back to the car & took off back to Hurricane (not before fixing the trunk lid that wouldn’t close; the car is quite good for cruising on the highway & carrying all my gear – but the build quality is awful, for a two year old car there are so many buttons that stick or don’t work first time & the vents are all stuck in the same position & so on). Crashed back at the motel – did just over four-hundred miles that day, was quite tired. What a great day though – what different scenery I had seen – desert, rocky mesas, forests, & the Grand Canyon.<

bikes, city, engineering, MTB, roadtrip, travel, USA

Hot dam!

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Up at seven & off to go riding (why else?) before it got too hot. After sorting out breakfast, making my way the half hour or so east to Boulder City (town was constructed to house those building the Hoover Dam). Managed to find the well constructed trail head – ample shade, water, showers & toilets – and was riding shortly after nine. Unfortunately, the trail map on the board & the signposting wasn’t too great. I rode up a couple of nice rocky trails for about forty-five minutes, the grade was pretty good (middle ring the whole way again), but although it was still relatively early it was getting hot. Easily in to the nineties & then touching the low to mid-hundreds (around 35-40 degrees Celsius – rather warm), I carried on up & was rewarded with great views of the desert, Lake Mead, Boulder City & then Las Vegas.

Definitely time to turn around – the downhill of the same trails (I liked the look of them on the way up, so decided to go down the same way) was fantastic. Some nice rocky switchback, some bits that flowed well, & all the rocky steps that I had had to lift the front wheel over or attack at pace made great drop offs.

Half way I met a couple of local guys that had started the climb after me resting under the only shade I had seen – an overhanging rock. Happy to see some other people, I stopped & chatted for a while & they recommended a place for lunch in town before I headed to Hoover Dam for the afternoon. The next & last trail down was also fantastic & had big sweeping corners, berms that rose & lots of little jumps to pop off – & more rocks! A quick shower & it was off in to Boulder City to have a little poke around. A nice sleepy little town with bits of dam building history around. I had a great lunch at a cool little microbrewery – it turns out that any time anything is offered with a boysenberry flavour, I have to have it. This time is was a tripleberry beer, a few days ago it was boysenberry frozen yoghurt. Must be my way of dealing with being away from home.

It was on to see the Hoover Dam after lunch – I’ve long wanted to see this product of a lot of engineering & pure hard slog. It definitely didn’t disappoint. I was interested to see how much the building of the dam & the taming of the Colorado tied in to Imperial County’s irrigation & the All-American Canal (this is relevant as I spent the weekend in Imperial County ten days ago). By now the day was getting really hot (eventually it got to 111 degrees) & there were a lot of people at the dam. I was impressed enough by the parking building – it was pretty big & tucked in where a lot of rock used to be. I did the tour of the powerplant & got a look inside one of the diversion tunnels. As expected, the whole place was massive & photos may be better than me rabbiting on about it.

Intake towers

Lake Mead

To cope with all the traffic going down the road, this new bridge is being built – next year you will not be able to drive over the dam.

Back in to Vegas, a short nap – this morning’s early rise & early, hot ride had caught up with me.  I then went up the Stratosphere tower & admired the view – & saw my first wedding since I got in to town. Also went on one of the rides at the top – Insanity – apart from dangling a few hundred metres above the street, it wasn’t particularly thrilling.

I took the monorail to the far end of the Strip & got off at MGM Grand & proceeded to walk the length of the Strip looking around.  In the end it was masses of people, many casinos.  It was better & more interesting than the previous night & I could see how it could be fun – but all I managed to get was a blister on the ball of my foot from walking about four miles on concrete.  Bed at the respectable hour of midnight – big day of driving ahead.

city, roadtrip, travel, USA

Road trip!

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Most of Monday was spent packing & organising & waiting. With the car loaded up & a vague idea where I was heading for the next ten day, it was off to the fateful corner (Felspar & Bayard) to meet with all sorts of people. There was the detective investigating our case & a police photographer, two or three people who are prosecuting the juveniles & adults, another victim (he got attacked just down the road from us – I was even more glad to have given up my $100 after seeing his seventeen stitches, the bat may have had nails in it), Andrea & me. We spent the next hour & a bit talking about the evening, having our photo taken from various angles & so on. Finally it was over, Andrea & I delayed my road trip by going back to where it all began for some food & a beer. Eventually I hit the road after five for the two hundred miles to Las Vegas. Apart from a few rush hour snarl ups, driving was a breeze & I arrived safely to check in to the conveniently cheap Stratosphere.

I had a nice high (not in the tower though) & quiet room with a decent view of the north end of the Strip. After settling in, it was out for a quick explore.

Beverley asked me last week what I thought of the States or how I was enjoying it or something similar. I said that it was pretty much what I had in mind – everything was bigger, it was warmer, Californians love the sun & are pretty active, the scenery I had seen was quite different & there is just more of everything; consequently, I was loving it (mugging excepted). Las Vegas was similar in some ways – it was bright, it didn’t sleep, the casinos were huge, it was hot (hottest day so far this year – 104 in LV, 110 a bit out of town), there were people everywhere, it was slightly sleazy. But walking around, I found I didn’t really like all that & walking around parts of it by myself even felt slightly vulnerable (that may have just been all the bums or the mugging experience putting me on edge). Turned in nice & early at midnight to get up early for a ride before it got too hot.

Speaking of turning in early, I must go to sleep as I’m exhausted from driving four hundred miles today, I’ve lost an hour to Utah’s decision to not go to daylight saving, & the JEM trail awaits tomorrow morning. The second day in LV was much better & today better again.

bikes, friends, MTB, travel, USA

Up early for a ride

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Somehow managed to wake up to hear the clock chiming five & suddenly remembered that I was to get up in five minutes for a big ride. Stumbled around the house – being the longest day, it was nice & light – getting ready & managed to force an extra piece of toast down & I was on the road before six. Met up at Chip’s house & we loaded our bikes on to the borrowed old Volvo (it has racks). Annoyingly burnt my tongue on the liquorice tea, & we arrived at the trail head (down the I8 again, towards where I rode at Big Laguna last week) fifteen minutes early & waited for the others to arrive. In the end, there were seven of us – me the youngest (easily having less than half the years accumulated as the most senior), a couple of guys on singlespeeds – one a very nice custom titanium 29er.

Started off at 8.00 & it was a little chilly as we cruised along some singletrack not too far from the road. After a while we started to climb a little & I was impressed to see the singlespeeds leading the way – usually the case, I remember having to just go at hills & not being able to cruise. Found a big rock for first rest stop.

The whole area we were riding in was destroyed by wildfires in 2003, so there weren’t a lot of sizeable trees around, but the scrub has had a few years to regenerate. It’s a bit of a blur, but we did a lot of climbing (middle-ring the whole way for me, so not too difficult) on some nice singletrack – quite dusty, but otherwise fine.

I think we started at about 3000 ft & eventually we crossed the Sunrise Highway (~5000 ft) & continued climbing on the singletrack. Stopped a couple of times for a rest & for the tourist to take photos:

By now we were looking out towards the edge of the desert (further north of the one we drove through to go camping last week).

Some of us felt that we should leave the Perfect Cycling Trail & hike-a-bike up to the road. Unfortunately, this was twenty minutes of clambering, pushing, carrying through scrub getting very scratched legs. Probably the hardest part of the day for & somewhat draining. We rode up the Sunrise Highway for a few miles, down a bit & back on to singletrack. What followed was pure bliss – we must have had two or three miles of downhill & it started out nice & dusty (of course) & twisty & then proceeded to get rockier & rockier – it was great fun barrelling down there. The closest I came to riding off the side of the hill was looking up & seeing Billy two or three hundred yards down the trail & trying to work out if I could catch him. I put my head down after that & concentrated on staying on the trail a bit more – the rocks got bigger & combined in some nice chutes, where having suspension soak up the occasional poor line was comforting. Pleasingly, I managed to catch Billy right at the end of the downhill & we sat & waited under a tree for the others to turn up. Those few miles were fantastic & the riding (& perhaps, the) highlight of my trip so far.

Having regrouped & rested we begun the climb out of the valley on singletrack & eventually were riding up & down a meadow. The dust turned quite slippery here – I’m used to dry surfaces being grippy in NZ, but here I’d hit a switchback too fast (as it turned out) & my front wheel would just slide as if on slippery clay – I managed to turn front wheel inside out once or twice, but somehow stayed upright. One final rest stop before we hit the fire road down all the way to the car – it was quick. I’m still not a big fan of the High Rollers, there were quite a few instances during the day when I think the Nevegals would have helped me out a lot more. First puncture of the day for Cliff about ten minutes from the cars; once that was repaired we easily finished the six hour epic – 27 miles all up. That was about the limit of my endurance, up the last little rise (which was nothing compared to what we had already done) I found myself chopping back to easier gears & struggling up the hill. Got home & realised I was covered in dust – a great glove mark:

& it was just as well I didn’t get talked in to having a pedicure the day before – this is through MTB shoes & socks.

Big nap & watched Master & Commander – as I had been on the HMS Surprise a couple of days before. Must pack & plan & organise a few things (rather, everything) for my road trip today.