Category Archives: travel

bikes, GPS, MTB, national park, roadtrip, travel, USA

Zion & JEM

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My favourite National Park from my last visit to the States, I just had to go back & show Valerie Zion. Kept awake for most of the wee hours, I was decidedly slow & not really in the mood for walking around in the sun. But after not having been long in Zion, the beauty of the place & then seeing a woman with a stump for a left arm & no right arm at all snapped me out of that. I still love Zion – there’s something about being at the bottom of that canyon with such sheer & red walls. We did pretty much the same things I did on my last visit, with perhaps one extra short walk. For the first time on this trip, I wished I was traveling with someone who would be keen for a big back-country hike (there were a few groups around starting/finishing) – not a lot of Zion is easily accessible, hiking is one of the few ways to get out & see more of the park away from the canyon. I tried to spend more time appreciating the scenery & not taking photos – I think I succeeded in this, but still ended up with a lot of pictures.

The Virgin River was running quite high – couldn’t walk up to The Needles

These thistles were bigger than I was – just as well the bees weren’t.

Back in Hurricane in the prevening, I set out to ride the Gould’s Rim/JEM Trail/Hurricane Rim loop again. It was a blast & I whipped out the 33 km in just over two hours of riding (less than 2.5 total) – so quite pleased with that as there was over 600 m of climbing as well (mostly a big hill at the start & then riding around the rim at the end). I also managed to cut out about the extra seven kilometres I did last time when the trail wasn’t marked very well. It started off overcast, but the setting sun dipped below the clouds – with the light breeze it made for very pleasant riding conditions. I shared the trail with a lot of chipmunks & lizards again – also a lot of nice flowers out as I whipped down the JEM trail (that’s always a pleasure, fast flowing singletrack that gets rocky & more technical in an instant).

Gooseberry Mesa – would be riding up there two days later


bikes, GPS, MTB, national park, roadtrip, travel, USA

Grand Canyon North Rim & Rainbow Rim Trail

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It was with great pleasure that I awoke to a lack of sound from the wind chimes – things were a lot calmer than yesterday.  We left town by 8.30 & headed west back into Utah briefly before dropping south back into Arizona & towards Grand Canyon North Rim.  Once we hit the small town of Fredonia I was back on roads I’d traveled before – the first time since Bragg Creek almost four weeks ago.  After a brief stop at Jacob Lake for me to get a forest road map & Valerie to buy more souvenirs, we were driving through the Kaibab Meadows.  It must have been cold there last night – there was still some fresh snow that hadn’t melted just yet, seems I can’t get away from the stuff.  With the long winter, all the spring growth was not completed & the meadows weren’t quite as pretty as last time I drove through – but they are a still a magnificent sight.

We didn’t stop too long at the rim, maybe an hour, to get a good view of various parts of the canyon.  The sky was wonderfully clear all the way down to the horizon & this enabled us to see some of the mountains a hundred-odd kilometres away – I don’t think I saw these last time.

We drove out of the park & soon after turned onto Forest Development Road 22, continuing on for about 22 miles & 40 minutes to the Parissawampitts (I don’t know how to pronounce it either – I prefer Paris-saw-armpits) trailhead so I could get a ride in.

I was most excited to be riding along the rim of the Grand Canyon on good singletrack.  The trail in its entirety is almost 29 km to the Timp trailhead.  It forms a sawtooth route (roughly) to keep on a reasonably similar level by following all the little side canyons in & out.

This was a great fun trail – I would grade the trail itself as beginner-intermediate level, but at the higher end of that due to the length & elevation (all between 2260 & 2270 m).  The start of it is rocky, but later on it’s mostly dirt.  You do spend a lot of time in the trees, but every so often you get a glimpse of the canyon & then all of a sudden there is a magnificent view that you can be sure not many other people ever see.  I had heard that there’s not much climbing, but there is a bit (apparently I did almost 600 metres all up) – but it’s all pretty easy (middle ring the whole time, & mostly in a small cog).  Despite having been up in the mountains for over a year, I was a just little shorter of breath than normal.  The last eight or so kilometres is great fun as it only has one decent climb in it & you can let it rip on the flatter sections.  I saw quite a few deer, some beautiful birds & flutterbys (the bright yellow ones were the best) & something that may have been a marmot. Only hitch of the ride was losing the seal on my tubeless rear tire – a bit of rest while I had to go back to a tube.  Unfortunately the smog rolled in from California & obscured the view a little in haze.

roadtrip, travel, USA

Antelope Canyon & Horseshoe Bend

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After yesterday’s busy day & a slight time change (AZ doesn’t do Daylight Saving – unless you work for the federal government or are on a reservation) we had a much less jam-packed day today. Which was just as well as that horrendous wind was back. They must really be copping it in tornado alley again, or are about to.

We had a 10.30 tour of Upper Antelope Canyon. Waiting around the parking lot the wind really picked up & all the sand it carried was soon stinging eyes & skin. After a ten minute drive in a Suburban up a wide sandy wash (flood water route) we were at the entrance to the canyon, at ground level.

We walked in to the quite skinny canyon – it is carved from Navajo sandstone by flash floods. With the sun high enough in the sky during the summer months, there were great shafts of light peeking through from above. With all the sand that the floods carry, the surface of the stone was smoothed & contoured in really nice ways. Unfortunately, with all the wind above it rained sand on us & our cameras quite a bit. Even I managed to get some nice pictures.

After lunch, we took a short trip out to Horseshoe Bend in the Colorado. Finally, after the sediment settling in the reservoir, the river is clear. It was even windier out here (about a one kilometre walk) & all the sand being blown around stung a lot – short, T-shirt & flip-flops/jandals wasn’t a great idea. I felt like I’d been (mildly) sandblasted & afterwards was in need of a human dedust system (shower sufficed). Still, the river was a deep green & very pretty as it made its big turn three hundred metres below us.

Wider angle would have been nice

The best thing was we didn’t get blown off the edge. On the off chance anyone else in interested in the vague route we are taking – the SPOT link at the top right of the page may interest you. I usually activate it at each new overnight stay, & occasionally at other significant places. When we sit still for a while in San Diego, I intend to compile a route map proper.  That is all, I need to develop my crazy plan of riding around part of the Grand Canyon (north) rim tomorrow & work out if it’s feasible.

roadtrip, travel, USA

4 Corners & Monument Valley

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Cortez being in the south-west of Colorado is not all that far from 4 Corners – the only place in the States where four states meet in one place.  For some reason, I expected the area to be flat & desert – but we were soon driving up towards more small canyons.  We managed to get there before the rush & spend a bit of time mucking around in four states at once.

While Valerie perused the various stalls (the monument is on a Navajo reservation) of handmade jewelery, pottery & various other do-dads I had a look around & read up about the surveying history & why the state lines are where they are. Very interesting, but I would think that.

Our next stop was supposed to be Monument Valley, but we got a little distracted. First by Gooseneck State Park – where the San Juan River bends back & forth a bit. I could only think of gas plant changes, but I think I’ve lost all my NZ Steel readers – so that won’t make much sense to anyone. There were three or four good bends, but I couldn’t get them all in one shot so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Our next distracton was a little drive through the Valley of the Gods. Just off the highway, this dirt/gravel road was a great little adventure. It had some ridiculously little steep drops & climbs & got a bit skinny (of course, when we met the big pick-ups carrying little RVs on their trays). It was a fun drive & once again I was pleased to be in an Outback, not a minivan. The big rocks rising out of the valley were spectacular (I was too busy driving, so these pictures will have to suffice).

Back on the highway, it wasn’t long before we got some great views heading towards Monument Valley. I managed to get a few iconic shots, while not getting run over while standing in the middle of the highway.

The wind was really starting to pick up & we could see a haze of dust accumulating on the horizon. Monument Valley stradles the Arizona/Utah border & is also on a reservation, so we paid our fee, checked out the Visitor Center & then went on the seventeen mile self-drive tour. The road was orders of magnitude worse than the Valley of the Gods road, probably because it has so much more traffic on it. There were tour pick-ups (with bench seats on the back under a canopy – it was like being in Kenya on safari), some RVs, some buses & many little cars & SUVs. Bouncing around & getting out in the wind was OK for a while, but then got tiresome.

There were a lot of tumbleweeds blowing around – this is a small one, the car got sconed a few times by much bigger ones

With still a fair bit of driving to do, we headed off for Page, AZ. Only because Valerie had heard Antelope Canyon was good & Page was close by. Early on, we passed under a huge belt conveyor coming off the hills & crossing to a big silo. From then on we ran alongside a electric rail track (haven’t seen one of those since Europe) – I was intrigued. Well outside Page, I spotted one, then three, big stacks on the horizon. Turns out it is the Navajo Generating Station & the belt & railway is solely for the coal (8 million tonnes annually). Those stacks are 236 metre high, big ones & the station generates 2.3 GW (at least one of my readers may be interested).

For the first time, our tactic of pitching up in a town & then looking for a motel got a resounding thumbs-down. It turns out Page is next to Lake Powell (second biggest reservoir in the States after Lake Mead) & is very popular – especially in the middle of Memorial Day Weekend (the public holiday that signals the start of the summer vacation period). Everything was booked & there aren’t really any other towns nearby (Flagstaff is two hours away). Somehow Valerie came up with a plan of accosting strangers in church parking lots & soon Harriet & Bunny (I kid you not) were busily phoning all sorts of people. Eventually we got a room in a delightful small B&B – it’s called Rose Walk Inn & there are roses when you walk in. Smelling roses always reminds me of my (paternal) grandparents & their garden. It’s so nice to be staying in a home for a change & the oatmeal & buttermilk pancakes were fantastic (as was the buttermilk syrup).