Monday, October 31, 2011

Media

Found on the highway, full intact, rigged, and ready to fish.  Tried using it once, to no avail.

Provo


What a spot for a snack and a stretch

Ryan

Never a good sight for a cyclist, was still happy to see though.  Fortunately a calm day as I passed through the canyon.


Hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary history


Sun's not down and temperature's dropping in a hurry




You know it's f*ing cold out, when the olive oil clouds

Surprisingly, I only had a couple comments on this - computer malfunctions sometimes, must switch to km's momentarily



Donald's riding from Denver to Las Vegas. His rear derailleur is stuck in first gear with a screwdriver, and he has no front derailleur.  He's also carrying all of his stuff on the front of his bike, as well as on his back.






Welcome to the desert







Camping on the open range




The area around Moab is strikingly beautiful

Fun bike path into town.


Moab

Moab from above

Quick check of the slickrock - awesome.





Hiking up Mill Creek


My own pool, perfect on a hot day

Frisbee, Moab-style


Our camp on the bluff


Darryl, Cory, Shawn, Jodi, and Peter




The slickrock is actually quite sticky for bikes.  The name comes from early settlers in the area who rode horses on the rock, and noticed the metal shoes wouldn't grip.  



The slickrock trail is marked with white paint, and traverses about 10 miles, almost entirely on rock.




Moab and the Colorado flowing through

It was incredible getting up hills like this, standing up on the bike, the rear tire would grip the whole time.


Jodi



Arches




Mike

Fun climbing

Soooo windy

Foolhardy 

Double-O

The "primitive" trail back to the car












Kevin's diesel van





The Kamloops crew

James and Jordan, warming up

Petroglyphs 


The UMTRA project

Uranium mill tailings = major cleanup operation = expensive

Radioactive


They built a whole new rail line to transport the uranium tailings to the dump site




The tailings site was setup by a company called Atlas (that's now bankrupt).  The site is conveniently located directly next to the Colorado river, and just a few miles from the town of Moab.


Farms in Souther California are fed by water from the Colorado

Biking back to camp from town


BBQ'n

Fire with tumbleweeds

Fire with gas

Goodtimes

Passing the bottle around

Eric, mid-yawn

Bye Moab, I'll miss you







Strange, large, insect I've never seen before

The area around southern Utah is like a super-highway for airline traffic.  I counted ten jets in the air at one point.


Comb Ridge


Cliff dwellings, thousands of years old


Bob, Jim, and David

Well worth the detour


Always a great view after a long climb








Moki Dugway


Goosenecks.  I met Lucy and Dave here, a nice, traveling, Australian couple, that provided some delicous instant, vietnamese coffee, and some other great food items.


Mexican hat, what the nearby town was named after, supposed to look like an upside down sombrero


Look familiar? Where Forrest Gump ended his run




Monument Valley




With so many "no trespassing" signs, and loads of fencing. I had to ask these people to camp on their land, and Darlene kindly let me stay the night.



Mike introduced me to a Navajo burger.  I was battling a terrible headwind, light rain, struggling up a hill to look over and see him wave me over, and offer to buy me dinner.  Thanks so much!  I saw him the following morning when he pulled over and gave me his continental breakfast.

Cold night camping at marsh pass, and snow on the mountains across the valley

Highest yet




Another cold morning

The cheap of the cheap

Looking at hill ahead to get to Flag


2 comments:

  1. Yea definitely one of my favorite areas on the trip so far. The brilliantly, vibrant, red rock is so awesome... not to mention the people - incredible.

    ReplyDelete