Hot two wheeled adventure in Canyonlands, Utah

By Frosty Wooldridge

 

John Muir said, “When you pick up a rock, you discover that it’s hitched to everything else in the universe.”

 

On this motorcycle journey into the desolate beauty of Canyonlands, Utah, Sandi and I mingled with the past while we enjoyed our iron steed in the present.  You might say we enjoyed a visual delight of “Desert Dessert”.

 

Riding out of Denver, Colorado provided a sense of watching our cares fade in the rear view mirrors as we gained altitude.  When we reached

 

that expansive bridge with no center struts, it framed aspirin-white mountain peaks jutting into blue skies. 

 

“This is going to be a beautiful ride,” I said to Sandi.

 

We powered the bike through thinning traffic. At lower elevations, fresh green aspen leaves brightened the woods where dark pines blanketed mountain flanks. Sharp valleys led to snowy summits high above us.  Every mile provided another white-capped peak surrounded by azure sky.  Above us, 10 white pelicans with six foot wingspans flew in formation toward their Canadian nesting grounds. 

 

“Look at those birds,” Sandi pointed.

“Beautiful!” I said.

 

We’ve seen them up close on our canoe trips at Shadow Mountain Lake.  They always present us with a flying air show when we paddle toward them.  Such beauty nature provides us!

 

The road wound its way toward historic Georgetown.  We stopped off for lunch.  Along

Main Street

, buildings featured dates of 1887, 1890 and 1896.  The town’s Victorian architecture dazzled visitors.  We walked up the street to visit a train shop with paintings of old trains, necklace shop and a photo shop. We met Gary Raines a local photographer with a beautiful array of landscapes from around the USA.

 

At the visitor center, we watched a movie of historic Georgetown with its mining and railroad past.  Truly a fantastic journey from the early years of Colorado! 

 

Back on the road, we sailed through the Eisenhower Tunnel and glided over Vail Pass.  Soon after, we rolled through Gypsum where blazing red sedimentary rocks glowed in the sunlight.  We seemingly watched an I-MAX movie, except we powered our motorcycle through it in person!   

 

Soon, we rolled along the mighty Colorado River through gorgeous Glenwood Canyon.  Steep, vertical rock cliffs changed shapes and presented every kind of angle, spire and ledge for adoring eyes.  We curled the bike through the beauty as we danced around the curves.  Not much traffic!  Nice!

 

Hungry as all git out, we stopped at the “19^th Street Diner” in Glenwood Springs. Talk about a blast from the past!  Elvis sang!  Marilyn Monroe’s white dress flared over our table!  James Dean, Elvis, Brando and Monroe sat at a diner with the title: “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”.  Another poster featured the Beatles with their signatures.  One big picture showed the front end of a 57 Chevy alongside a Pontiac going the other way.  The Chevy driver watched as the girl in his back seat poked her head out the window and kissed the driver of the Pontiac. Classic shot!  A sign over the counter read, “It’s all good.”

 

We sat on duct taped (repaired) sparkling vinyl booth seats while a 75 year old waitress who could have been Elvis’ mother, walked up, “Ya hungry?”

 

“Yes ma’am,” Sandi said. “We’ll have two strawberry milkshakes, veggie burgers and fries.”

 

When she brought our food, I asked, “Ma’am, I’m curious…why aren’t you retired?”

 

She replied, “I livin’ to be 100 and I need lots of money to p-a-r-t-y!  I can’t kick up my dancing shoes if I ain’t got no money…unless you want to start supporting my lifestyle.”

 

After gorging ourselves, we jumped back on the bike, gassed up and headed west into traffic.

 

We rolled through Grand Junction on our way into the quiet desolation of the Utah Desert.  At Cisco, Utah, we headed south on route 128.  The sun, lower in the sky, created a long shadow for our bike and ourselves.  We powered the machine through many curves until we reached the roiling waters of the Colorado River.  Just before sunset, we found a campsite near the river’s edge.  We pitched the tent, watched the sun go down and enjoyed several rafting parties gliding downstream toward Moab.  Off in the bush, several wild turkeys gobbled for an hour while we fell asleep.

 

Next morning, we broke camp and hit the road as the morning sunrise danced on the 1,000 foot cliff faces above us along the river canyon.  We crossed over the Colorado River and wound our way down the canyon fenced by red/tan blazing sandstone burnished with warm rays from the rising sun.  Fresh green trees and bushes decorated the banks while early kayakers paddled their way along the edges of the river.

 

Soon, towering spires pierced the sky while rock mesas blazed in the fresh sunlight of a new day.  I dare say not a 100 yard stretch of straight pavement existed on that road toward Moab.

 

As Henry David Thoreau said, “We need the tonic of the wilderness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.”

 

In Moab, we hit the Jailhouse Café for breakfast!  We sat down with two other bikers and enjoyed a great conversation.  Matt and Rebecca proved delightful new friends. He enjoyed his medical tech job and she studied to be a dentist.  Both very sharp and delightful folks!

 

After filling our tummies, we topped the tank on our bike and headed toward “ Arches National Park” for a view of what several million years of erosion can do for nature’s artwork. 

 

After showing our pass, we leaned the bike into a giant “S” curve that carried us past a wall of gargantuan rocks that resembled a red/tan version of the Pillsbury Doughboy.  As we gained altitude, we reached a high plains where rocks dominated the landscape.  It might be described as nature’s Disneyland with visual rides like no other place on earth.  Looking to our left, walls of sandstone formed shapes like a baker’s muffins turned upside down.  Off to the right, we witnessed “Petrified Sand Dunes” frozen in place.  Further out, giant doughnut holes in the rock allowed blue sky to show through. 

 

We stopped at “Park Avenue” where we walked along a canyon that resembled walking down a skyscraper-lined street in New York.  Towering red spires shot into the sky with creative shapes and visual elegance.  Edward Abbey said, “There’s a kind of loveliness of loneliness in Arches.”

 

We pulled the bike away from “ Park Avenue” on our journey toward “Balanced Rock.”  On top of a seemingly thin rock pole, a 50 ton rock balanced as if it would fall over any moment.   

 

“Sandi, hold your hand as if you’re holding up Balanced Rock,” I said.  “Yeah, that’s it!”

 

Sandi made a muscle and held up the rock with a grin on her face.

 

Later we rode through the “Garden of Eden” where many rocks formed doughnut holes big enough to drive a truck through them.  Tall red/tan spires pierced the sky like so many arrows.  We powered the bike through a rock garden built via a million years of wind, water and ice erosion.

 

The hike to Delicate Arch proved glorious and a bit of a labor.  The arch stands out on the side of a ‘toilet bowl-like’ rock foundation.  Some say it looks like the bottom half of a cowboy with chaps from the waist down.  Others say it’s shaped like a doughnut cut by a third.  For certain, it’s a beautiful piece of nature’s artwork.

 

Later, we checked out “Landscape Arch” after a mile walk-in. 

 

“That’s phenomenal,” Sandi said.  “It says here it’s 103 yards long of a rock bridge.  It could collapse at any time under the weight of thousands of tons of rock.”

 

“At some point, it will,” I said. “Nature creates and nature destroys.”

 

We filled up the water bottles before taking off. By now lots of motorcycles scattered around the parking lots. We met some New Zealanders riding around the country and even met Mike Gordon the architect of Boettcher Hall in Denver.

A Harley rider named Jim said, “I’m on a three month vacation for my retirement…I’m going to see the whole country!”

 

We angled the bike back through all the curves, past the big rock walls and down the giant “S” curve before exiting the park.

 

“Let’s camp out in Canyonlands,” I said to Sandi as we headed west.

“Suits me,” she said.

 

Canyonlands receives one-third as many visitors as Arches, but from the ride toward the entrance, I’d say mile for mile, Canyonlands equals anything and any park in the USA.  We powered the bike up winding curves through stunning rock scenery.  Again, the sky dominated with its vast spread from horizon to horizon.

 

John Muir said, “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop of like autumn leaves.”

 

Canyonlands proves a remarkable replica of viewing the Grand Canyon, but with a difference!  When you view the Grand Canyon, you see it from the north or south edge.  By riding into Canyonlands, the mesa and road take you on a winding path through the middle of it.  You curl the bike toward the cliffs on one side and then, you carve through the curves to see the other side.  What do you see?

 

On each side, spire cathedrals reach skyward from a foundation a thousand feet below.  Astounding vacant canyons– blazing red, dapple tan, dark brown and filled with jagged rock cliffs–astound a visitor.  Atop the mesa, pinion trees grow out of rocks while hawks soar on the updrafts.  We followed the serpentine road all the way to the end where the road stopped at a cliff edge: The Grand View!

 

As we neared the edge, Sandi said, “This looks much like a moonscape! Barren, broken, mystical and so beautiful!”

 

“Look here,” I said pointing to the sign. “It says there are three levels to this canyon.  We’re on the top level while one-thousand feet below the white rim stone held off erosion and another thousand feet below that the Colorado and Green Rivers carved out those deep canyons.”

 

“All of those levels reveal stunning beauty,” Sandi said.

 

We heard motorcyclists from France speaking in their language.

 

“Bonjour, ca va?” I greeted them.

“Bonjour monsieur,” one spoke back. “Ca va bien! La vue, magnifique!”

 

We chatted for a bit with their broken English.  Lovely group!

 

As the sun sank lower into the sky, we hopped back on the bike for the ride out of the park.   Once we exited, we saw a long dirt road leading away from the pavement.  Perfect!  I turned the bike onto the road.  After bumping along, we found a quiet spot near the edge of canyon.  It dropped 1,000 feet.

 

We pitched the tent and cooked dinner.  Ah, nothing so savory as Lasagna followed with blueberry cheesecake!  While we sat on a couple of rocks, brilliant golden sunrays splashed over sections of the canyon—lighting them up in various tones of red, tan, bronze and beige.  Horsetail clouds swirled and danced above us with multiple gold and purple tinges at the edges while gray/white tones created a mosaic painting in the sky.   In front of us, the fire licked the cooling night air.   As the sun made its final blazing descent below the horizon, we crawled into our tent for a quiet night’s sleep.

 

Next day, we headed south toward Monticello, Utah, which, in Italian, means “Little Mountain”.  Unlike Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello at 800 feet in Virginia, that small town enjoyed a 7,000 foot altitude!  From there we turned east toward Cortez.  We rode through farm country with tractors, barnyards, cows, horses and chickens.

 

In Cortez, we headed east toward Ridgeway, Colorado.  We wove our away along a cascading river that curled into deeper canyons.  From verdant green spring leaves bursting from aspen trees, we gained altitude with bare trees still unaffected by the onslaught of summer.  After leaning the bike back and forth through endless curves, we sailed over Lizard Head Pass.  Stunning snow-capped mountain peaks greeted us at the top! 

 

Long sweeping curves carried us into Ridgeway where we accidentally stopped at the “True Grit Café” where John Wayne’s pictures and movie posters decorated every wall.  Why? He earned his only Oscar best actor trophy for portraying a grizzled one-eyed lawman in “True Grit”—filmed right there in Ridgeway, Colorado.  Posters and portraits adorn the walls of the café.  It’s like a journey back through time.  Great food, too!

 

Six Harley riders walked in and sat down while we walked out.  “Howdy gents,” I said.  They nodded.

 

We hit the road for the ride back to Denver.  Around us, shimmering aspen leaves fluttered in the breeze.  Crows flew through blue skies while Canada geese paddled across mountain lakes.  From desert dessert to mountain majesty! 

 

The engine droned, the white lines flew by, the pavement led upward into another curve.  As I glanced into my rear view mirrors, I remembered that poster in the “

19^th Street

Diner” that read, “It’s all good!”

 

As John Muir said, “How deep our sleep last night in the mountain’s heart, beneath the trees and stars, hushed by solemn-sounding waterfalls and many small soothing voices in sweet accord—whispering peace!  And our first pure mountain day, warm, calm, cloudless—how immeasurable it seems, how serenely wild! I can scarcely remember its beginning.  Along the river, over the hills, in the ground, in the sky, spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm, new life, new beauty, unfolding, unrolling in glorious exuberant extravagance,—new birds in their nests, new winged creatures in the air, and new leaves, new flowers, spreading, shining, rejoicing everywhere.”

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