Friday, July 10th
During the night Thursday night, the wind shifted and I awoke around 4 am as one side of the tent was collapsing. I got that fixed, which involved moving a motorcycle in my pj’s, but by then we were wide awake and it was starting to get light, so we just stayed up. We took more pictures around camp as the sun came up and then rode through the rest of the valley road, taking lots more pictures along the way.
Our biggest complaint with the road was the washboarding, but I learned that giving it throttle and zipping along at 30-35 mph would smooth out the washboard bumps, sort of. Of course, that only worked in the straight sections. Brian wasn’t as comfortable on gravel, so I ended up waiting for him at the end of the road.
From the end of the gravel road, we headed south on pavement towards Monument Valley. To get there we had to pass through the town of Mexican Hat. That name puzzled me until we arrived.
We wondered how this rock formation had survived with teenage pranksters in the area.
Once past Mexican Hat, we followed US-163 toward Monument Valley. We knew the spot for the “money shot” picture I wanted was along this highway but weren’t sure exactly where it was. We tried several spots where cars had obviously been pulling off to take pictures. We eventually got the pictures we wanted.
As we neared the big buttes, we stopped at a roadside Indian Jewelry stand to take more pictures and buy more gifts. This is as far south as we went on 163. It was getting hot already, we had the “money shots” we wanted of our bikes and us in front of the iconic Monument Valley buttes, and we were looking forward to getting to Moab and the La Sal mountains to find cooler weather. We backtracked up 163 to Bluff, UT, and headed north on 191.
The highway climbed higher and we soon felt the cooler air we had hoped for. The terrain changed from red desert rocks to lighter-colored stones with more trees and vegetation. We stopped at a visitor center in Blanding and enjoyed chatting with the lady working there and seeing the exhibits they had on display. She gave us “welcome packs” that included toothpaste, Advil, and snack bars, which we enjoyed later.
After Blanding, the highway dropped again as it neared Moab. By the time we made it into town, the temps were in the mid-90s. We ate lunch at the Slickrock Cafe and had a cold beer. Not wanting to drink and ride too soon, we walked around to a few stores, at one of which I dropped off a copy of STAR TRAILS in hopes they would stock copies. This was a business trip after all. By the time we had finished, any alcohol had been sweated out of us for sure.
I suggested we ride up 128 towards Castle Valley and check out Onion Creek Road. I had ridden my mountain bike up this dirt road during an adventure race in 2004. The road had a lot of shallow creek crossings and interesting terrain. 128 turned out to be hot as blue blazes, which was somewhat offset by the beauty of the canyon and the Colorado River which flowed through it. We passed Red Cliffs Lodge, where I stayed before the race, and noticed they had added about 25 cabins along the river’s edge.
We finally turned onto Onion Creek Road and started up the dirt. It was slow going, first gear mostly, as we didn’t take the time to air down the tires. Pumping them back up had been such trouble last time, we figured we’d avoid airing down unless really needed. The first few creek crossings went pretty well. I shot some video of us riding through the gorges.
As I crossed yet another creek and headed up the steep section just past it, a red Durango came flying around the corner at me. I somehow managed to give it just enough throttle to squeeze by on the inside and make it up to the top of the hill where I could safely stop. I wanted to signal to Brian or the Durango that they were going to meet, but there was nothing I could do at the time.
I looked over my shoulder and saw that they passed and Brian was across the creek, but he didn’t pull up beside me. Then I looked around and saw he had tipped over on the steep section. Apparently, he got caught in the rough washboards there and lost momentum. We got him upright and going again. The fall had re-broken the right handguard (broken earlier when the wind blew his bike over in Boone), but no other damage was apparent.
As we made it further up the canyon, the road got steeper and rockier, and the canyon walls closed in tighter. After several more creek crossings, Brian came out of one and somehow headed to the less-than-level side of the road. He described the problem as a mental block, where he knew he needed to turn the bike towards the level part of the road, but the muscles wouldn’t respond. He ended up stopping the bike, which then led to another tip-over.
Once we got Brian’s bike back up, it wouldn’t start. The first thing that came to my mind was to check the sensor connections. I had read several accounts on the Stromtrooper forum in the last few months where riders had a tip-over and trouble starting the bike afterward. In many cases, the problem was a wire connection that had come unplugged in the process. As soon as we looked at the connections around the clutch lever, we saw an unplugged connector. Voila! That was the problem. Many thanks to the Stromtroopers who answered those questions and allowed me to have the solution in hand. There is no telling how long we would have searched for the problem otherwise.
At this point, I knew Brian was getting frustrated with the unpaved road riding, and I knew our plan was to turn around at the end of the road anyway, so I suggested we just turn around there. Brian didn’t argue too much, so we headed back out and back to Moab.
We needed to gas up and wanted to pick up a few items before heading to our camp for the night, so we stopped at the grocery store in Moab. As we pulled up, another rider parked beside us. He was an older fellow, probably late 60’s, riding an older Goldwing. He was from Seattle and had been riding around for the last two months. His plan was to return to Seattle before the weather got bad in the fall. His thermometer indicated the temperature there in the parking lot was 102 degrees. We invited him to come camp with us up in the mountains where it would be cooler, but he said he suffered from altitude issues and rarely went above 6,000 feet. It would have been neat to listen to the stories he could have told us. If you ever see a Goldwing with a big bumper sticker that says “Tailgaters are being videotaped”, then you’ve seen this fellow.
After grabbing supplies, we headed up into the Manti-La Sal Mountains. The road we took was part of the La Sal Mountain Loop, a scenic driving route around these mountains that jut up in the middle of the desert east of Moab. The road was curvy and had some great views of the valley and canyonlands.
We opted to head to Oohwah Lake Campground, instead of the Warner Lake Campground, since it was closer. I had been to the Warner Lake camp in that race I did, but Oohwah was closer. The road to Oohwah was gravel, and the further up we went, the steeper it got. We met some cars coming out, so we figured it couldn’t get too bad. Some of the switchbacks were pretty tight and steep, but we made it through them. When we got to the lake and campground, we found a “pond” about 40 yards wide and 100 yards long. I think maybe the name “Oohwah” is sarcastic.
The campsites were along an even rougher road leading away from the “lake”. It was getting late and we were nearing the end of our patience for the day. We hesitantly decided to ride into the campground to find a site. This road was narrow and rocky, almost worse than anything we had ridden so far today. Most of the sites were occupied, but we finally found one that was open.
Brian pulled into the site first and once again ended up stopping on some rocks where he could not touch the ground with his left foot. There was cussing involved as he exited the bike mid-fall. We got it back up and moved it to a more level parking spot. After setting up camp, Brian made some patch repairs to the newly loose parts on his bike. Nothing major was damaged. In fact, the plastic handguards took the brunt of the falls, and he just happened to have a new set sitting at home. A box of parts had arrived a few days after we started the trip, so he only needed to patch these up enough to get through the trip. The evening discussions included talk about selling his Strom and going back to a street-only touring bike.
We enjoyed a much cooler night at Oohwah Lake Campground. At almost 9,000 feet, it was significantly cooler than the previous nights in the desert.
| Mileage | |
| Today | 260.1 |
| Trip Total | 2,669.8 |
