cyberdos

A couple of months ago my buddy Steve (VFR870) from NY called me to ask if I would be interested in attending the RMAR event in South Fork , Colorado. We started making plans immediately.

The months seemed to slow to a halt the shorter the time was for the event to finally get here. But alas, the time finally arrived and we were ready to go on our adventure.

The schedule was loose and even on the day that Steve arrived in Phoenix we still weren’t sure where we would be going. It was a 3 day event and we had an entire week to ride so we threw around some options. In the end, we decided to do one shakedown run in the mountains of AZ then set out for Moab , Utah for a couple days before the final destination of South Fork.

The shakedown run went well. It’s been unbearably hot here in the valley of the sun but today there were looming showers on the horizon which helped keep the blazing sun at bay. We would ride for about 60 miles that day and dodged the rain the entire day. Rain would definitely be a factor on this trip but not today.

Everything felt great. The bikes were running well.

Um, well, almost.

When we got back to the house I noticed that there was a small oil leak. I knew exactly where it was coming from. A coupe of months ago I got a small crack on the valve cover. I JB welded it and it seemed to have been holding pretty well. I guess it just decided to give up.

um, well, not really. The crack had actually grown. It was now in a place where I hadn't placed any weld at all. Damn it. Oh well, We'll play it by ear.

Time for shut eye as Moab lurked on the schedule.

We thought initially that it would be great to ride to Colorado since the riding between here and there through back country dirt roads could be interesting but then that would take Moab out of the equation. We decided to trailer the bikes. (DRZ400 and the DR650) That way we could prep them as off-road worthy as possible and not worry about any street riding wear or long days in the saddle.

The night prior to our departure we were watching a program that showed Monument Valley. Steve mentioned how cool it would be to go there. Hey, I thought, Monument Valley is on the way to Moab! Why the hell had I not researched this? I guess I was too involved in looking into the Colorado routing that I just didn't pay attention to the ride out to Moab. So we made plans to visit it.

On the way there we pass through a reservation. I've always reserved my comments whenever I report about passing through Native American lands. I have very strong feelings towards them but I just can't explain what it is and would like to reserve them for myself.

Like is usual on a Steve & Julio production, we were running late in our planned route. It's become typical of our days. We take things in stride and soak up what each day throws at us. We arrived at MV almost at sundown. When we entered through the gates the lady that was at the entrance takes a look at the bikes and asks us if we'll be riding through the park. We look at each other and answer no. We didn't think riding was permitted and we had absolutely no idea that there was a 17 mile dirt trail that brings visitors ever so close to the towering earth creations.

This place is definitely on my "have to go back" list.

Here's a lucky guy riding the trail into the sunset.

The moon would guide us out of Monument Valley, into Utah and on to Moab.

It was a beautiful night and we'd be arriving in Moab at around 1am. Of course, arriving late to places is not the only norm on our trips. We also had no place to stay once we got there. We looked around for a small out-of-the-way motel but everything there had no vacancy. So we decided to park the truck close to the trailhead which we'd be riding the following day and just sleep in the truck. Luckily for us, there was a campground there and for $12 we set up camp. In the truck of course. Took all the gear and crap that we'd brought along, outside, and flattened out the rear seat. Made a nice 3,000 pound tent out of it.

NYC style camping.

We get up early in the morning. Sleeping in when you are full of excitement for what the day's riding will bring is not an option. Ok, ok. The true reason is because once the sun is up, specially in this time of the year, your ass will be waking up with it.

The camp spot we got was a real nice one. When we were coming in
we had no clue as to what we were parking in. It was pitch black and neither of us had ever been there. Turned out we got a spot on Kane Springs road right next to the river surrounded by a beautifully towering canyon.

We head out for a "short ride" that I'd labeled: MOAB AM. Thinking that we'd do this one in the morning, then run over to the main meal, the infamous White Rim Trail. Things of course, did not go as planned. At least, for the beginning of the ride, it was all that we'd expected Moab to be and then some.

It was starting to get pretty hot and we tried to keep moving whenever possible

but the opportunities to stop and take pictures was just too great. I the pic below you really can't grasp the vastness of what is behind me. The drop is several hundred feet. I know there are a gazillion threads of Moab but it still gives me goose bumps when I see these pics.

I wonder what it was that I was looking down at.

Ah yes. The people down below canoeing down the river.

That was with the camera zoomed in. It should give you all a reference of just how deep the canyon was and how expansive the scenery is.

Here one more example. The road hugs some of the canyon walls and at some points you can see the trail ahead disappear to a vanishing point. I took one of these opportunities to stop and let Steve get ahead of me so I could photograph him riding ahead. Check this pic out.

Can you see him? Let's take a closer look.

There he is. Now take a look at the first pic. See him now? Yeah, this place made us feel like a spec of sand. And we were there to embrace it.

We pushed on towards our destination. The trails, to my surprise, were pretty well marked.

At one point there was a sign that split Lockhart Basin Rd and another that pointed towards Chicken Corners. My GPS route indicated that we were supposed to take Lockhart Basin to get to some point on the trail which was supposed to end at the verge of a cliff.

So we ignored the CC sign and headed to where the route said we should go.

Bad idea. After trying to keep up with ever vanishing trails, sand washes, deep ruts and canyon walls that diverted us away from the track that I had loaded we finally decided that we needed to turn around and follow the signs. This was the spot in the trail that we called it quits and headed back.

We really hadn't strayed very far from the intersection where we dismissed the CC sign but getting back to it posed a serious challenge. As OHV's traverse this place they leave tracks that aren't always well marked. With the enormity of it all, one can get lost rather easily. It took us some tugging and pulling of the bikes through some tough terrain to get back on track. I don't have pics of the described part of the trip but believe me, at 102 degrees in the desert, we were cooking inside our gear.

Back on track and headed in the right direction we picked up some speed. I have some cool video footage of us blazing through and I'll post it up when I get to editing it. Out here, there aren't many places to harbor yourself from the perpetually punishing sun. We took advantage of this spot just a mile or two before CC to take a break.

Stayed there for about 1/2 hour. BS'ed some and then we finally took off and hit CC. The funny part is that while this was the destination, neither of us took pics of the actual spot. LOL! I was expecting it to be different, really. But I now know why it has that name. There's no way in hell that I'd go around that corner on a motorcycle (even though there was a sign clearly stating that no motorized vehicles could pass). Hell, I wouldn't even walk it.

On the way back, now seriously behind on time, we took more breaks to take pics, catch our breaths and try to hide from the sun.

At this stop I noticed two things. One, that with all the banging I did earlier getting to CC I almost donated my DR's brake light to the state of Utah.

and 2, that I had developed a more serious oil leak.

At that point we decided to cut our losses and head back into camp ASAP. We'd try and get the bike back there in one piece and go into town to see if we could find a remedy for the spill. The WRT was definitely out of the question now as we would try to salvage a disaster.

Back at camp we set up a makeshift pit. I'm really glad I decided to bring the pop up tent. Made a huge difference as we attempted to nurse the DR back to shape.

Let's see now, what's going in in here.

Looks like the gasket sealer we put on it is bubbling up and not holding the oil in. I wonder if we scrape this....

That, my friends, is a hole.

At this point I'm thinking that our trip is done before it actually had begun. We still haven't made it out of Utah and I've got a humongous hole in my engine.

We went back into town and got some stuff to clean up the engine and try and mend it as best that we could with what we had. Lucky for me, Steve always come through with his mechanical McGuyveresque ingenuity and we were able to seal the part back on and continue on with our trip.

Later on, down the road from where we were staying, we found a camp with showers that were $3 a pop. That was a life saver since after a day of hot as hell riding there's nothing better than a nice shower. Guerrilla camping as we were

it was a welcome sight as we prepared ourselves for the following day's ride..The White Rim Trail.

There was one main thing that would bother us today.

Gas.

The DRZ, even with the desert tank, has a bit of a limited range. Today's ride in all would be about 130 approximate miles. So depending on how hard we rode and how many tip overs we had we would either make it or run out of gas. Not really a problem since the DR has a large capacity tank but nevertheless unnerving when you know you'll be out in the middle of nowhere, someplace we've never been.

Here we are leaving Moab, passing by Arches National Park and on to the WRT.

and Steve says, right back at cha.

It was rough passing right by Arches and not going in. Moab is a fantastic place and there is so much to see there that we'll definitely have to go back and explore more of the area.

It was a good 20+ miles of paved riding before we hit dirt. The DR really eats up pavement but the DRZ isn't in love with it. Here we are hitting the first stretch f dirt which is really well packed and goes on forever.

Back to what I was saying about the DR eating up pavement, once we got on this road I was still feeling the fast paced paved riding. So I was cooking on this. I turned around and saw that Steve was nowhere to be seen. I thought it was because I was just in a zone hauling ass but when I stopped to take this pic and he caught up he told me that he was trying to conserve fuel. Ah yes, fuel. Totally forgot about that small detail. So we pushed forward at a much slower pace. It was a good thing because this was looming just ahead.

This is where the real riding begun. We snaked down the canyon at an astonishing descendant rate. I've got some profiles of the ride that I extracted from the GPS that I'll post later. Crazy ups and downs.

Once we got down there we were at the base of long running canyons. They appeared to be surrounding us from everywhere.

Quite a site to see. At one point Steve got off the bike for a pic of an arch and he put his foot down on a big rock on the side of the trail. It instantly cracked on half.

Made you think about how one of those towering boulders above could, at any point crack and trample you to death. Yikes.

That rock was about 10 times our size.

The next couple of miles were a wild ride. We were riding with cliffs on one side that dropped of towards the river and over towering rocks on the other that made you feel like they were trying to push you off into the abyss.

Up down and sideways with great scenery all around.

A few miles down the road we came to a split. On the right, the road remained the same and continued through what appeared to be a sand wash. On the left the rock filled trail climbed steeply up the mountain. Of course, we took the left side.

That was an incredibly tough ascending option that we chose. I have vid of it. No pics because I was holding on for life through it. I'll post the vids later (hopefully).

After a short break up there to admire the sights we again descended down the mountain and came to the part for which this trail gets its name.

On recommendation from our good friends Dave and Francine of the Mobius Trip we were riding the trail in a counter clockwise manner. You can see to your right the rim of the canyon clearly. It is lined by a white sediment rock that delineates the lip of the canyon. It's quite the sight the first time you see it ans the contrast with the shadows that the canyon forms is pretty dramatic.

Not only that but you can ride right up to the edge of a hundred foot drops at any given time. Make a mistake on this trail and, well, you wont be a happy camper.

This place goes from jaw-dropping

to surreal in an instant.

It's like riding through an alien planet.

After riding for a couple of hours and taking a couple hundred pics we wicked it up a bit through some flat parts of the trail. There are very few spots where you can actually really open it up because the terrain just keeps you on your toes with bends and lots of terrain changes. Yet, through the parts that did open up we took advantage.

On one particular stretch we really got to speed up and I was trying to follow close on Steve's trail so I could film him hauling butt. It had rained on and off throughout the week there and some spots were muddied with a few remaining water holes here and there scattered throughout. Well, I followed a bit too close and got roosted pretty good when he gassed it past a spot that caught me off guard.

Bastid!

I got my revenge later on when he tried to get back on the main trail and didn't anticipate deep sand to be waiting for him.

It's all good though. How could we be upset while riding here.

The trail itself wasn't technically very hard. The thing that really got to us was the amount of time we rode having to concentrate on staying on the trail (remember what happened to us on the road through Lockhart Basin Rd) and digesting everything that we were seeing. That plus the terrain, though not particularly steep, was of a moon-line texture with lots of holes and it jolted the bikes something pretty good. Multiply that for a few hours and the lingering gas range issue working our brains while we're out riding Mars and it was pretty fatiguing.

We took several breaks but were pushing it along because off into the distance was a storm raging towards us. If there was something that we really didn't want to encounter out here was a slick and muddy trail that could replace exhaustion with a frightening scenario of us getting stuck out there for several more hours at night. For the past couple hours, we hadn't seen a single soul out here.

So. We'd probably traveled about 80 miles to this point and the route was slotted for 130. From this point on it was a matter of pushing through the trail until hitting pavement. Yet there was still places where we just couldn't pass up to snap a pic or two.

In the distance we could see the Potash Rd salt pools.

We'd been able to see these the day prior while on our way to Chicken Corners on the other side of the river. From way over there these seemed minuscule. From closer, these pools were huge.

Makes you wonder what sort of crap these things are spewing onto these marvelous landscapes.

As I was snapping away at the salt pools Steve took off and left me in the dust. He was racing his way to pavement where his severely beaten body was more in the comforts of his natural environment.

and finally, pavement.

The road hugged the landscapes and was well deserved of a Moab way.

We worked our way back into town and were on our way back to camp when we saw 2 adventure bikes cross the street and ride up in front of us. We immediately spotted the tags and identified them to be from NY and NJ. Steve sped up and pulled up next to one of the riders when they stopped at a light and said "I come 2 thousand miles to find 2 other riders from NY. Aint that a bitch." Steve went on to say "The next thing you're gonna tell me is that you're also on ADV". Then when the rider said yes, Steve took a good look through the helmet and recognizes him. It turns out that it was a buddy of ours from the local NYC hang out that had been riding for several days and were on their way to Chickens Corner themselves.

We gave them some pointers and told them to meet us upon their return so we could have dinner together. Here are our buddies Chilango and Gino.

We took our showers and later went to a cool brewery and had some slamming burgers. That in a way pretty much summed up our experience at Moab. It was a time full of things unexpected but always seemed to turn out extraordinary. It was an awesome time and we were ready for our next adventure.

Colorado.

Colorado

We packed up early and set out for South Fork. By now we had the "Blazer Inn" routine down pat so we were on our way in no time. We figured that we'd roll into South Fork at around lunchtime and maybe do a short easy loop that I had routed just to get our feet wet. Getting our feet WET is fitting since the next couple days we'd be doing a complete turnaround from dry desert riding to, well, you'll see.

Arriving at the Lonesome Dove camp.

Adventure riders shortly started to roll in.

As we're getting our all of our stuff settled into our cabin we get an unexpected visitor. It's one of the organizers there to meet us. He wants to know what we're up to and asks if we want to go for a short ride.

Precisely what the doctor ordered. So Grub, Modette (another ADV rider) Steve and I got geared up and left for, wherever. We'd be following Grub as he's the route master around these parts.

It was actually a nice change of pace from the completely unknown, arid and hot open spaces of Moab to the wooded, damp and familiar mountains (to Grub at least) of Colorado. Only minutes into the ride, as if a premonition of things to come for the next few days, we stumble upon our first carnage.

This family from Texas had gotten themselves in quite a jam and were at the point of walking back to town to call for a tow truck to come dig them out.

Lucky for them they had us there to bail them out. Steve took the wheel, reversed first and somehow managed to barrel his way out of the muck filled ditch and out of harms way.

We tracked back and escorted the family out to safety.

After getting them back on the main road we continued on our ride. We actually couldn't believe where they had been able to get that minivan through. It was a mangled mess of rocks and mud that had us having a hard time navigating through it. It must've taken them several hours and that van's underside must be completely torn to pieces. We don't even have pics of the tough parts as we were battling through it. When we got to a split in the trail at the top of the mountain Grub remembered that when we were helping the family out he'd taken his tool pack off and laid it on the ground next to the van. that's where it was so he had to go back to get it. We decided that he'd just continue on back and out and Modette, Steve and I would continue on an around the mountain the way we'd initially intended to go.

Modette took a more spirited clip than we'd been doing.

It was a ton of fun.

and the views, as promised.

and of course when you're having so much fun you've got to have the obligatory wtf shot.

We made our way down and back to camp where there were a few more people that had arrived.

Registration.

We had 3 days of funk stored in the "Blazer Inn" so we desperately needed to wash some of our stank clothes. Wondering around camp looking for the washers.

Hey, here they are.

Turns out that those were the house washers and we just snuck in there and did a couple loads. lol. Actually, the owners were extremely nice people and when they figured someone was using their washers they came out and told us where the regular ones were but that we could finish off what we needed.

later on, Goat (one of the owners) came by to "fix" the light on our porch that was out. I think that if we go back to this place in a couple years the same light bulb will be there. lol. The lady in the pic is Terri. She would be our roomate for the weekend as she'd registered late and had ridden all the way from Albuquerque on an XT225! Trooper. Our sort of gal.

Day one in Colorado shaped up to be a good one.

Day 2 in Colorado

Sun up and we're ready for more riding. We head over to where the good people organizing the event were cooking up some great breakfast. A big thank you to everyone involved in this starting with BigJohn as the food was great and plentiful. We stock up on that then start getting ready for our ride.

There was one particular rider with some issues with his KLR and Steve and I offered some help. Carb was probably gummed up inside so we went into town and got some starter fluid to get him on his way. Due to this we were probably the last ones to leave camp that morning but it sure is a great feeling when you can start the day knowing you have helped someone out.

Steve showing off his beastly bod.

I know he wanted me to burn that pic but it's just too funny not to post it.

We were going to be hitting up some jeep/ATV trails that were labeled as difficult. Started out with a leisurely, wide open ride out but only a few miles into it, it started to get tighter.

Then tighter and rougher.

Followed closely by carnage.

The stuff just kept getting steeper and steeper and more rocky.

Then to add insult to injury, it got muddy.

We're still having fun but traveling at a very slow pace. We didn't want to get wasted just a few miles into the route.

We finally made it out of this trail and were happy to see an open main road.

We headed over to some other trails which had really nice scenery. On some we picked up a lot of speed as we got comfortable with the terrain.

definitely not as technical as the first one we were on.

Sorta.

Trying to make our way back into town we ran into some loggers.

and asked for directions.

They had no clue as to how to get to where we wanted to get to through trails. Grub had told us that in all the scouting that he'd done over the past couple of months that he only encountered 1 other rider and a group of ATV guys. So the trails aren't all that traveled by the locals which is a shame since there is so much good riding in the area.

We kept pushing on with the GPS on compass and ran into this.

Then followed by this.

She was kind enough to confirm that we were traveling in the right direction and was glad that we had the decency to turn off our engines when we came upon her. Sometimes the horses get rattled with the bikes and it's good practice when you see anyone on the trail riding to pull over, shut your engine, and let them through.

After that we made it back to town and got something to eat. Due to our slow pace we had missed some (a big chunk actually) of the route I had planned out. No problem. It would only mean we would play the rest of the day on the fly.
The ride we'd taken the day prior with our friend, Grub was actually a really nice one. So we figured that we'd hit that up and see where it took us beyond what we'd ridden.

Well it didn't take long to find the meanest sommabish of a road that we had ridden all week.

It may not look like much in the pics but it is loose and steep.

and we had all kinds of trouble getting up it.

Since Steve is such a big wuss, I'll go help his pansy ass out.

fak.

godamn this DR is heavy.

We were like the little engine that could. But in the end, we failed.

The trail had gotten the better of us.

So we had to retreat.

The elevation change for that trail was 800+feet in less than a mile.

We were trying to hook back up with the main trail from which we'd first been riding on and in retrospect (after looking at the track on the GPS) I'm glad we turned around where we did. We weren't even half way done with the trail and if we would've pushed on it might have ended up badly. In all, the total amount of miles for the day was under 50. But we sure as hell worked hard for them.

The skies were starting to get pretty nasty so we headed back to camp.