Utah Tour '95

Moab is an great place. It is stuck out in the middle of nowhere, but has the good fortune of having both Canyonlands and Arches National Parks within a few miles.

When we were there, it seemed to be filled with French and German tourists, as well as a party of middle-aged geology students from Nottingham University, (We're still not sure what the French and German were doing there, except that someone must have done a good job of marketing Utah in those countries). It was also filled with fit and healthy looking bicyclists. Moab is famed for its "Slickrock Bike Trail" and is Mecca for mountain bicyclists.

Many of the restaurants had a clean southwestern flavour to them - white stucco, polished wooden floors and plenty of light - without being bright. On the walls were a mixture of bizarre art - metal lizards and other creatures - as well as conventional indian art (and, in the case of the Slickrock Cafe, reproduction petroglyphs). Moab is touristy, without the kitsch.

Utah is well-known for its conservatism, particularly regarding the purchase and consumption of alcohol. But Moab seemed to be an exception to this rule. They host the first (and only?) microbrewery in the State - Eddie McStiff's (where they also cook delicious pizza).

Patrick and I were overcome with dynamism. By midday, we were actually upright, filled with breakfast, and ready to "do something". We decided that we should visit Arches National Park, and, because it was only up the road, go in our shorts and t-shirts, without hats and coats. Driving around at 20mph would be risky, but if we were in leathers we wouldn't ever want to stop and walk about.

We took along the Camelbak and another water bottle, which we decided would be more than sufficient.

Things we didn't take along, which would have come in handy:

• more water
• lip balm
• more water
• a sun parasol
• an airconditioned car
• more water

As I said, the entrance to Arches is a couple of miles north of Moab. The road doubles back on itself sharply and you climb the edge of the cliff face. The canyon that Moab sits in is actually a fault line (aptly named the "Moab Fault") and you can easily see where the land has tilted up 200 feet or so, compared to the opposite bank.

Once you've wound up to the top of the cliff, you come out on a plateau of (go on, guess....) pink rock. The scenery is fresh out of any self-respecting cowboy film, with fins and needles and monoliths rising out of the petrified sand dunes (honest). Off in the distance were the green, snow capped La Sal Mountains.

This was it. We were going to actually accomplish something today. Not that this meant we had to get up early, or anything. We breakfasted and set off to Canyonlands National Park. No dilly dallying around for us. This was going to be the high speed tour of Canyonlands.

We duly drove to Dead Horse Point, hopped off the bikes, peered over the edge, swayed a bit from the 1000 foot drop off into the Colorado River, said "cor" a few times and hopped back on the bikes. It is distinctly possible, that by this time, we were on scenery overload (Utah does that to you).

Mishap # 4 happened shortly afterwards. Patrick had been trying to take a picture of the f2 odometer turning onto 16666 miles (whilst driving along) and in the process, managed to pop the purple demand valve off the end of the Camelbak straw. Without this valve, the Camelbak was useless and would just spew water all over him until it was empty. Driving behind him, I watched it bounce into the undergrowth. It took me a couple of seconds for my brain to digest what "that small purple thing" could have been? Brakes on.

We spent the next ten minutes shuffling along the verge fully clothed in leathers and hats, peering into shrubs (and, as I said, it is surprising how much vegetation there is out there) looking for it. The temperature was over 100 degrees and 10 minutes is a long time under those circumstances. But we found it and I blessed the Camelbak maufacturers for making it that lurid purple colour in the first place.

On to Canyonlands. We were making for the "Island in the Sky" region, which is a 1000 foot high mesa, which you can only get onto by driving over a narrow neck at one end. We spent some time recovering in the visitor centre (airconditioned) (maybe?) and then drove down the twistiest section of road we'd been on all holiday to the "Grand View Point".

Feeling slightly guilty for our off-handness at Dead Horse Point, we took our helmets off for this one, and even took a couple of photos (although this is pointless in itself. It is like trying to take a picture of a blue whale while standing two foot away from it). From here you can see nearly the whole park stretching out in front of you. Sadly, you have to be on a camel/4 wheel drive/dirt bike to visit it.

Off again, back to the main road and more petrol and then north towards I-70 (one of the main east-west roads across Utah). Having been bitterly disappointed by missing the dinosaur footprints near Newspaper Rock, we'd subsequently found a reference to a 1989 discovery of tracks 15 miles or so to the north of the town.

Luckily I'd brought the instructions on how to get there with us. Unluckily, we didn't bother to consult them and so spent half an hour investigating the wrong turning. Eventually we found the right turning and bumped a couple of miles along a dirt track to the foot of a hill. The sign said "Dinosaur tracks: 500 feet". We later decided this must be 500' vertically, because, staggering along in our leathers, it seemed a hell of a alot further.

Someone once said to me that they thought it was odd the way the British treated their "old stuff". You could be driving along, looking for some Roman remains and come across them lurking in a field of sheep, completely unmarked and ignored.

Well, these tracks were a bit like that. There we were, completely isolated and stuck out in the middle of nowhere, not a person in sight and only a couple of miniature signs to guide us.

And even us, armed with a diagram of what we were looking for, couldn't miss the tracks. They were like elephant footprints and unique in that they changed direction. Apparently they were made by some sort of brontosaur. You could almost imagine him wandering along, and a friend shouting "hey Bob, come over here!"...

There were also tracks from some sort of allosaurus (like a T-rex) which, to our gratification, looked like 15 inch long chicken footprints. Yay.

All good things come to an end and filled with a happy glow of one who knows they've stepped where dinosaurs have, we carried on to I-70 and then headed due west towards Salina.

We came close to suffering mishap # 5, when my dinosaur filled brain took several seconds to digest the information: "Next services 100 miles" and nearly didn't turn off at Green River for petrol. The freeway took us over San Rafael Swell, another craggy desert area, into the Wasatch Mountains. The last half hour was spent driving directly into the setting sun.

Salina is one of those places you "pass through". They have motels and they have a Burger King, both of which were quite sufficient for our needs.

They'd been having lots of wildfires in Utah, 100 miles north, up towards Salt Lake City, and the whole area south of there was filled with wood smoke. You could smell it in the air. This meant that any views we might have seen were obscured. Personally I don't think there were any views.

In Delta, we went past an ominous sign directed down a dirt road towards the site of the "Gunnison massacre", but we never did find out who the Gunnisons were or who massacred them.

Near here was a town that sprang up out of nowhere, where the American Japanese were incarcerated during WWII after the bombing of Pearl Harbour. The fact that they chose here to put them is one of the less appealing sides of the US. Very similar to the way that all the Indian Reservations are on areas of land too arid or isolated for them to be of any use to the westerners.

West of Salina you come across an extension of the Mojave Desert. Miles and miles of very little. From this point on we were quite careful about checking where the next petrol station was likely to be.

I once read an account of a guy travelling down hw-395 on his bike, across an isolated section of the Mojave Desert, and having someone in a car pull a gun on him. For some unknown reason this memory popped into my head as I watched the large lorry travelling in the opposite direction crest the rise.

As I watched, the lorry swerved onto our side, practically forcing Patrick and I off the road. After he passed us, the lorry swerved back onto his side again.

I could pretend that he had lost concentration, but I don't think so. Deserts do scary things to people.

We got petrol at the Nevada State line and went over the Sacramento Pass across into Ely. At Ely, we grabbed yet more petrol and consulted the map and came up with the latest problem and something we'd been expecting for a while when crossing Nevada. It was 160 miles to Tonopah. But the CB-1 will only go about 120 miles before going on reserve (reserve being not more than 30 miles... 120 + >30 = >150). Hum.

I asked two garage attendants where they thought the next petrol station might be, but they didn't look as if they'd ever been out of Ely, let alone to Tonopah. Then I came across a guy who looked like he drove a tow-truck and asked him. He snorted and told me there weren't any petrol stations between Ely and Tonopah.

He was right.

He did tell us about a petrol station ten miles down a turning, twenty miles along the road, and so we devised an elborate plan involving us taking the turn-off, filling up both bikes, plus a couple of water bottles, and then continuing the 150 miles and hoping for the best.

What I wanted to avoid was having to drive at 55mph for the next three hours. I like driving in the desert, but you do have to do it at a reasonable speed to stay sane. We compromised and I allowed myself to drive 65mph (letting the speed creep up to an exciting 75mph on some downhill bits).

I bet Patrick that we would meet less than ten cars on the road and promptly lost the bet when ten cars came around the next bend.

100 miles into the 150 miles, I got the munchies and remembered the tin of Pringles crisps I had bungeed to the back of the bike. Without slowing down, I experimented with "how to eat crisps as high speed". The trouble was, every time you took a crisp out, the wind caught it and blew it into a million tiny pieces and showered them on Patrick behind me. The knack was to get six out at a time and then cram as much of them under your helmet as possible and hope that some of the bits ended up in your mouth. Messy, but effective. Patrick had a go, smug in the knowledge that his fairing would provide plenty of protection from the wind, and promptly lost the lid. Plus his Arai helmet is much better designed for reduced wind noise - meaning that bundles of crisps couldn't get anywhere near his mouth.

Although this was highly entertaining, eating an entire tin of crisps is not to be recommended, particularly in the desert and after a while your mouth starts to feel a bit odd. I caught up with the guy and small girl in a pick-up we were following and offered him the remainder. He was willing, but didn't know the technique for high speed relay swaps (perfected by Patrick and I on previous trips to pass water bottles back and forth), so we had to stop to give them to him.

As I say, travelling in the desert does strange things to people and where normally you wouldn't take food from complete strangers, travelling 160 miles along a deserted stretch builds a certain amount of cameraderie.

The map showed two "towns" on the road. The first, Current, turned out to be some temporary housing for the oil field workers and the second, Warm Springs, was three derelict buildings. I was relieved that we hadn't relied on the two guys in Ely who'd assured me that we would be able to get petrol in one of these two places.

At one point we had to stop to let a mother and baby cow cross the road. Nearly all of this area was open range ranch land, but this was the only time we encountered anything other than squirrels or chipmunks.

As on the previous day, we ended up driving directly into the sunset and were relieved when we pulled into Tonopah - the CB-1 still running on its tank of petrol - 151 miles.