Utah Tour '95

Sagenen Pass (8239' - 2510m), HW120, 9th August 1995

The highlight in Tonopah was being approached by a Nevada highway patrolman at the petrol station and invited to race. Of course I took out my earplugs to make sure I didn't inadvertently incriminate myself in any way, and declined gracefully "What? With all this luggage on here? I'd lose..."

He asked me what sort of bike it was and noted the scratched engine cover and asked me if I'd come off it. I guiltily explained about Brian Head.

At Basalt (a thriving metropolis of a tree and a portaloo), we had to sit for half an hour waiting for roadworks. Going along at 5mph behind a queue of lorries and a pacecar, my legs overheated for the fiftieth time that holiday and we were relieved when we finally got going again.

The California State line sits in the shadow of Boundary Peak - the highest point in Nevada at 13140' (4006m). We followed hw-120 along a section of dips and twirls (made me feel really queasy). Good fun, though, provided you can follow someone else, to watch when they go over a particularly violent crest. It was almost ironic that we'd ridden over 2000 miles and the best twisties were back here at home in California. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned there.

Hw-120 joins hw-395 for a time at Mono Lake. This is the lake they used for the photos on the cover of the Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here album because of its weird formations of tufa (huge mushroom shaped deposits). More recently, attention was drawn to it because of water problems. The Los Angeles aqueduct was diverting water away from draining into the lake and its level was dropping at an alarming rate. Pressure from various environmental groups eventually put a stop to it, and, very slowly, it is being returned to normality.

The water has a very high concentration of salt and is filled with brine shrimp*, which the native indians used to trade with those in Yosemite Valley for acorns. This illustrates very clearly the difference in climate and vegetation over a very short distance. You can easily spot the Nevada Stateline as being where the greenery stops. (*Brine shrimp are actually the lavae of brine flies - like small bluebottles - which line the lake in a several foot wide ring. Pretty disgusting, when you're not expecting them.)

We stopped in Lee Vining to buy supper, before starting on into Yosemite. The previous two times I'd been to Yosemite it was comparatively deserted and I wasn't expecting the seething mass of people. It was difficult to cope with, particularly after having just crossed the vast empty stretches of Nevada. They advertise hw-50 as being "the Loneliest Road in the Country", but at least they have petrol stations on hw-50. But people, people everywhere was awful and had me in a cold sweat in a very short time.

Tioga Pass is the highest Sierra Pass (9941'/3031m), but it doesn't seem that way when you are sharing it with twenty thousand tourists. We attempted to stay at White Wolf campsite, about 30 miles out of Yosemite Valley on Tioga Road, but the twenty thousand tourists had got there ahead of us.

Bottom lips were just starting to come out, when a ranger in the campsite suggested we try Yosmite Creek campground. She directed us back to the main road and then down a four mile "road". This "road" turned out to be five miles of 10% grade downhill potholes. Brian Head loomed large in my mind, together with the thought that we might get to the bottom and discover the campsite completely full and have to turn around and go back up to the top.

By the time we reached the bottom, both of us were suffering from aching wrists and were not as cheerful as we could have been. This was quickly cleared by finding a plot right next to the creek, in the shade of a massive granite outcrop.

We frolicked. We paddled. We climbed. We got bitten by mosquitos and walked on by two inch long ants. It was bliss.

We sat and ate our breakfast with our feet stuck in the sand by the side of Yosemite Creek. I started to develop the "nothing nice is ever going to happen again ever" end of holiday feeling and was reluctant to dismantle the tent. We discovered an interesting psychological difference between us - Patrick was ready to go home, whereas I wanted to spend the next three weeks sitting next to the creek.

We rode back up the potholed road, which wasn't nearly so bad when you haven't already driven 200 miles and you're going uphill. We went down into Yosemite Valley and did the loop around the valley floor. Yosemite was a lot colder than Nevada and Utah, but at 4000' (1220m) at least the bikes ran properly. At one point we got chatting to a ranger who told us all about riding bikes in Alaska where he was originally stationed. Alaska sounded quite appealing, if you ignored the fact that it would probably be 30 degrees cooler than we were used to.