Moab, Utah to Ridgway, Colorado
Moab was an interesting town to me, filled with Jeeps, motorcycles, kayaks and other sporting accoutrement. There are two National Parks there, Arches and Canyonlands, as well as miles and miles of jeep. hiking and mountain bike trails. It is a mecca for such things and sits on the Colorado River.
After checking the bike over for tire pressure, oil level, and yada yada, I headed back into Arches Nat'l Park to see it again and even in the rising heat and flat midday light it was stunning.
On my out, I spotted a gravel road to explore and it felt good to be on dirt and heading away from tourists. Eventually I reached the bottom of a wash where the gravel ended and the road became sand. It looked pretty soft but I decided to go ahead. Famous last words.
About 50 yards into the wash, the sand got so deep that I was getting seasick from the wallowing motorcycle and decided to turn around. For those unfamiliar, the big adventure bikes are quite heavy and will not steer in deep sand or gravel, usually resulting in a fall. With the oil tanker turning radius of the BMW, I attempted to turn around in the road as the sides were much deeper. Knowing the turning radius of the moto was far too big to make a small turn, somewhere in the recesses of my brain a memory of youthful dirtbike riding came forth as a vision, a controlled donut powerslide in which I could spin the rear tire and power the moto around. It seemed like a great idea.
I planted a foot, rolled on some power, dropped the clutch and started spinning the rear tire wildly as I leaned over to begin the donut. In retrospect, I should have thought about how many years had passed since I'd done this sort of thing, not to mention on a 200 lb motorcycle rather than the nearly 700 lbs that now sat beneath me.
Just at the point in the arc that the moto was pointing to the edge of the road, the rear tire got traction and launched all of us across the road and into the bushes on the other side, burying itself in sand that was much, much deeper than on the road. I suspect I looked like a bull rider in a rodeo, but thankfully I was far away from any witnesses, alone and with my 700 pound machine sunken in sand.
Adrenalin fueled, I jumped off the bike and started pulling all the gear off, tossing it behind me and the bike. After losing about 80 lbs of cases and bags, I got back on to see if I could miraculously walk the bike backwards - I'm not sure why - and ended up spending a long time trying to yank the bike back an inch at a time. It was hot, and I was alone in the small wash so I did it the old fashioned way - I lifted the rear of the bike and swung it back into the 5" deep sand on the road and after about 15 minutes of yanking back on the bars, sweating and moving the bike rearward an inch at a time I finally got the monster back on the road. I powered on and rode it our of the deepest stuff and back onto the roadway. Hot, sweating like a pig and thirsty, I sucked the Camelbak dry and then loaded the gear back on the beast.
Free at last, free at last…
Having learned my lesson about middle-aged cockiness and now exhausted, from Arches I rode north to Canyonlands National Park. The road into the park was a great ride in itself and the higher altitude meant it was a couple of degrees cooler. In the park there are a lot of small S curves and it was fun trying to wear the square edges off my tires.
The road to the park
Once into the park, I had no idea what to expect. The park itself is a loop road on top a plateau with overlooks into the massive canyon below. Having never been to the Grand Canyon, I can only guess Canyonlands is similar, because the canyons are absolutely massive and the scale is stunning.
There were a couple of dirt roads that descended a few thousand feet in steep switchbacks down into the canyon. They called my name but would need some research and more time than I had available. Moab was a fascinating place for me and I marked it as a definite place to return and explore, hopefully many times.
My explorations had burned a lot of daylight and I debated staying another night, but I was all geared up anyway so I headed south on Hwy 191, eventually catching Hwy 46 east towards Colorado and the Telluride area. Hwy 46 was yet another a great road, scenic and very little traffic.
A few miles into 46, I could see rain and darkness ahead so I stopped in the little town of La Sal and swapped the armor out of my Triumph mesh jacket into the Belstaff, my waterproof and warmer jacket. I knew the mountains of Colorado lay ahead with inevitable rains and chillier temps.
It was still warm but I soon hit small showers and the temps dropped. The ride got better and better as it neared Colorado, renamed Hwy 90 as it crossed the border. There were still some long stretches but the road was great with long twisties and canyons.
The road dropped down out of the hills into a long valley with a beautiful view of the escarpment to the east.
San Miguel Valley
I veered off briefly in Bedrock, Colorado to check out the lone store, which happened to be for sale. I had a brief fantasy of purchasing it and becoming a grizzled, old, bearded mountain man who sold bullets, Twinkies and whiskey, but then remembered I didn’t have enough money to even pay off my credit card balance for this trip and motored on.
On the horizon I could see black storm clouds over the Telluride area and knew I was heading into rain. I stopped at the intersection of 90 and 141 to check my map and in a couple of minutes a rider pulled in next to me. He was returning to Denver from a trip out to Phoenix and he'd come up 191 just a few minutes behind me. He said 191 in AZ was a great road with excellent mountains. While we talked another rider on a Harley stopped and asked the way to Moab. We directed him back onto 46 and then each headed our separate ways.
The temp dropped to 50º and a dark cloud lay just ahead so I knew rain would hit any moment. I stopped to put on my rain pants and warm gloves, choosing shelter in a camping toilet to get dressed in case it started pouring. The unbelievably horrible smell of the toilets was a major factor in getting my gear on in record time. All while holding my breath until purple.
My plan had been to spend the night in Telluride, a place I'd been through briefly a few years before, but at Placerville the road towards Ridgway looked less threatening than the deep black cloud over Telluride. I wasn't in the mood for a death defying rainstorm ride so I chose to head for Ridgway and then Ouray. The rain came in sprinkles and bursts (sounds like a name for candy) but wasn't as threatening as the clouds I bypassed near Telluride.
Rain over the mountain range between Telluride and Ouray
Inevitable road construction stopped the traffic for a while, sitting in steady rain for what seemed like hours as the daylight waned away.
I pulled off for a pic and was passed by a couple on a Harley, both wet and freezing. As I pulled out behind them he suddenly locked the brakes and swerved, barely missing two deer who had bolted across the road in the low light. He drove much slower after the close call and I passed him, trying to make Ridgway before dark.
The road was wet and it was just at dark when I came down the pass into town, relieved to see gas stations and potentially a motel or two. I said a short prayer to find a room this late and found a lodge on the main highway.
The girl behind the counter told me they just had a room cancellation and I could have it. Woohoo! Three times a cancellation happened and I got the last room. I love it when God smiles on me :)
I dropped the gear and headed back into the little town to eat, finding a great Thai restaurant called Siam. The food was superb.
What a day it had been. 100 degree temps in hot, sunny Moab and 47 degrees with rain three hours later in Ridgway.
The Route:
A Day in Ouray
The morning began the 26th day of my travels on the road, hard for me to believe as in some ways it felt like a week, and in some ways a year. For some reason hadn’t slept well. It was one of those days when one can’t seem to wake up and I needed to get some laundry done, so I decided to take a day off from traveling and hang out in Ouray.
A few years earlier I'd spent a couple of days there and I loved the Swiss-like town nestled in a bowl of mountains. I saddled up and rode the short 10 miles from Ridgway into Ouray. There seems to be a debate about the pronunciation, as I’ve heard it spoken as “Oo-ray” and also as “Your-ay”. More locals told me it was the latter, so that’s been my choice though I have been chastised for it.
The treacherous 10 mile ride to Ouray…
Ouray was the quaint and colorful little place I remembered. I hung out at a coffee shop, watching people and motorcycles come and go through town. There was a lot of variety - GS's, KTM's, dirt bikes and the usual mix of Harleys.
I went in search of a campsite for the night and found one (supposedly) at the Amphitheatre Campground which sits above the town on a mountainside. Though the site was listed as available, the site was still occupied with no one in site, so I assumed they were running late and rode back to town to get more coffee.
Outside a gaggle of dirt bikers assembled by the coffee shop. I wished I had a dirt bike to go with them in their mine roads mountain pass explorations. Ouray is the base for exploring many high mountain pass roads, all steep and rocky. It has a lot of Jeep rentals as well.
I’d had several conversations with riders, one on a Kawasaki KLR650 who was riding from Seattle to the Southwest. He'd been behind me a few miles through Idaho and Utah and even Moab. He liked the KLR but said in Utah with the strong headwinds the bike it was hard to maintain 75 mph and it burned a lot of oil. He said that was the only oil the bike had used.
My GS burned oil on that leg as well and it was the first I've had to add on this trip, about half a pint. The GS handled the winds fine as far as power - it just motored along as usual - but that's the difference between a dual cylinder 1100cc engine and a single cylinder 650 for highway travel. The single 650 can go places the 1100 can't however.
A few minutes later I saw a legacy red and white BMW R100GS Paris Dakar with a couple taking pictures of each other. I volunteered to shoot them together. They were from Dallas and had flown to Idaho to buy the 1993 PD and were riding back to Texas. I love that particular motorcycle with its larger tank and paint scheme and I tried to buy one in 1991 but it sold before I could get to the dealer. I ended up with a black and yellow standard version, but that's a different story.
About 3 pm I went back to the campsite to find it still occupied, so I made another run to town for laundry duty. My life just couldn't possibly get more exciting...
Laundromat at a private campground…
Guess which machine I was using…
After a lengthy discussion with a lady from Louisiana in the laundromat, I headed back up to the campground again and found the host, who explained the campers in my site had been mountain climbing and had gotten back late and tired so he was letting them stay another night. He said I could pitch my tent on his friend's pad at 1/2 the camping price so that was cool with me. I asked if I needed to do a bear bag and he said "No, the only bears are in town."
I thought he was joking and said I hadn’t seen any bears in town, only two heifers in a candy shop, then realized he was serious. Bears had been spotted around the hot springs pool area just the day before. I should mention that Ouray has a large public hot spring pool as well as some local spas using the thermal waters.
It had been sunny and hot much of the day, briefly cooled down by showers, so I decided to go for a swim at the hot springs. I know, it doesn't make sense to go to hot springs to cool off on a hot day, but trust me there is cool water as well.
As I finished pitching the tent and rode down to town again, the rains came and by the time I got to the town springs they had closed the pool due to lightning. Bummed, I rode back to the town center in the rain and ate at a slightly upscale Mexican Restaurant there - can't remember the name but it's the one with all the dollar bills stuck on the ceiling.
The rain had brought cool temps which felt so good I sat outside the coffee shop, posting the report from the sidewalk and enjoying the town.