Day 9

Miles driven 423 - Total Miles 2968 - Furnace Creek, CA to Escalante, UT - 11 hours on the bike

I am in awe over the Zion experience. The whole lead up into Zion on through to the end is absolutely fantastic.

As you approach from the west side of the park you are driving through idyllic farms in lush green valleys between incredible weathered peaks colored red, orange, yellow and green. The sweet aroma of wildflowers constantly waft through the air reminding me of a lady’s perfume, the kind of scent that makes you take deeper breaths in hope of catching more. It’s warm here but cool compared to Death Valley, so I am content to be sweating just a little such that the breeze while driving feels perfect as it cools me with it’s evaporation.

Once you enter Zion National Park, the peaks close in on you and you begin to feel the the immensity of the landscape. There is only a single road that leads through the park, but if you are able, there are a large amount of hiking trails. I am tethered to my motorcycle as I can’t pack the gear along with me and don’t trust people enough to leave it all exposed for hours at a time.

But even if you aren’t able to hike the scenery is breathtaking. As you take the road eastward out of the park, you will see the famous arch and then will come to one of the tunnels that was blasted right through the rock in the 1920’s. It’s about a mile long and has view-point out into Zion every 100 yards or so, that gives you a tantalizing glimpse… although you can’t stop and really look. Once you’re beyond the tunnels, the landscape is still spectacular. I would even say that this was my favorite part of the park. There is a continuously changing variety of rock formations, colors, patterns and sizes. The rocks go from red to orange or white. They sometimes have swirl patterns, or block patterns, layered, or brushed, or even a checkerboard.

An amazing experience for such a small park.

Bryce is also a small park overall, but the pinnacles are fantastic. There are a few vantage points that all overlook the same area, and a few other smaller areas to check out. The trails look to be the place where Bryce shines. You can hike down into the pinnacles and beyond which I’m sure would be incredible looking up from that vantage point. Unfortunately, again I could not leave my gear on the bike and it was sunset, so no time to hike.

After some coffee at a local cafe, I went off down the road in search of a spot to camp. This is becoming my new pattern. I call it ninja camping. I locate the nearest national forest or sometimes a national monument, go get a coffee or something at a cafe (as I don’t want to camp out too soon or I’m up before daybreak), and then drive into my chosen area looking for a fire or access road. Once you go down about a mile or half mile (depends on who you ask about the legal distance) then you can camp in there as long as there aren’t any signs posted for ‘no camping’. I leave out the national parks because they seem to all post the ‘no camping except in designated camping areas’, so they’re ruled out for my ninja camping techniques. This night I ended up sleeping in the Grand Staircase National Monument up at about 7000 feet. It was cool and windy, but comfortable in my 20 degree bag. There are more reasons I call it ninja camping, but I’ll get into that later.

Tags: Motorcycles, Travel