July 22, 2022
Captain Sam getting shreddy on some single-track at high elevation
Well friends, as I assumed would happen, I’m way behind on posts. I’ve been doing a bunch of motorcycle/photography trips. Between those, running workshops and spending a couple of weeks in Iceland scouting for next years Iceland summer-time workshop, I haven’t had a whole lot of free time. I have a Milky Way workshop group that I meet up with here in a couple of hours so I’m going to try and get some photos posted for you guys. There is a lot that could be said from this trip that my friend Sam and I took to Southeastern Utah, but the writing in this post will be a bit more condensed due to time constraints. We left on our bikes from Zion area, riding as much dirt as possible as we navigated across the state to the east. Our first night we spent in the Escalante area. Thanks to the trusty ol’ satellite imagery, we found an off the radar area with a really nice camp. We camped next to a set of hoodoos sitting on the edge of a drop off into major canyon country.
Day 1 of our adventure eastward
Day 2 brought us into the region that I spent time in from my last post, which is a place that I want to spend more of my time in life in. Our destination was a bit further east of that area, and it is a region that I have never visited. Specifically we were headed into the mountains….. life is getting hot in the desert, no problem for us lucky Southern Utahn’s though. Get to high elevations, experience the cool, crisp fresh mountain air, surrounded by the color green…. a nice contrast to the oranges and reds down in the desert. After passing through the badlands of Utah, we finally got into fresh-to-me terrain. We road pavement from here as we blissfully enjoyed wide open roads with almost zero passing vehicles. I thought Route 12 in Utah was incredible. But WOW, we might have a contender!!!! We banked corners on perfect blacktop, with tunes in my ears to match my level of elation. Motorcycle riding really boils down to enjoyment, and it can be created in so many ways. Easy, slow, extremely safe rides. Heavy duty, challenging, physical rides. Riding pavement, riding dirt. Rides that take you into different cultures, rides with strangers, it is endless the ways that motorcycling can be pursued. That’s the thing with motorcycle riding, you dictate your experience. You get to make it whatever you want, and like many pursuits in our existence, it is in itself a form of art. How we move, interact, the decisions that we make, the flavor of our ride…. it is all art. A piece of who we are inwardly being expressed outwardly. Everyone has their own diverse riding style in terms of pursuit and how they decide to move and interact with the bike and the terrain that it is playing on. It’s really a beautiful thing to experience, and also to witness in others.
We travelled this quite scenic road until the sunset and decided it was time to find a camp for the night. Somewhere with a photo opportunity if possible. Everything was so beautiful in this area that wherever we ended up, it would assuredly be some nice shooting. Alright, time to refer to satellite maps and find public land. HAHA!! Just kidding… it doesn’t need to be found, everything is public land in this region. God bless Utah…. seriously, it’s ridiculous. Looking at imagery and maps we found a dirt road that would take us up to a mesa top where we would get a grand view of the pillars and canyon country below. Ok, so these bikes that we have are extremely capable, even while carrying lots of gear. With that being said, like any machine, they have their limit. The dirt road was steep, long and sustained. These beauties of ours were working their butts off. All of a sudden I started to smell gas. All of a sudden I started to feel gas. All of a sudden I was kind of soaked in gas. Apparently gas can boil without exploding… who woulda thought? Felt sketchy for sure, but what’s a motorbiker to do? As my friend Todd would say… RIDEHARD!!!! Where the extra fuel tank is on these bikes sits on top of the engine, and our engines were getting hot. One of my fuel caps sits directly below the handle bars near the seat of the bike, and the pressure release valve on the fuel cap was having to let the pressures from that boiling to escape. That pressure let out the air bubbles, but brought plenty of gas with it. Finally we get to the top of the mesa. Not quite what we expected. Not really a mesa top as much as a ridge line…. sometimes what you’re expecting from satellite imagery doesn’t really line up with what you thought it would be. Fortunately there were 2 flat spots on this small ridge to set up on. It was pretty windy so I found a small cave in a boulder pile that I was able to lay my pad and sleeping down on. The wind protection was amazing!!! I have to say, I was quite pleased with my little campspot discovery. These small wins can feel quite significant.
Up into the mountains we go!
We wake up and ponder our decent of this big hill over coffee. A silent level of concern on both of our minds as to the steepness of the decent, and how we would handle it fully loaded with gear. Multiple cups of coffee and ready to roll. Standing on our footpegs with our weight to the back of the bike, we got a nice little quad workout on our decent back to the pavement, but the ride was great. Engaging, not unsafe feeling, but requiring full focus. Muscles are warmed up now. We’re on our way to the mountains, and we’re not far. Greenery here we come.
These mountains are INCREDIBLE!!! In this blog post, I am not posting any photos of anything of what this landscape has to offer in terms of it’s beauty. Why? Well, when you’re motorbiking with friends who’s mission is not photography, it’s a motorycling trip, not a photography trip. This means that our moment to moment decisions are not based on making photos, but rather just purely experiencing the area and letting the adventure take us where it wants to take us. The most aesthetic, mind-blowing scenes of this unique mountain range were witnessed during the worst conditions possible for big landscape scenes. My opinion on what makes a good photograph (totally subjective) is defined by simply doing an area justice. That’s actually incredibly hard I feel, because these landscapes are so amazing. I definitely did not take one single photo that does this area anything close to justice, so I will wait for a subsequent trip to share images of these mountains. I plan on going back the last week of September because foliage should be peak. To give you a mental idea, these are high elevation mountains, with huge sandstone canyons mixed into the mountain scenery. So lots of deciduous trees that will get great foliage colors, with mountains, with desert scenery mixed in. Special. Very special, and I have yet to see this sort of landscape anywhere else in Utah. Can’t wait to make that September trip and hopefully take some photos that will do the area some justice.
100% The most amazing camp spot I’ve ever had. Unless you’re on a bike, the drive would be really gnarly to get to, even in a decked out overland vehicle. While these photos don’t do this area justice, I had to share.
We stopped at this mountain lake to take a bath and filter water. I’ll probably switch up that order of operations in the future.
We had an awesome couple of days getting to explore these mountains. Unlike most of the mountains in Southern Utah, there were several single track trails (think walking trail width) that were open to motorcycles. This is irresistable for a dirt bike. We got into a little bit of the action, but it was a bit too technical for these big bikes. We’ll go back in the future with our sportier, lighter race bikes. Along the way Sam got a flat tire. Always an adventure in the backcountry. It’s a bit of a time consuming project, and you definitely want to get it right the first time. We always carry a replacement tube with us while doing these rides for this exact scenario. There’s risk of pinching the tube that you put into the tire, so you definitely want to get it right the first time. Also, if you don’t get it right the first time, you have to do much of the same work again. I loved Sams creative solution to keeping the bike propped up so he could take off the front tire while keeping the bike standing up.
After our mountain riding it was time to head home. It was kind of boogie time to get back to our lives back in the Zion area. Lots of pavement to make the trip fast. Both Sam and I were completely amazed and surprised by this area, and are jonesin’ for our return trip(s). Again, thanks for reading, I have multiple trips to get posted with lots of photos. Hope you enjoyed, and again, thanks for joining along for the adventure!
