Well, this seems to be the time for trips to the southwest, so here is mine.
From Oroville headed up the Feather River canyon through Reno to Tonapah. the next gas sign is on the way out of town headed East. the second photo is of one of those lovely windy Nevada roads. be sure that similar roads are found in Utah and Arizona. went through Cedar City headed to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, however it was still closed for the season. looped around to the east and visited the south rim next. then made a dash to friends in Phoenix. went from snow closed roads to 103 temp in Phoenix.
from there headed north east through Windslow and Holbrook to Canyon de Chelly and Mesa Verde. over to Durango and made the senic loop through Silverton, Ouray, past Telluride and back to Cortez. in Ridgway I met Kenny Herriot who is riding his hand cranked bike coast to coast. doing it as a fund raiser for pediatric cancer. take a look at
www.thegreatlemonride.com and
www.AlexsLemonade.org Also a big thanks to Dave Hansen at Mesa Verde Motorsports who helped me out when my bungie net was giving out. It was loosing its stretch and there were none to be had in town, but he fixed me up with some straps that solved the problem.
from Cortez headed to Natural Bridges, Capitol Reef, Escalante and camped out near Beaver, UT. had frost on my bike the next morning and had to roll start the multi it was so cold. last day ended up being a 612 mile dash across the rest of Utah, Nevada and into CA where I overnighted in Placerville. I had planned on staying at Great Basin Nat'l Park near Ely, NV. however the road up still had up to 6 feet of snow on it. they were in the process of clearing it, so it should be open soon. from Placerville I headed up 49 then backroads to Oroville. 3259 miles on the odometer in 8 days.
I would have taken longer had some of the parks not been still closed. I discovered that many campgrounds don't open until Memorial Day weekend. as to gear, I was under dressed for the mountians. even in Nevada and Arizona you are in rather high elevation areas and there was snow on nearly all the mountians. many passes were in the 7-10 thousand foot range and my vented textile gear was way too cold. ended up wearing ALL my warm clothes and my rain gear over everything several times. next time I might trailer out to Cedar City and ride the rest. especially since I've been across Nevada a couple dozen or more times.
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