Wednesday, 3/25/2009. 7.3 hours, 190 miles. Riders: Ted & Fred.

Today's plan was to ride to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Mom and Dad thought it was about 150 miles, round-trip.

Today's pre-trip prep was fairly simple- we had a new rack from TomKlipp to install. Tom makes fantastic custom racks for the DRZ. I told him exactly what I wanted (length, style, bungee hooks), he built it and it was in my hands in under 10 days. Pretty cool.

We took the pavement out to Hurricane, then the border cities of Hildale and Colorado City, which are infamous for being home to the Fundamentalist Mormon Church, who have a penchant for Mormon-style polygamy. Mainly, they stay to themselves and try to do their thing without some three-lettered government intervention.

The only establishment in town is a gas station/convenience store/diner/mortgage office. The diner is called The Merry Wives, and it is stocked with cute young waitresses. In fact, we didn't see anyone over 25 working in the establishment. That isn't too surprising, since the Census says the average age is 14 and many young men are ejected to keep the artificial ratio necessary for multiple wife marriage.

Anyhow, the diner is somewhat sterile, with a large menu of options. We both had a hearty french toast, which was good. The meal had a "homestyle restaurant" taste and look, and it was certainly a LOT of food for the price. The waitresses were very reserved and dressed in the expected FLDS modest style: floor-length skirts with modest blouses/shirts. We were able to see that they opened up more to locals than to outsiders like ourselves. That was fine, it was just very interesting to watch.

After leaving Hildale/Colorado City, we took the dirt road south to the Toroweap Outlook on the Grand Canyon's North Rim. It was just under 60 miles and took us 1.5 hours- that means we averaged 38mph. That makes sense on the early part, but the last dozen miles get progressively difficult; the last mile is mostly solid rock, so it is done at very low speed.

The viewpoint is amazing. It's just a tiny dirt parking lot with no barriers to keep you from driving off the edge of the cliff. You then walk a few feet to the edge, and there are no artificial barriers: you could literally walk off the edge and fall 3000 feet to the Colorado River. It's kind of weird how your brain tells you to get closer to the edge, but your body ignores the commands.

We stayed at the edge for just over 1.5 hours. Dad put his foot up, then took a nap about two feet from the edge of the cliff. I closed my eyes, enjoying the natural silence of the surroundings. There were two other families when we got there, and when we left we had the place to ourselves.

While we were there, a family came in a rented SUV (having flown in from Indiana). They had two teenage sons, who were somewhat enjoying the place. They asked me to take some pictures of them with their cameras, which I did. I was amused they were using 35mm cameras: one simple point and shoot camera, but the other one was a manual-focus Minolta X-700. I owned this camera in a previous life, so I was familiar with it- despite having to do primitive things such as zooming, setting the aperture, winding the film, and focusing the camera by hand, I managed to take a few good pictures of the family (I hope).

We hiked around a little, mainly to see the Lava Falls, which are slightly downriver. It's basically a lava flow that dammed the flow of the river in historic times. Part of what makes it so interesting is the difference in soil colors: the lava flow is black, and the surrounding soil is hues of yellow, orange, and red. On our way back, Dad pointed out a flowering cactus. It was the only one we found, and it was pretty neat to see.

After our hiking and resting and gawking at the Grand Canyon, we got back on the bikes and rode about 13 miles north, then took a turnoff to the west, which took up twisting up and over Mt. Trumbull. The soil became very dark, the road was crowded by relatively tall pine trees, and there were piles of snow on the north slopes. It reminded me of high desert areas like Bend, Oregon.

The trip back was scenic, but we were both bored and tired from the long day in the saddle. I loved the section climbing and descending Mt. Trumbull, but the rest was fairly long and straight. It was also much colder than we thought- we had to stop to put on warmer gear, but I never really got warm.

There were a couple of 5000ft passes. On the final one, I was following a SUV that was going slightly too fast for me to be able to pass on the curvy pass. I overcooked one corner and nearly slid off the road to the inside, then overcooked another corner and almost slid off the road to the outside (which had an Armco barrier, probably the only 200 feet of Armco on the whole route). Thankfully I was able to apply the proper instincts by keeping the throttle steady, looking through the turn, and countersteering slightly sharper. Still, it made me realize I should slow down.

Really, the problem was only partly due to running too fast. The other half of the problem was that the road was packed very hard, with a light layer of marbles over the top of it. We'd encountered that on a couple of other days, and it was incredibly difficult to predict. It made for a very puckering experience. The return trip was 82 miles of gravel, and took us 2.3 hours at an average speed of 36mph.

By the time we got back into suburban St. George, I was physically and mentally exhausted. I was glad we were almost home, but I made sure to leave plenty of following distance since I knew my skills were lacking by that point. Home at last!