More Hamburger Rock

Our biggest obstacle in the morning was waiting long enough for the temperature to warm up. We started each morning wearing our rain jackets to keep the warmth in, and that worked well. I have some stupid, cheap, rubber rain jacket that I bought out of desperation in MT on one of our trips. Ye, OTOH, was sporting a classy looking woven jacket that I had purchased him for Christmas. I will be ordering a new one soon along with a more comfortable pair of dirt bike boots.



So after I prepared a perfectly awesome breakfast, we ate, leashed up the dogs and took off to finish what we had started the night before.

In our conversation with one of the neighbors, he told us about a waterfall that we should look for. We hadn’t seen it the night before as we were actually on the top of the falls and had to look elsewhere to see them. With that knowledge in hand, we found it quite easily, snapped some pictures

There it is!

We rode over the top of it the night before.

and climbed the rock strewn goat trail that was the entrance to the interesting stuff on Lockhart Road.

The steep climbs and sharp declines continued ad nauseum. It took all the dirt skills I had in my bag o’ tricks to keep it upright. Yep, this is what I was looking for -- the ride that makes you go beyond thinking about it and getting into that zone where you are too busy doing to think. That is what I like. This is what fuels my passion.



Meanwhile, I stopped to snap a couple of pictures of Needles Overlook from the canyon floor. Thought it would make a nice contrast. Much less of a crowd at this end.

This is the view of Needles Overlook.  You will notice the walls at the top, you could actually see the fence we peered through to look down.

And still we rode on. . .

We came to a sign that said that way 33 miles to Hurrah pass, or 6 miles this way to the Colorado River. Even though we were up for the 33 miles ride, we didn’t have the range in our gas tanks to make that, so we chose the lower road.



Before long, that path lead to deep, DEEP sand washes. We crisscrossed the same sand wash about a dozen times I think. Once we were back on solid dirt and beginning to make some real progress, the trail ended abruptly.



What!?!



Where’s the river? Ye hiked and rode around a bit until he found a spot we could at least see the river. It wasn’t that far away, but the bramble-covered path ended at the flood plane. This would have to do.

Day it is!  Dat be the Colorado!

The Princess with gun fanny pack.

Marco!  Polo!

Snap, snap, a couple more pictures before it was back the way we came!!!

Ye was grousing about the sand until he yelled, “I got my sand legs back, now I remember, throw your weight back and ride the top.” And poof, he was gone. As soon as he disappeared, my front tire mired itself in the deep sand and unceremoniously pitched me to the ground.

Crap.

Other than a mile high column of dust, and a sheared off license plate, there was no damage to body or machine. So I muscled the bike up (ok, it’s a light dirtbike, but I think I saw a muscle flex momentarily), climbed aboard, banged it into first, and took off. Just as I was catching up with Ye, who had stopped to wait for me, he roosted me with a dust cloud of flying sand so thick I thought the sun had fallen from the sky.

WTF?!?!

At the next stop, he explained that his bike had died on him so he had to WFO the throttle to keep it going. I call B.S. and had I been taller, I would have beaten him about the head and shoulders with my bike, then stolen his & ridden it back to camp, if it wasn’t so tall that I couldn’t touch the ground when sitting on it. And that’s just exactly what I did. . .in my head.



In reality I glared at him, swore a couple times to myself, wiped off my goggles and continued with the ride back. There will be a time for retribution later. Sometime when he least expects it. . .i am a patient princess. ;-)

I realized when we rode back that we were actually in those spires that wrapped themselves around the bottom of the cliffs, riding at the base of them and I was awestruck. How many people get this opportunity? I know we passed one vehicle that day which had ventured past the goat trail. It was a jeep and it was going about 2.5 mph. So I’m guessing not many.



When I came to one steep uphill climb, I noticed the tire track in front of me disappeared momentarily, then reappeared after the crest of the hill. Heh. I’ve seen that trick from behind a few times before as I saw him in my minds eye gassing it and jumping the hill. :-D

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I am blessed. Blessed to have the health, opportunity and resources to be making this trip, or at least be hooked up with someone who does! :-D

The rest of the ride back to the rv was spent deep in thought. Trying to soak in all the elements of what we were seeing so I would remember. The terrain was so absolutely stunning. Sadly, as I write this, those memories are already fading.



Sigh. Guess we’ll just have to do it all again!!!



So back to the rv, more conversation with the neighbors before loading everything up, securing it and heading off to Moab! The microwave now had a permanent place on the floor to prevent any further gymnastics.