Category Archives: travel

national park, roadtrip, travel, USA

Knock, knock. Deatharrrrrrgh

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Up nice & early for the 450 mile drive to Kernville to go camping & riding for the weekend. On the road shortly after seven & soon I was in Arizona & it was back to half past six. Rather than go as far as I could on the I-15 & through Las Vegas again, I decided to skirt around LV & then head west so I could go through my third National Park in as many days – Death Valley. It added only twenty or so miles to my trip, but the roads were slower than the interstate. Pulled in to another small town, Beatty (pronouced Bate-ie by the only person I heard say the word) & it was getting hot at 9.30 & I was tired from the big day before & driving too much. Had a nice nap in the car waiting for the town museum to open at 10 – only to find that it was temporarily closed.

Into Death Valley & I took a small side road up to Rhyolite – a dead set ghost town. It was a big mine town in the 1900s (peaked at 10000 people), but funding for mine expansion dried up near the end of the decade & now the town looks like this:

This is one of the best preserved bottle houses in the world.

A few hundred yards down the road there was quite a few outdoor sculptures – this of course was my favourite:

It was back on the road to head in to Death Valley – the lowest, hottest & driest place in North America (curiously, it is only just over 100 km from Mt Whitney – the highest place in the continental States). The roads were a lot of this:

But over those hills, I descended to look out at the low spot:

Naturally, it was getting quite hot (about 110) & I eventually made it down to sea level, before starting another big climb over another pass (the poor Dodge has done a fair bit of climbing over the last week – & more to come).

Once out of Death Valley & climbing another pass, I passed veritable forest of Joshua Trees – strange looking things, they were everywhere.

I made it to Kernville, the camping rendezvous, about two & a half hours early – lounged around on the village green (found free Wi-Fi), went to the local museum & so on.  Irmina & Bill turned up, it was off over the road to another microbrewery for good food & beer & get to know each other a bit.  We pushed off for the campsite at about eight.  Apparently, we were trying to get to pitch tents before night fall – that turned out to be a bit hopeful.  As I followed the others in the Dodge, it became apparent that it was forty miles away & a few more thousand feet of climbing on windy, gravel roads.  I watched with increasing nervousness as the fuel gauge dropped, the light came on & the needle continued its plunge.  Night fell & we twisted around more & more turns as we climbed to the stars.  It was much relief that we pulled in to a vacant campsite (who else would drive this far?).  As we pitched tents, I was surprised as to how cold it was (it dropped to about 40 that night ~ 5 Celsius) & it was great that I had brought my Fairydown sleeping bag all the way to the middle of nowhere in the Californian summer.  The stars were out in full force – easily the best I have seen in the northern hemisphere – & I went to sleep listening to the stream running down to Big Meadow.

bikes, MTB, national park, roadtrip, travel, USA

JEM & Zion

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Up early on Thursday to go & ride before it got too hot on the JEM trail – one that came highly recommended. At the trail head just after seven, a couple from San Diego (of all places) – Mike & Annie – pulled up & had the same riding plan as I did. I waited around a little so I had some riding company & we took off up the first part of the loop – Gould’s Rim Trail. This climbed a bit up on to a plateau & as the sun was still rising (no daylight saving in Utah) the spectacular scenery was cast in even better light than I had previously seen it.

While the map we had was great, unfortunately some of the trail markers were annoyingly absent. We skirted around the side of a canyon & it was mostly nice twisty, but not too difficult single track.

There was one really rocky & gnarly downhill section – Annie must have been feeling it on her hardtail. As we got closer to the highway, we lost the trail again – we split up, they went down & I went up a dirt road trying to find the JEM trailhead. In the end, I did a few extra miles uphill & couldn’t make it across to the highway so had to backtrack – unfortunately I never saw Mike & Annie again. I made it up the highway & hit the JEM. What a fantastic trail! It was on another exposed plateau, but overall it lost altitude. It was more of the same great single track that weaved around, but it had plenty of little rises to hop off, plenty of bermed corners & was generally a big chainring flowing singletrack. The most difficult bit was when it plunged down in to a small canyon with a series of very tight & rock singletrack.

As I was beginning to discover & appreciate with a lot of the riding I was doing in the Southwest & California, babyhead rocks could appear at any time & completely change the trail. One thing I will say about the fireswamp – it definitely keeps you on your toes. Near the end of JEM, I joined the Hurricane Rim Trail – it basically followed the top of the gorge formed by the Virgin River back to Hurricane.

It was starting to get a lot warmer by now & there was quite a bit of climbing considering I was following the river down – but there was still the odd cool downhill & rocks to negotiate (they always make the climbs more challenging than back in NZ – it’s always nice to conquer them). Due to my little detour, I ran out of water with about four or five miles to go – how I wish they were the much shorter kilometres! I eventually made it back to my car – another great high-twenty mile ride under my figurative belt. Back to the motel to clean up & then off to explore Zion National Park.

Once again, I joined the masses at another popular national park. Due to its popularity, the park has a great shuttle bus system – you park your car at the bottom & hop on & off for free as the whim takes you. The day had clouded a bit (when I left the motel, I couldn’t believe the amount of cloud that had come from nowhere & how much the wind had picked up), but the canyons on either side of the Virgin River (upstream tens of miles from where I was riding earlier in the day) were still vividly red-brown. Every twist in the road or path showed a different side to them & I was enthralled. I went on a few little walks, some only five minutes or so to get a bit of elevation to look out at something, one about an hour loop that took visitors up a side stream to a series of rather tranquil ponds & stunning waterfalls. Completing all my little walks, it was back in the mighty Avenger to drive to the east edge of the park. The geology here was a little softer, with some nice patterns in less steep cliffs. There was also a very impressive 1.8 mile tunnel that was blasted out in the 1920s. As awesome as the Grand Canyon was (& I really liked it) – for some reason, Zion was that little bit more enjoyable – perhaps because at Zion you are in the bottom of the canyon looking up at the immense rocks above you. Back to Hurricane to do some much needed washing & have an early night – big drive the next day to meet up with some more MTB internet friends back in California for a weekend of camping & riding.

national park, roadtrip, travel, USA

A day of a big drive & big cliffs

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Taking some time out from driving & doing anything really – sitting in a small park in the centre of a small town with a nice breeze blowing through the trees waiting for some more mountain bike buddies to show up for a weekend camping. Anyway, back to Wednesday.

It was up to early again, breakfast, car packed & gassed up & on the I-15 North shortly after eight. LV was going for another scorcher & it was already in the high-nineties by nine o’clock. Probably because there isn’t any at home, I still find desert mildly interesting – I’m sure this will wear off after a thousand miles or so. There was plenty to look at – mostly hills & mountains of various sizes & rather large mining & quarrying operations sort of in the middle of nowhere, but close to the freeway all the same. As I was driving by myself & on the freeway, any time I saw anything worthwhile I got to practice my point, don’t look & shoot photography technique. As I had forgotten to clean the windshield when I last filled up, there was little success.

Quite a bit of climbing through a gorge & it was back in to Arizona & then in to Utah. Here the mesas were becoming more pronounced & spectacular – & also a lot redder in colour. Got to Hurricane (SW Utah), where I was due to spend the next two nights at about ten, found the local museum & information centre – the charming old guy in there pointed me around the corner to the local bike shop. Here I met the first person yet to guess I was from Australia – she had just got back from there (which is better than the cop on the mugging night who commended me on my ability to speak English – “you speak English good” – shudder) – & got some good tips on what rides I might do the following day. Enough of that, it was time to hit the road again.

Crossed back in to Arizona (I later found out that I had changed time zones without realising it – Utah doesn’t do daylight savings) & the next hour or so of highway was lined with more spectacular mesas.

The road then hit the hills & climbed up to six thousand feet & I was soon in the Kaibab National Forest (designated so by Theodore Roosevelt, who used to hunt around there a lot). As the road got higher (7000 ft+) the forest turned really pretty & then opened up a bit in to big meadows. The superb road curved its way through these meadows & trees – I’m not sure I have done a prettier or more enjoyable drive for quite some time.

It was straight from Kaibab in to Grand Canyon National Park. I was visiting the North Rim – the less visited side of the canyon (it only gets fifteen percent of the visitors) – as it fitted better with going to Utah & my time constraints & dislike of large crowds. I was surprised at just how many trees were around the top of the canyon – probably because most photos I have seen are from South Rim – the reason for all the trees is that it is getting up towards nine-thousand feet high, so isn’t really desert like the North Rim. Of course the views were breathtaking & all the different layers in the rocks fascinating. I won’t wax lyrical, although I could, but put some photos from my puny camera up instead. I took a short walk down part way in to the canyon (got passed by three mule trains – very dusty & smelly) to get a slightly different perspective. I only went down twenty minutes; on the way got chatting to some guy who was making hard work of the last bit of the climb to the rim. It turned out that he had started walking at four-thirty that morning from the South Rim, walked along the bottom & was almost at the top of the North Rim. What’s more, he was planning on doing it all again tomorrow in reverse – crazy old guy! Feeling sickened by that, I promptly got back to the car & took off back to Hurricane (not before fixing the trunk lid that wouldn’t close; the car is quite good for cruising on the highway & carrying all my gear – but the build quality is awful, for a two year old car there are so many buttons that stick or don’t work first time & the vents are all stuck in the same position & so on). Crashed back at the motel – did just over four-hundred miles that day, was quite tired. What a great day though – what different scenery I had seen – desert, rocky mesas, forests, & the Grand Canyon.<

bikes, city, engineering, MTB, roadtrip, travel, USA

Hot dam!

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Up at seven & off to go riding (why else?) before it got too hot. After sorting out breakfast, making my way the half hour or so east to Boulder City (town was constructed to house those building the Hoover Dam). Managed to find the well constructed trail head – ample shade, water, showers & toilets – and was riding shortly after nine. Unfortunately, the trail map on the board & the signposting wasn’t too great. I rode up a couple of nice rocky trails for about forty-five minutes, the grade was pretty good (middle ring the whole way again), but although it was still relatively early it was getting hot. Easily in to the nineties & then touching the low to mid-hundreds (around 35-40 degrees Celsius – rather warm), I carried on up & was rewarded with great views of the desert, Lake Mead, Boulder City & then Las Vegas.

Definitely time to turn around – the downhill of the same trails (I liked the look of them on the way up, so decided to go down the same way) was fantastic. Some nice rocky switchback, some bits that flowed well, & all the rocky steps that I had had to lift the front wheel over or attack at pace made great drop offs.

Half way I met a couple of local guys that had started the climb after me resting under the only shade I had seen – an overhanging rock. Happy to see some other people, I stopped & chatted for a while & they recommended a place for lunch in town before I headed to Hoover Dam for the afternoon. The next & last trail down was also fantastic & had big sweeping corners, berms that rose & lots of little jumps to pop off – & more rocks! A quick shower & it was off in to Boulder City to have a little poke around. A nice sleepy little town with bits of dam building history around. I had a great lunch at a cool little microbrewery – it turns out that any time anything is offered with a boysenberry flavour, I have to have it. This time is was a tripleberry beer, a few days ago it was boysenberry frozen yoghurt. Must be my way of dealing with being away from home.

It was on to see the Hoover Dam after lunch – I’ve long wanted to see this product of a lot of engineering & pure hard slog. It definitely didn’t disappoint. I was interested to see how much the building of the dam & the taming of the Colorado tied in to Imperial County’s irrigation & the All-American Canal (this is relevant as I spent the weekend in Imperial County ten days ago). By now the day was getting really hot (eventually it got to 111 degrees) & there were a lot of people at the dam. I was impressed enough by the parking building – it was pretty big & tucked in where a lot of rock used to be. I did the tour of the powerplant & got a look inside one of the diversion tunnels. As expected, the whole place was massive & photos may be better than me rabbiting on about it.

Intake towers

Lake Mead

To cope with all the traffic going down the road, this new bridge is being built – next year you will not be able to drive over the dam.

Back in to Vegas, a short nap – this morning’s early rise & early, hot ride had caught up with me.  I then went up the Stratosphere tower & admired the view – & saw my first wedding since I got in to town. Also went on one of the rides at the top – Insanity – apart from dangling a few hundred metres above the street, it wasn’t particularly thrilling.

I took the monorail to the far end of the Strip & got off at MGM Grand & proceeded to walk the length of the Strip looking around.  In the end it was masses of people, many casinos.  It was better & more interesting than the previous night & I could see how it could be fun – but all I managed to get was a blister on the ball of my foot from walking about four miles on concrete.  Bed at the respectable hour of midnight – big day of driving ahead.