Desert for Dessert

Moving away from the 3 step ranch was difficult. It’s beautiful, there is great food and it’s very serene. Being on the road is kinda the opposite, except for the scenery, but off and at ‘em we were, confident in Adam’s plumbing work on Dr Zeleaky and the lovely fresh tyres that I had installed.

Aaaaand we’re off… through the undulating hills of Eastern Utah in the cool morning. Dr Zeleaky was smoking, what I thought, was the smoke of a fresh fiddle when we stopped to put our rain gear on just past La Sal. Adam took a cursory look and spearing ensued.
The whole exercise to reduce kinks in the DRZ’s guts had an awful side effect; the plastic catch tank was resting on the exhaust and now had a hole burnt clean through. Adam, now as adept as a F1 pit mechanic, whipped the thing out and we set about with gasket sealant and gaffer tape in an attempt to patch the scar made oh-so difficult because it was covered in oil, like the whole bike.

Off again we went climbing heights again, through forest and up into damp cloud. Not the terrain we imagined for Utah, but a great relief from the 42ºC (108ºF) of yesterday’s foray into Moab scavenging for parts. Even the workers at the recycling centre were complaining about the heat whilst they sucked on popsicles and sorted card and metal, overlooked by an Angelina Jolie era Tomb Raider cardboard cutout. Like everyone we met they were all too glad to help and untangled an old power supply from the pile for the fan inside.

Peaking Mt Peale and Mt Mellenthin we descended to an incredible view of Moab and it’s Warner Bros matte painting like canyon backdrop. There is no doubt that the cartoons we watched as kids came from the mind of someone who spent quite some time in Utah. The overlook was spectacular, so much so that I almost want to deny you a photo because the justice the photo brings is kangaroo court. This trip has been full of moments like this, with the sad realization that the vistas can never be shared, only experienced at the time. Photos are a cruel court in which to judge the expletive generating scenes that I experienced daily.

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Yep… Moab is down there

The other great advantage of being line-of-sight with a major town is cell phone signal. So I call Anne and jibberishly attempt to describe what we are seeing and Adam calls Rocky Mountain ATV, the Amazon.com of the motorbike world, to see if we can replace the melted blob duct tape ball that was his catch tank. Of course they have it and weirdly Adam has a credit of exactly the amount in his account there, having bought pretty much everything he was wearing and riding from the same shop.

 

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Through Moab we at at Milts, my Moab favourite for it’s simplicity, busy collage age staff and genuine history. The place gets a lick of paint but thats about it. The formica top to the bar must have seen hundreds of thousands of burgers and ‘shakes crossing it since the fuzzy black and white photos from the ‘50s – its great. We bumped into a couple of English lads there who paid to come and teach American kids to play football for the summer. Seems a bit of a scam that; they should be paid, not the other way round. A dash up the highway for a couple of miles, then left into the real desert of sand and red rock, climbing up and up to a precarious view down to the canyon, then down to the plateau. It’s hard to ride in this desert. There are rocks sticking up treating to puncture Ginko’s new boots and nasty sand to test my fortitude. I’d love to be on a light enduro machine here and blast across it at warp speed but I need to get all my water, food, fuel and supplies across in one piece.

 

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At one point we had to rely on traditional map skills of Northings and Westings to work out where we were. GPS gets you so far, but the desert is pretty featureless and there are a lot of snaking canyons of which we were in the wrong branch.

More desert, sand dust and sun brought us back to the Highway and then the old highway, dangerous for it’s huge potholes going North to Green River and more rain. We chickened out and took a motel, washed clothes, ate crap and slept to continue across the desert the next day where we encountered the most incredible of canyons. If you are ever in the area look up the CR332 and drive the road North-West. The scale of the scenery is astonishing.

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The TAT heads in the direction of Salt Lake City, which is where Rocky Mountain ATV is based so we decide to head there, first climbing and descending South Tent Mountain to Ephraim where we had what San Franscisco resident Adam described as ‘the best burrito I have ever had’ at a little Mexican place in town. It was great, but we needed to ride to Nephi and the cheesy carbohydrate volleyball in our stomachs caused some narcoleptic episodes.

Adam’s favourite was the freeway. We needed to make time for all the stops and that meant him riding what is akin to an angry lawnmower a long way up the freeway to Payson near Salt Lake City and Rocky Mountain ATV. Of particular seared in olfactory memory was a truck that overtook us. The DRZ is geared at a speed juuuuust below which these Semi-Trucks are comfortable, so we end up being slowly overtaken by a succession of interesting, dull and in this case gag-reflex inducing stench that crept past us until we were still in it’s wake with the rig miles away in front. It must have had desert baked animal bodies, off offel or maybe liposuction fat in it. Memorable it sure was; that truck driver can not be popular.

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Arriving at Rocky Mountain ATV we park on the pavement outside and the dirt savvy customers exiting the little shop glued onto the massive warehouse clock Ginko and I get the now familiar questions about the rarest of beasts, the Africa Twin. Adam decides not to sully the clean cement and parks away from the shop, walking in to be greeted by tempting bits and bobs on sale. We got chatting with Mattie who is a guru with the Rocky Mountain ATV website, quickly pulling up the most random of bits. Adam got his weird plastic black box, some extra Roc Straps to replace those that Dr Zeleaky had eaten and I bought a mirror smoke visor for my craigslist helmet. we chatted and as we were leaving someone in the clouds opened a tap and the sky filled with water. We were a bit stuck because we really needed to fix the Dr and we asked Payton, the supervisor if there was a covered area where we could pull the Suzuki apart. To our surprise he opened one of the loading ramps and we were ensconced by a billion dollars of motorcycle parts taking the world’s grimiest DRZ apart on their clean floor. That warehouse is massive, so big that the only thing limiting its expansion is the Interstate. thew staff were super cool and interested in what we were doing. It was amazing to look up from the dirty Dr and say “umm… have you got one of these?” holding up some destroyed part for someone to come back with a selection for us to choose.

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When we’d installed the wretched black box and some other bits (causing a nasty gash in Adam’s hand) it was closing time and we got the local knowledge about where to camp. Dave came out in his helmet and jacket so I asked about his ride… something I have wanted to try since Anne and I lived in Bangkok, a Honda Grom. The antithesis of Ginko, it’s a tiny but classy fun machine with a clutch, upside down forks and great brakes. We swapped had a scoot round the loading area then set off chasing Dave in the direction of the valley we would be camping in.

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Setting up tents in the trees we chatted to the camp neighbours and had a walk wound the lake in the woods overlooking the town, ate some food and tried to start a fire. Our direct neighbours were a pastor and his family of eight children who were out for the day. I suspect they must have noticed us trying to light the damp wood hurriedly left by the previous occupants escaping the downpour, because the kids bought us a succession of campfire lighting tools, starters and eventually Dad bought over the heart of their own fire on a metal skillet. Not only that but marshmallows and sticks, so we had a raging fire and pudding.

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In the morning we were given even more hospitality from another Dad and kids cooking pancakes on a griddle. We got a fantastic fresh cooked pancake breakfast and were on our way. We looped round to Eureka and Vernon where we battled huge heat and big winds, north to Tooele and then the Salt flats where we fulfilled a life’s ambition and took to the salt… then ran away because the stuff was wet and stick to your bike like alien blood cement, eating through steel with abandon.

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Having cheap Mexican in the Bonneville salt flats cantina we studied maps and decided to cut the TAT where it goes into Idaho. There is a curious loop that runs way East then North to Idaho which we concluded could be short-cut. Whilst doing so a dude interrupted us saying he was on the TAT in his Jeep and his friend’s Land Rover. He told us that GPS’ were ‘a good idea and that we should be using them’ and that ‘…there are these fuel containers called RotoPax, you’ll need some of those too.’ Errr.. okay dude. I think we’re okay for now, but thanks for the useful information?!

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Nervous of the lack of fuel for the next section we had bought gallon containers and filled our bags with water. Local knowledge was scarce of information about the roads north. Would we be okay? Find out next time on JasonWD.com!

 

Click here for the next entry – Utah to Idaho – North to the Waste

 

3 thoughts on “Desert for Dessert”

  1. Well done Jason for living the dream. We are SO envious! Have done Chicago to LA by train but wish you had asked for a pillion passenge happy to travel light!! We have driven over 15,000 over the years in the USA and have had many unexpected surprises, so we are so glad you experienced the milk of human kindness from so many wonderful people and travelled in such a richly varied country. Interested to see you went through Trinidad,CO – so did we, on the train! Fab photo of you with Sacha – Ro and Mark due to visit her next month and then a wedding in Banff. Not long now until you are back with Anne. We boyj absolutely LOVED the blog.

  2. Hey Cuz! Sorry it’s taken me so long to catch up on ya adventure – man looks like an epic ride seeing awesome sights and great people on the way. GREAT pics!! Congrats on following you dream 🙂 x

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