Making our way along the backroads of Utah we began to feel ever so desensitized to the incredible landscapes. From the red deserts, to the dense forests, to expansive hilltop views, to endless fast sandy tracks on the mesas.
We had a tiny breakfast in the rock house, consisting of yesterday’s boiled eggs and a banana, and eventually made it to a proper diner in Monticello. The ribbon of the road kept climbing steadily, topping out at over 3100 m, but thankfully, there was no significant snow on the ground. The route was not particularly technical, a healthy mix of gravel, slight sand, and a hefty dose of elevation gains and losses. By the end of the day we made it to the entrance to Valley of the Gods. It would be an undeniably epic ride, but we had already done it before and were eager to keep going south. We camped in front of the iconic rock formations, and crossed over into Arizona the following morning.
It felt like the final frontier, as south of here would be Mexico. We stopped in Page for a couple of days, it was such a luxury to have a hot shower after days of wild camping. Letting our rear ends rest from exposure to the narrow seats of the WR250R’s also felt luxurious.
The next day brought another 300 km serving of excellent backroads. What we learned that day was that while Colorado River carved out the Grand Canyon, Little Colorado River was also keeping busy carving impressive canyons of its own. And you can ride up to the edge, where you feel like a million miles away from everything, yet your cellphone works perfectly so why not have a conversation with Giant Loop about how the zipper on your tank bag harness began to cave in after years of abuse gentle use. It’s as good a place as any to talk business. They kindly agreed to warranty it, and with a feeling of accomplishment we headed away from the canyon to Flagstaff. The cattle we passed on the way all looked like they also accomplished a lot of important things that day. Fertilizing the barren landscape, one deposit at a time.
The purpose of the stop in Flagstaff was to resupply. We stuffed a spare 25 L bag with food and headed out to the edge of Grand Canyon. No, not to one of the official entries filled with tourists, but to another backroad that was definitely, 100% marked on the map. What the map didn’t tell us was that some of the route we intended to take passed through Havasupai tribal lands and there were locked gates. Let’s just say some roads were less traveled than others, and while looking for an alternative way we ended up getting completely off track. About a kilometer into the sparse juniper woods, we could see a good road again, but somehow were on the wrong side of a barbed wire fence. A few minutes of backtracking later we got back to what we previously discounted as “no, that can’t possibly be the road”, and pushed onward.
The road surface was a uniform mix of loamy sand and baby head rocks. It did not see a lot of traffic and was not on the map at all. It eventually joined a proper road which took us to the edge of the canyon, to one of the most spectacular campsites we ever had.
There was light hail at night, but on the upside, the temperamental weather created incredible scenery over the canyon, including massive double rainbows. Sometimes the fog rolled in and obscured everything past the edges of cliffs. We relaxed and hiked around all of next day. Once all the delicious food was consumed, we packed up ready to get back to civilization. Alex pressed the starter button on his bike, it growled and quit. Weather was not the only temperamental thing around here.
