Utah 2015. Moab plus a 2 day highway blitz across the entire state.

Crazyjeeper

NickGyver
Joined
Nov 29, 2006
Messages
8,020
Location
Dallas, TX
Car(s)
F150, CJ7, Mustang GT, Tenere, Griso
Spring. My favorite time of year. Not because I'm ready for it to be 100 degrees, but because it means the annual Moab trip is coming. This year was no different. Last year I moved back home to Dallas, so this year I was driving in from the south. After getting stranded in Rawlins Wyoming last year in a Blizzard on the way back to North Dakota, I was quite pleased to be not crossing Wyoming again.

This year I was getting ambitious, I decided to bring both XRs and the Super Tenere. A friend was going to be coming with me, with his XR and CB500x. The plan was to leave Saturday morning, get to Moab by Sunday afternoon, do a quick ride into Arches on the paved loop road, ride dirt Monday through Wednesday, drive to Cortez, CO Thursday, drop the truck, and hit the road on the motos for a 2 day loop across southern Utah. Then load the whole mess up Friday night, get as far as we could, and make it back to Dallas some time Saturday. It mostly went off without a hitch.

Day 1 - Dallas, TX to Albuquerque, NM

Day 1 was mostly uneventful. We hit the road late at 10am due to me not finishing packing the previous night. We clipped the edge of a few thunderstorms between Wichita Falls and Amarillo but missed the worst by far. Once we hit I-40, the wind was howling out of the west at 25-35mph. That coupled with the drag of the trailer meant I was getting a whopping 7.5mpg. Of course it didn't help I refused to slow down from 75. We pulled into Albuquerque around 9pm local time, had a quick dinner and called it a night.

Day 2 - Albuquerque, NM to Moab, UT

After the mostly boring drive across the plains yesterday, I was looking forward to getting into some terrain today. We stopped in Durango for lunch and supplies. There was a placed called "Serious Texas Barbeque" and of course we being native Texans we had to give it a try. I'm happy to say it was actually pretty dang good, not the best I've had, but it lived up to the name.

Lunch stop in Durango
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We rolled into to Moab around 4pm, unloaded the truck and headed up into Arches. I decided to ride my XR650L since I just installed a fresh chain and sprockets and I wanted to make sure it was good before heading out into the back country. Even though this was my 4th trip to Moab, I had never been into Arches at all. Sadly we didn't have enough time to do the whole loop, but what we saw was still pretty spectacular.

Arches
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I'd love to come back and see more of the park next time.

Day 3 - Gemini Bridges and Bull Canyon

After riding more or less the same places 3 years in a row, we decided to cover some new ground. We settled on Gemini Bridges.

Dad ready to go on his rental ATV.
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Yours truly and my dad
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A bridge
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Lunch stop somewhere down the canyon.
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A small arch
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Bull Canyon
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The skies were getting heavy
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Rain was threatening all day, but we only got a few drops here and there. However, we weren't so lucky the next day.

Day 4 - Ten Mile Wash

One of the guys suggested we go check out this sandy wash that leads down to the Green River. We said sure, it sounds like fun. Now, the rain that was threatening the previous day had fully arrived. We drove out to the staging area, and sat in the truck for half an hour waiting for a break in the rain. One did finally show up and we hit the trail.

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Lunch stop at dripping springs
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Nap time. He was smart, the next segment really challenged us.
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Just starting down the wash.
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So after we get passed the previous photo, things got ugly. It had been raining quite a bit in the area in the previous week, so there was quite a bit of water, mud and ruts to contend with. Couple that with some deep loose sand and it was a real handful. It also didn't help we had some fairly inexperienced riders with us who had a lot of trouble in some of the muddy crossings. We fought our way through 4 miles of this crap before reaching this spot.

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We had had enough. Our options were, continue on to a spot where there was a slickrock climb out of the wash that then circled back to Dripping Springs, or we could turn back. At this point there was a thunderstorm bearing down on us, so we decided to go with the devil we knew, and turned back. Now, we had taken some time to claw through those 4 miles, and the bad muddy sections were just as bad backwards. One guy dropped his bike in the middle of a mud hole, another kept stalling out, and the ATVs were moving slow in the muddy ruts. To top it all off, I had an off in a deep sandy section from going too slowly, which flooded out the XR. Now, any of you who have owned an old kick start only XR, flooding is the last thing you want to do. I got it going again on about the 20th kick and used what energy I had left to get out. About a mile from dripping springs, it started hailing.

Now we're having fun back at dripping springs.
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The bike was clean when we started
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Faces of joy
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Racing back to the trucks in the rain
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Always time for a selfie!
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The aftermath
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Rain gear is always a good idea
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Day 5 - Chicken Corners

After the "fun" we had the previous day down in the wash, we all elected to hit up a known trail that would just be a nice sightseeing ride through a canyon. That only means one thing, heading down Kane Creek, over Hurrah Pass and out to Chicken Corners.

Our fearless leader on the XR250
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Brent on his XR250R
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Myself on the XR650L
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Hurrah Pass
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Gravel bar next to the river
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At the catacombs rock for lunch
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The turnoff for Lockhart Basin
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Getting close to Chicken Corners
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Chicken Corners
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And the 5 of us who made it out there. The 2 ATV riders turned back earlier
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On the way back to the truck
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After the ride. Of course I had to wear my special t-shirt.
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Overall, it was a thoroughly enjoyable day, good weather, good scenery and good company.

Day 6 - Moab to Cortez, Co, to Panguitch, UT

Now that all of that easy dirt riding was done, it was time to get to the really ambitious leg. The plan was to get to Cortez by 11, each a quick lunch, and be on the road headed for Panguitch on the big bikes by noon. Of course no plan survives contact. We were late leaving Moab, and late getting to Cortez due to road construction. We ended up getting on the road around 2pm. It is 350 miles to Panguitch and were weren't going to make it in daylight. We elected to take the southern route, across the Navajo Reservation up to Page, AZ. We had a quick fast food dinner in Kanab as it started to get dark. Now, the weather had been pretty agreeable all day, until the sun went down and it quickly went from 65 to 50 degrees. Normally that would be no big deal, but neither of us had began to prepare for cold weather riding. By the time we rolled into Panguitch, the Super Tenere showed 43 degrees.

Day 7 - Panguitch, UT back to Cortez, Co, to Farmington, NM

This was the day I had most been looking forward to. After some friends of mine had ridden Highway 12 from Torrey to Bryce, I had really wanted to ride that route. To top it all off, I wanted to revisit some of my favorite locations from my 2013 trip. It was in the 40s again when we set off, and we put on pretty much every stitch of clothing we had with us and hit the road.

Red Canyon
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Bryce Canyon
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I may look stupid, but I sure was glad I had left that balaclava in my tank bag
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Brent on the X
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Grand Staircase/Escalante area
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At 9600 feet
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Pictures don't properly convey how epic this view was
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It was chilly up there though
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After getting chilled out at the summit, we blasted down the other side to Torrey, gassed up, and headed through yet another Canyon over to Hanksville for some lunch.

After lunch we were headed down Highway 95 towards Blanding. Ever since 2013, I had wanted to go back to Muley Point and the Valley of the Gods, so that was our destination. I had honestly through that 95 would be a mostly boring flat ride. I've never been more wrong.

North end of Glen Canyon
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Bridge over the river
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Jacob's Chair
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Overall, 95 was one of my favorite roads ever, gorgeous canyon views and tons of fast sweepers, my favorite kind of corner.

Then we headed down 261 towards the Moki Dugway
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When we arrived at the turnoff to Muley Point, the sky looked downright scary. The clouds were very dark and it looked like we would be headed straight into rain. A car was coming out right when we pulled in and the driver said it was dry all the way out so we chanced it and headed on down the road.

Amazingly, we never got rained on.
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The view was worth it.
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Now to head down the Moki Dugway
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I can't believe how green the desert was
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And into the Valley of the Gods
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At this point it had been about 140 miles since the last gas station, so we cruised over to Bluff, tanked up for the last time, and headed for the truck in Cortez. We got there right before the sun set, got the rig loaded up back up, and hit the road for Farmington, NM for the night.

Day 8 - Farmington, NM to Dallas, TX

The final day of the trip was all highway back to Dallas. It was mostly uneventful until we hit Amarillo. We were in and out of gnarly thunderstorms the rest of the way to Dallas. There were several small towns where the road was nearly flooded and I had one extremely spooky hydroplaning occurrence. We got back to Dallas in the dark rain around 10pm, amazingly still in one piece.

I can't wait for next year.
 
Aww, looks amazeballs! Sorry, we missed you guys this year. Say Hi! to Brent!
 
Great stuff as always man. Thanks for sharing the pics with us.
 
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