I had arrived in Flagstaff the prior evening tired and happy. The motel was on a four lane major road on the eastern outskirts of Flagstaff lined with many other motels and fast food joints. Being in the southwest I wanted to make sure I enjoyed the local cuisine so I drove down the road and identified what, if judged by the number of cars in the lot, looked like a good place to fill up on grub.
I checked in and found that my room was pretty large and I could easily spread out. I walked the quarter mile down to the Mexican restaurant and put my name on the list. As I waited I realized just how chaotic things were there what with them being short staffed and people waiting in the parking lot. I thought the food must be pretty good if people will wait up to 45 minutes just to be seated and then longer to get their food.
However, I was not one of those people. I was tired and I had a long day ahead of me the next day so I wanted to eat and get in bed as early as possible. I walked back to the motel and sat in the restaurant attached to the motel and ordered pot roast. It was not the best pot roast I have ever eaten and the beer I ordered was not that refreshing, but, hey, it was all cheap so no complaints here.
Back in the room I wanted to work on the blog but the day very soon caught up with me and I hit the sack for the night.
The next morning I left headed north around Mount Elden along route 89 towards Bitter Springs where I would take the road up to the Grand Canyon. A look back towards the south was rewarded by a great view of Mount Humphrey.
Mount Humphrey as seen in my rear-view mirror
A little more conventional view of Mount Humphrey from route 89 north of Flagstaff.
It was a quiet and peaceful drive north past the Waputaki National Monument, the terrain changing from grassland to red rocks. After crossing the Little Colorado River (more of a trickle) on the Ward Terrace on the Moenkopi Plateau I saw some beautiful formations up ahead on the eastern side of the road. These were the Echo Cliffs along Limestone Ridge on the road between Willow Springs and Marble Canyon.
These are the Echo Cliffs rising up to the east of the road.
A closer view of the cliffs.
And a little more detail of Echo Cliffs a little further down the road.
As I approached Marble Canyon I could see the Vermilion Cliffs which rise up to the Paria Plateau. At Marble Canyon, I stopped to take a couple of pictures of the Colorado River, use the bathroom and prepare for the climb up to Jacob Lake, the turn-off to the Grand Canyon’s North Rim.
Vermilion Cliffs as seen from Bitter Springs at the base of Echo Cliffs.
Jacob Lake is a few thousand feet above the Colorado so I decided to get ready to plug into the heated stuff. On leaving Flagstaff in the morning, I found that the rheostat had completely given up the ghost so that was tucked away in the luggage. The only heat option I currently had was to plug in and get really hot; that, being better than freezing my tail off would be what I would do once it started to cool down on the ascent. The thing I like about the rheostat is that you can turn it off without unplugging and also modulate the amount of heat you get.
A close-up of the Vermilion Ciffs as seen from Marble Canyon.
The Colorado River in Marble Canyon. This photo was taken from the Navajo Bridge. It is amazing that this little river eroded not only this canyon but also the Grand Canyon. Those cliffs on either side of the river are about 450 feet high!
Mr. Lee operated a ferry at the crossing point for some years.
A view of the Echo Cliffs framed by the Navajo Bridge visitor area.
The Vermilion Cliffs seen from the first scenic view turn-out about five hundred feet above the plains. If you enlarge the photo you can see the road that leads back to Marble Canyon.
As I have said earlier, the desert starts off cold in the morning and soon heats up, something it was now doing. I gathered myself back on the bike and skirted the foot of the Vermilion Cliffs for about ten miles before the climb up to Jacob Lake started. It was a spirited climb up through the nice sweepers with the vegetation changing from the red rocks to the now familiar ponderosa pines. As the scenery changes so does the smell. I had enjoyed the smells of the desert earlier and now the sagebrush and lemon grass gave way to the scent of pines – all the sensations being stimulated; aural by the bike, visual by the scenery and olfactory by the scents. With as quick as I was going, Jacob Lake arrived pretty quickly. It had been a three hour ride up to here so I filled up for the 40 mile drive into the North Rim. Up among the pines the road gently weaves through the Kaibab National Forest. About three miles into the forest there is evidence of a recent forest fire. The trees are completely burned and what had been wonderfully green turned into a scenery of charred tree trunks standing on barren ground. If you have not seen this, and, especially in juxtaposition to unburned forest you cannot really get a good feel for just how much damage fire does to a forest. Seeing this amount of damage, makes you understand why they spend so much money on roadside signage warning you not to throw your cigarettes out of the window, to drown your camp fires, and also the metered signage showing the danger level for forest fires on that day.
Almost 9,000 feet, no wonder it's cold up here!
This was the scene for about ten miles on the drive to the Nort Rim. Listen to Smokey the Bear when he talks about the dangers of fire in the forest!The fire damage lasted for the next ten miles or so with the acrid smell of charcoal and ashes mingling with that of freshly cut pine (the forest service clears out the smaller pieces close to the road). This gave way to beautiful upland meadows surrounded by pines which changed back into ponderosa pine forest for the descent to the North Rim.
Here is that guy again!
The Grand Canyon is visited by over five million a year but less than ten percent of those visitors come to the North Rim because the drive is so long. They are truly missing out! This being Memorial Day I expected to find tons of people there but the wait at the entrance was only five cars long and once inside I actually found a parking right in front. There was plenty of parking available even though there were no vacancy signs posted on all the camp sites as well as the lodge. I walked to various vantage points to view the canyon and I will let the photos below tell their own tale.
Some parts of the canyon have white rocks that look neat with the green trees.
This is the lodge, taken from one of the view points.
Another mugshot.
The distance from the white rock in the foreground to the big one behind it is about a quarter mile.
I liked this view with the scraggly trees in the foreground.
To get a feel for the scale of this place, enlarge the photo to see the people above the point of the white rock.
Contrasting the white rock with the red in the background. My camera had a difficult time rendering the red so while I took lots of photos, only a few turned out with close to actual colors.
One of the things I really liked was the trees that grow on rocks. I have no idea where they get their water but they were pretty amazing to me and also like the way they look set against the blue sky.
I looked up and saw a crow in profile but he moved his head before the shutter came down. I still like the tree, though. Damned crow!!
This is my favorite tree on the walk to th view point. It was burned by an earlier fire but still defiantly stands proud, stripped of its leaves but still beautiful.
It amazed me how the trees pushed their roots down into the rocks. I guess you must be able to get water from a rock. Looks like a minor miracle to me, repeated thousands of times at this location.
If I were an artist I would name this "work" The Dancing Trees."
Even some of the trees are in pretty full leaf.
After walking about I went to the deli for a quick lunch. The motel did not have a continental breakfast so I had traveled up on an empty stomach and was pretty well famished by now. I hoped for some good Mexican but learned that the offerings were pizza and Chinese. Chinese?!?!?! Here?!?!?! Being hungry I decided to go for broke and had sweet and sour chicken on rice plus meatballs and beans. These were ingredients from different meals and the poor and wonderfully polite staff had a bit of a time, in addition to they amused disbelief at the combination, in figuring out how to charge me. With a yogurt it came to a grand total of eight something. I could have had a white tablecloth lunch in the lodge overlooking the canyon but I had places to go!
I dropped down off the Paria Plateau back to Marble Canyon where the temperatures had passed 90 degrees, a huge change from the 60’s and 70’s of a few miles back. I took all the layers off and opened up the vents in the jacket in preparation for the drive across the desert to the Garden of the Gods in Utah.
It was an uneventful drive to Page on Lake Powell where I filled up before heading to Kayenta, just south of Monument Valley, the location for many early western movies.
The road looks like it terminates in this rock on the route 98 between Page and Kaibito.
A cool rock formation south of Kaibito on route 98 in Arizona.
A rock jutted dramatically out of the plains just before Monument Valley.
A wide shot of the south side of Monument Valley.
While Monument Valley was not that monumental, the Valley of the Gods did not disappoint. To see the valley you have to drive through it for 17 miles on an unpaved road – crazy me did it on a road bike! But, the road was not too bad. I did have a couple of surprises; early on when I stopped to take a photo I spotted a desert fox about 20 yards away as it slinked between a couple of rocks. That is only the second time I have ever seen a fox in the wild and I was quite thrilled; you never know what providence will serve up, or, when!
One of the first views in the Garden of the Gods when entering the park from the south.
The color came out pretty well on this one.
It is interesting how you can see that the rock is slowly falling apart over time. When you are close up to them they are so huge it seems like they will last forever. I guess Mother Nature has different plans.
Scrubby plants and scrubby rocks.
I liked the sky against the rock but the color rendering was not very good on this photo.
The base of this formation is about a half mile back down the road!
I like the colors on these rocks; they came out pretty close to actual.
One thing about driving a motorcycle on gravel is the rules for cornering are quite different than on pavement. These are rules of physics, not some motorcycling guru. Not being on a dirt or multi-use bike I did not even want to test the rules so while I opened it up a little on the straights I slowed almost to a complete stop at the corners. The poor bike had already been down once on this trip and it really did not need another taste of the ground.
However, as tends to be the case, I got a little comfortable and was served a quite a little surprise. The road was alternately straight with steep little dips and rises. Every now and then cresting a rise revealed a sudden turn. I had earlier been driving pretty slowly as I got the hang of the bike on the gravel. Coming over this rise I was only doing about 35 but that was too fast to negotiate the corner without sliding out. One of the dilemma’s I faced was I could neither turn nor brake too hard because either would end in a fall. In addition, the road dropped of into a scattering of rocks that did not look any more inviting. Of the three options I took the second, leaned back, put both feet down and braked hard, stopping in a cloud of dust with the front wheel just inches from the edge of the road. Phew! Close, but not quite! I backed up a little so I could get the bike pointed down the road and continued, this time paying full attention!
It was near this formation that the road served up a surprise for me.
I liked the moon in the blue sky above these formations.
I did get one more scare; the road had those washboard rumbles that many unpaved roads have and at one point they got particularly intense. If you have driven your car on them you know that they shake it like crazy. That shaking is many times more intense on the bike and it wanders all over the place. Again, you cannot brake because with your wheel jumping up and down the chances of locking up and falling are greater so I just rode it out and slowed down. Then, I remembered reading that on gravel speed is your friend, judicious speed so I rolled on the throttle a little more and learned that the bike rides a lot more smoothly when it is skimming along the crests of the ripples. While this offers a smoother ride, it does zero for traction so is a technique only to be used traveling in a straight line and when you are reasonably sure you will not have to brake hard – even with two feet!
You can see the washboard on the road. This one is pretty mild compared to the one that surprised me. You can see with the harsh terrain that if you go down here you are in for a long wait for someone to come and get you. If you decide to walk, it is a long walk to anywhere!
When I was done with the Valley of the Gods it was pretty close to sunset and I still had quite a way to go so I stopped to change from the dark to the clear visor, filled up the water bottle and sped down the route 162 through Bluff, Montezuma Creek and Aneth towards Cortez, Colorado.
The shadows were getting long and it was time to open up the bike for the sprint to Cortez.
The area in which Cortez is found is called Mesa Verde and as I drove through the mesa it was pretty cool to watch the sun go down over Ute Mountain.
I did not make it before dark and this being Memorial Day, the only place open after 9:00 pm was Denny’s so that is where I got my second meal of the day. I gassed up and settled in for the night.
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