Gas prices are high. Countries are not buying Russian oil since Putin invaded Ukraine three weeks ago. I stop by Costco to top off Vanna’s tank before picking up Brian. Regular gas is $5.50. Almost $2 more than pre-invasion, making our trip a bit more expensive. In Reno we pick up some tires Brian has ordered. Then continue on I-80 inadvertently because I’m distracted by our conversation about the popularity of Korean soap operas. We reroute back to Highway 50 via highway 95 after a 50 mile detour. The rest of the day is repetitive sagebrush valleys separated by rolling hills in the Great Basin. There’s a basketball game, so all the rooms in Eureka are full. We need to continue onto Ely. It’s a long day of driving. I get a Hawaiian burger for dinner at the Italian place across the street. The fries are a little under done. Brian drinks our two free drinks at the casino downstairs while I head to bed.

It’s freezing in the morning. I have my breakfast in the room while Brian gets a complimentary breakfast at Denny’s. We cross into Mountain time when we enter Utah. A bit more sagebrush and rolling hills. Then we get onto I-70 and the terrain changes: huge red rock that’s been eroded by wind and water over thousand of years. The road flows through a canyon. Moab is a busy resort town. It’s not peak season yet, but still there are long lines of people waiting to get into restaurants for dinner Saturday night. Luckily we ordered take-out. Hungry people jealously watch as Brian picks up our order.

Sunday is our first day of riding. We decide to go to the Top of the World trail. We drive along the Colorado River to Dewey Bridge and unload. The first hour, we sort out some technical difficulties. Billy needs a new o-ring for his fuel-line quick release. The one I put in earlier is too big. Brian’s Trail Tech needs to be plugged into a different circuit. We’re finally on the road around noon. The trail to the Top of the World view is only four miles. It gradually gets really hard. Endless rocks and ledges, that force us to pick our lines wisely in addition to keeping the bike straight from deflecting rocks, makes for hard work. The ADVRider poster rated this as a 5 for difficulty out of 10.

Long steep sections of ledges we need to scope out and plan a route – skirting around the largest ledges and up the smallest. I start getting tired. There are two other motorcyclists on the trail. (Everyone else is either on a side-by-side or Jeep). He suggests that I am wearing too much. It’s true I’m getting hot and out of breath. Perhaps also from the altitude.

I doubt I’ll make it and ask Brian a couple times if I can just walk the rest of the way. He says we’re not that close. So I rest, take some layers off, and push on.

The view is amazing. We’re at 7000 feet and the drop off is 2000 feet. An expansive view of eroded red rock landscape with the snow-capped La Sal mountains behind. The way down is easier with gravity on my side. We’ve barely ridden 25 miles and we’re ready to go home. I can’t put my left arm on the armrest because I have a big bruise on my elbow. We top of our gas from the spare gas container, since we didn’t use much. Get dinner at a Vietnamese place run by white hipsters. A big bowl of pho, outside, under a heat lamp. My head still hurts when we get back so I go to bed early. My allergies have followed me to the desert.

Monday morning is cold and windy, but it rained overnight making all the sand for today’s ride easier. The trails are easy and enjoyable. We stop by the Uranium Arch and Monitor and Merrimac Buttes.

The base of the Monitor and Merrimac Buttes is rock. It’s hard to find the trail, which is marked by painted white dashes 30’-50′ apart. There are also undulations, cracks, and drop-offs in the rock formation, so we need to watch carefully where to ride. When the rock shapes allow I practice jumping off small ledges. To get off the rock is a long, rough downhill about 40′ tall called Wipe Out Hill. I decide to walk my bike down. A couple other motorcyclists behind us opt out and turn back.

The scenery is amazing. There are some rocky sections we need to pay attention to and some steep climbs we need to plan out. Just enough to keep it interesting, but not overwhelming. Sometimes we take different lines. Brian and I have different strengths as riders. Brian messes up jumping up a ledge in the afternoon. Falls and bends his shift lever.

All the rock is sandstone which mostly crumbles as he tries to bang the lever back into shape. It’s good enough to make it back to the van. In town he’s able to find a replacement at a rental place next to the gas station. I take a shower and we get Mexican for dinner. A couple doors down in a souvenir shop, Brian gets some postcards and I a Moab tank top. I’m progressively getting more achey each day. I’m not sure how I will feel after six days of riding. At least I had a fun day and didn’t tip-over. We rode 35 miles.

Tuesday I want to make it to Arches National Park. We get a late start at 11:30 because Brian wants to get a spare shift lever at the one moto parts store in town (it was closed yesterday). It’s stocked with all the things one might break while riding. We drive to Dalton Wells to stage and get onto the Sovereign trail system. We see the Sovereign Single Track labeled double diamond/extreme difficulty and decide to pass. The trail we take to Willow Creek Road is fun. The view where we enter by Balancing Rock the park is amazing .

We hike up to the viewing spot for the Delicate Arch, then continue on the 4×4 road. The red rocks are from iron. We come across patches of green too. Copper perhaps? The road is sandy, so going up rocks is challenging since traction is poor. At the end is a view point overlooking the Colorado River that we don’t make it to. We get to a steep, rough climb. I check the topo map to see if it’s really a steep as it looks. The lines are much closer than what we have been doing. Each line is 40 feet and there are four really close here. We walk part of it and decide to turn around. I’m surprised Arches has such a challenging road. We have lunch instead and head back.

When we get back to the beginning of Willow Creek Road, we turn off towards the Tower Arch. This is a fun and scenic road too. We pass the Eye of the Whale Arch. There’s deep sand in the washes. Other places the sand is more firm with the road sunk in, making for big burms at the corners, some over 5′ tall, that we can ride up. We hike to the Tower Arch.

The road to the main park road is short, but really rocky. No wonder hardly anyone was at the Tower Arch. We pass a couple people in a truck surveying the rocks, trying to decide whether they want to try it. The road we plan to take back to the van turns out to have a long, steep, rocky section. Not too bad, but too hard for the end of the day. It’s almost 6pm and getting cold. We race back the way we came through sand and rocks. Arriving back to the van by 7pm just as the sun drops below the mountains. We did 81 miles today. At the gas station I figure Billy got 57 miles to the gallon. I won’t need to bring extra fuel when we do the White Rim Trail which is 115 miles. We get dinner at the Moab Diner, which is run by Mexicans.

Our plan Wednesday is to have a mellow, short riding day. We head to Kane Canyon. It’s just a couple miles out of town. A fast, gravel road through the canyon. Then some slick rock up to Hurrah Pass. At the Pass we see the potash mine across the river. We continue down the other side to Chicken Corners trail. This is slightly rougher, but still easy. There are many tourists o side-by-sides with us, stopping at viewpoints of the Colorado River below.

We have lunch at the end then head back. Pass the catacombs on the way to Adits Mine. I take a poor line up a rocky section. While backing Billy down to try again, he falls over and pins my leg to a rock. Brian needs to lift Billy off of me. A couple more bruises may be appearing soon. We don’t go much farther before we reach a really steep, rocky slope. As we walk it, we discover there’s a huge hole mid-way up, leaving only one line through and chances of making it are slim. So we turn around.

The next spur we try is to Jackson Hole Butte. There’s a resort not far in with a Frisbee golf course.

The low sections are either sand or loose river rock. Then the rocks get rougher. Finally there are large slabs of really rough rock. By the time we’re back to the main road my hands are tired and over-stimulated by all the vibrations. At the base of the Butte a couple are stranded because their rental side-by-side won’t start. They’ve radioed for help and are waiting. Brian spies a rock with petroglyphs on the way back – The Birthing Rock.

We make it back to the staging area by 5pm. Successfully completing our mellow, short day. I have left-overs for dinner while Brian goes into town.

Thursday we ride the White Rim Road. It’s long, so we get an early start. On the trail before 10am. The Green and Colorado Rivers snake around a mesa called Island in the Sky before meeting up. The White Rim Road follows the edge of the mesa. The ride up Long Canyon by the Colorado River is fun. The canyon is narrow and we go through a natural rock tunnel at one point. When we get to the top of the mesa, we ride over to the Green River side. Today is the warmest day so far, but it’s early, so the fast riding is a little chilly. There are other vehicles at the White Rim Trail starting point. We need to pass a few as the road drops down to river level. Lots of hairpins. Down by the river we come to a spot with deep sand. As I drop down into it, I see a big crescent-shaped gouge where a big motorcycle wiped-out. We continue by the river a few miles, then start climbing. The silt makes it hard to get over the big rocks. We need to be careful the rear tire doesn’t slide too much since there’s a steep drop off at the edge of the road. We pass numerous campsites. It seems like most people do the White Rim Trail in multiple days.

A third of the way in, we stop at a slot canyon by Wilhite trailhead.

There are so many picturesque points to take photos. But the views are expansive and hard to capture in a photo. We have lunch at a saddle where a few mountain bikers are also stopped. In the afternoon multiple groups of cyclists followed by their support vehicle come the other way. We’re going at a fast pace. Riding 25 to 30 mph over rough rock is hard on the body. The impacts are hard and the constant vibrations hurt my hands, forearms, and knees. I start counting down the miles and calculating the minutes we have left. Luckily the Shafer Trail is less rocky. The road to Potash by the potash pools is smooth. Finally I see the Jug Handle Arch where we staged. We complete the 117 miles before 5pm.

Our last day of riding we return to the Colorado River east of Moab where we rode the first day. Today we ride up the canyon carved by Onion Creek. The road crosses the creek a couple dozen times. These are the only water crossings we’ve come across. The water eventually seeps into my socks. As we ride out of the canyon, Juniper Pines appear. At the fork we take the left to go to Dolores River Overlook. We don’t make it though. Rose Garden Hill is a long, steep slope with large rocks. I check the track I have. They rode the other way – down hill. Going up will be tough, so we turn around. Back at the intersecting we take the other road. This one climbs much higher. Melting snow runs down the road. There are large sections of mud.

Higher up snow and ice creep onto the road. I get stuck in an icy spot, but eventually work my way free. At 7200’ snow and ice cover the entire road. We’re still 400 feet from the top, so we decide to turn back. We have lunch, then continue back to Onion Creek. I think all the water crossings will clean the mud from my bike, but my license plate is still obscured when I return to the van. We get back to town around 4pm. After washing up, we do some shopping before dinner. Brian buys a postcard of Lego motorcyclists in Moab for Dwayne and gets a smoothie from the food truck park before we head to the Vietnamese place we ate at on Sunday. We’re both tired, but it’s been a good riding trip. No one’s injured and the bikes are fine too.

Saturday we’re on the road by 8:30am. Head north to Salt Lake City and then east to Reno. We reach Brian’s apartment by 7:30pm (12 hours on the road taking into account crossing the time zone border). I have my left over BBQ for dinner and head to bed. Sunday is just a half day of driving. I drop Brian off in San Francisco on the way to San Mateo. Home before 4pm leaving me with enough time to wash my hair.

Tracks here (the Top of the World track didn’t get recorded).