Saturday – Hanksville, Utah

Another sleep in, the curtains were so good, it still looked dark, but it wasn’t 🙂 Mind you, what it was though was cold, with a capital BRRRRRRR!

Yep, a snowstorm was here, bummer, I don’t feel like riding in that.

We waited around for a bit and it sort of blew over and the sun even came out. Ken had decided to head home that day while I continued by myself, but I was unsure with the snow around what to do, ride or not and stay here another day, decisions, decisions! In the end, I decided to go, if it started to snow too bad I would find a motel somewhere and stop over.

We had decided to go to Boulder and see what the weather was like, apparently it gets very cold up there. We fuelled up because we were heading off track maybe and needed a full load. If you look on the map, find Boulder then the blue road to the right is paved, we would go there, it turns to 30 mile of dirt(the black bit) then blue and paved again to Ticaboo, this is called the Burr Trail, but we did not want to do it in the wet.

Towards the top of the range we came to a great lookout (they call them scenic overlooks here), but it was not a clear day.

We had some more windy road.

Which led to more great views 🙂

Then some more twisty road downhill into the bottom of the canyon.

At the bottom just around the corner, mooove over steak!

I had lost Ken while taking photos, he was behind, but I figured he may be setting up for a shot from the cliffs, so I went slowly through the stock until I spotted him up high on the cliff.

I had to wait while he negotiated the stock.

After this we had to ride down a very narrow canyon bottom with awe inspiring red cliffs on both sides, it was great, hard to keep your eyes on the road! Here is an example or two 🙂

By the time I got here in the open a bit, Ken had shot off ahead, probably bored with me stopping all the time for snaps 🙂 It was at this cattle grid that a car was parked and a chap came over and asked me the road conditions to Torrey via the dirt. He was from Lebanon and I had no idea anyway, I told him as he has 4wd, he would have no real problems, but we were going to try our dirt section if it was dry. (in the end we never saw him so he must have used the paved road)

I caught up with Ken who had not quite reached the end of the paved road before he hit rain so he turned around, we decided to give it a miss. We were parked in this layby that had soft deep gravel, very scary moment for me when I tried to leave, nearly dropped the bike but managed to get through.

Once I achieved the road, I took a video of Ken while he left the layby, but he kept it upright as well 🙂 He told me he was real concerned as he had seen what nearly happened to me, so he took a different path 🙂
Back we went to Boulder, here is the road we had been on from above.

We eventually got back to the turn off at the highway near Boulder.

Heading north we were going higher and higher and it was getting colder and colder and it started to snow! And yes that is a minus sign 😮

It actually peaked at minus 3C, but I was concentrating so hard on keeping the bike upright I missed the photo. The road signs kept saying icy roads, so I was alert. We eventually reached the summit, the highest yet 🙂 Hopefully it would start to get a bit warmer from now on. But maybe not!

When we did reach Torrey, it was certainly still cold but we had left the weather on the mountain. We stopped for a great burger at this quaint little franchise, I liked it.

This is where we parted company, Ken headed home to Salt Lake City in the north while I headed east and probably to a place called Hanksville. I had decided that while the weather is freezing I would not be camping, call me a wuss if you like I do not care 🙂 Plenty of time to camp when it warms up or I head south. Well, the scenery was great once again, even if I went home tomorrow I would be impressed by what I have seen. The next 40 miles or so were sore neck time, which way to look 🙂 Here is another medley of the hills and rock formations along this road.

After that long ride, stopping to take photos and gawking, I eventually arrived in Hanksville where I booked into the Hanksville Inn. Do not stay here, it was dirty and expensive with bugger all facilities!

I went up to the market and bought some food to heat in the microwave then the Hollow Mountain store and bought some beer. It took a while to decide, but I had heard Ken mention about the Polygamy beer, why have just the one 🙂 So I bought some. They tasted crap as well, but I drank them 🙂

I spent some quiet time warming up in the room, and sorting though photos etc and caught up on a few days blog as it was cold out.

Day – 177 miles and 283km
Trip – 1,665 miles and 2,664km

Cheers
TravellingStrom
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