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Day 5 - The Grand Staircase
Joe leaves Jacob Lake and heads north
and west to St. George to buy new tires for his Bandit as he's been riding
on that plug we put in on Sunday. The rest of us head east. We Washingtonians
are unprepared for the spectacular beauty of House Rock Valley and the
Vermillion Cliffs. Click
here to see panoramic views on the Virtual Guidebooks website. (It may
require you to install a browser plug-in.) (Click on the
photo to see the cliffs) What
we are experiencing is the Grand Staircase, an immense range of mountains
stretching 100 miles x 200 miles from Bryce Canyon, through Zion Canyon,
to the Grand Canyon. We rode down it on day three but traveling up it
provides a much better perspective. Click
here to learn more about the Staircase and see an excellent chart that
details it from end to end.  We
arrive at the Marble Canyon Trading Post and have a hearty breakfast. (Click on the
photo to see the Trading Post)
After
crossing Marble Canyon, we part company with our Arizonan brothers. They
head south for Tucson and the three of us head north to Page. It
zooms up into the upper nineties really quick and by the time we motor
into Kanab,
UT, we're pretty overheated. (Click on the link to learn more about Kanab
on Max Bertola's southern Utah website.) We stop at a superb espresso,
book and outdoor equipment shop called the Willow
Canyon Outdoor Company to cool off. Trev and Vince pick up these nifty
Cool Off Ties that soak up cold water and are then tied around one's neck
where they slowly release that water thus keeping you cooler for hours.
They are
also available from Aerostich
for $4. We arrive at the Zion
National Park gate and once inside, the scenery quality goes right off the
scale. There is so much to see that it's hard to keep one's eyes on the
road. (Click on the photo to see Vince at the gate)
 Traveling through Zion requires driving
in a mile long tunnel. Not content with the usual practice of honking the
horn or revving the engine in the tunnel, Scott decides to take a photo of the others
over his shoulder while riding. Imagine the shock of the flash going off in
a pitch black section! (Click on the photo to see the
blinded riders)
It's mind blowing enough to think that
some crazy engineers tunneled a mile through solid rock. But then, as you
are driving through, you realize that these guys had the great idea to
carve windows in the side
of the tunnel so you can get glimpses of the amazing scenery! This is tax
payer money well spent! (Click on the photo to see
the window cutouts from the outside)
 The rangers don't want you to stop in
the tunnel so you have to look quickly as you drive by. One of us decides
to snap pictures as he rides through. (Click on the photo to see
the blurry view out the window)
 By
the time we meet Joe at our reserved campsite in Zion, it's over 100
degrees. Joe has already set up camp but the heat and the dust and the
prospect of no showers sends Vince looking for an air conditioned motel
room in nearby Springdale. It's takes awhile but, in the end, we all
abandon the camping idea for real comfort. In
cooler weather, it would have been fun. (Click on the
photo to see the campsite we blew off)
 It
takes lots of air conditioning, good food, cold beverages and just sitting
around doing nothing more than chewing the fat to get back to normal. We
northerners definitely got a bit cooked! We picked a good place to do it
as Springdale, just outside the west Zion gate, is very scenic. (Click on the
photo to see the view from the motel parking lot)
Click here
for Day 6
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