|
Day 6 - Dodging Tar Snakes on the
Hwy 12 Hogsback
 We
check out of our motel, have an excellent breakfast and then head east
back through Zion. We take lots of photos but few of them do justice to
what we see. It's like riding down a street filled with magnificient
cathedrals. (Click on the photo to see us exploring Zion)
 We
head out of the Park and make our way north and east over to Bryce. It's
in the nineties and we stop often for water. Some we drink, some we pour over our
heads and some we use to soak our shirts. The
first mile or two of road inside Bryce
Canyon National Park is being repaired but once we get past that,
the riding and the scenic views become first rate. Click
here to do a virtual auto tour of Bryce Canyon on the National Park
website. 
There
are 13 viewpoints along the 38 mile round-trip park drive and we hit them
all. (Click on the photo to see Vince cruising in the
park)  We've all seen
photos of Bryce but they still don't prepare us for experiencing Bryce
first hand; the colors, the shapes, the scope of it all, how the place
feels. While Zion feels and looks like cathedrals, Bryce feels and looks
like the ruins of an ancient castle. (Click on the photo to see
the ruins)
We motor
all the way out to the southern most spot in the Park called
Rainbow Point which is over 9,000 feet in elevation. The view from
there is amazing. Along the way, we see a natural bridge formed by
rainfall. (Click on the photo to see
the bridge)  And
lest we forget to mention, Scott is sporting a new hat. Not just any hat
but another sunblock hat and one that's even better than the previous hat,
all thanks to Joe's tireless
shopping efforts. (Click on the photo to see the new
hat, Scott, Joe and Trev at Bryce)
If Bryce Canyon was not enough excitement, we continue east on Hwy 12 out
into
the Utah outback, so to speak, to find the finest riding of the trip. We
end up doing hours of superb, mountain cruising. Click
here to learn more about Hwy 12 on Max Bertola's southern Utah
website. He calls it one of the prettiest roads in the entire US and he's
probably doing it in a car. It's really first rate on a bike, especially
the section called the Hogsback where the road runs along the crest of a
ridge with dramatic dropoffs on both sides. It's a real trip to ride it! Click
here to see a great photo of it on Max's website. (Click
on the photo to see more of Hwy 12) The
only drawback is the extensive use of tar to seal cracks in the road,
otherwise known as tar snakes. There is nothing like being leaned over in a turn
and having the front end break loose and slide a few inches to make your
heart skip a beat or two! We try
dodging them but that just screws up your line through the turn and in the
end, we just ignore them as best we can and have fun anyway. We
finish this absolutely awesome day of riding by heading all the way back
out to Interstate 15 and spending the night in a town with no restaurant
or tavern. We have to eat sandwiches from the gas station and drink lousy
Utah beer. Oops! Next time, we'll get it right. Click here
for Day 7
Click here
to return to the ODMC Canyons Ride 2003 home page
|
