Biking Island in the Sky

April 28, in spite of missed deadlines, irate customers, & unfinished work, we head to Canyonlands, Utah, Island in the Sky, for a break. We arrive and get set with great friends in a land of indescribably magnificent beauty.

Ron checks out the task ahead...100 miles of rugged terrain to attack and conquer....and we begin the first descent into the canyon.

Our biker buddies, Quinn & Colby, help us get our courage up. They have done it all before, and tell us it's a cakewalk.


First rest stop: Muscleman Arch. Yes, that's a thin sliver of stone across an incredibly deep canyon more than 1000 feet down through space, and our hero...muscle man Ron...




We're still smiling with our friends, Ken and Mary, ever good traveling buddies, always up for any adventure.

And it's spring, "the desert blooms as paradise..."
First day: 30 miles, a little sunburned, we set up camp on the canyon rim. Our trail is called White Rim Trail, for the white stone around every deep crevice...

And we nominate Uncle Don for MVP of the trip, the soul of patience, as he follows the slowest riders all the way, sometimes at 0 mph, while we walk our bikes up the long steep climbs. At camp, he's lost to sudoku...

There are no words for the beauty, no describing the awesome expanses of cliffs and rocks and sky. We are so small in this vast wilderness.

They start as mesas, erode to buttes, erode to spires, then needles, and over time, millions of years, fall to the canyon floor. "As it is written in the book...Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low;"

Near the end of the second day's 52 miles, around a butte, the first glimpse of the Green River!

We smelled the water before we saw it, and that first sight made all the hot, hard day, every inch of those climbs, every sore muscle all worth it. Camping by the river: glad for rest and an

outhouse shower.

Quinn, almost 6, rode all the way, on his bike,

or on the trailer bike pulled by Scott. He

doesn't seem to show the same effects as the

adults. At camp, he's still running around with

his brother, full of energy. We're seasoned

4-wheelers (see other blogs) but we're still

quaking from that last climb and descent over

unbelievably narrow and dangerously steep

trails.

Closing in on 100 miles, we learn to bike the sand traps by the river...yet it is still a long and winding road. Somehow, it seems easier along the river.

Day three: more than 20 miles left, and we still

have to get out of this canyon that surrounds

us on every side...








But we make it to the top!! Brown with sun and the red dirt of Canyonlands, happy grins in the sunshine, we're whole, with no major mishaps outside a broken bike rack, some road rash, and bruises in unmentionable places. We didn't lose the rest of our group: Scott, Holly, and Quinn decided they would take a little recreational ride on the gravel road out to the highway, another 12 miles just for fun, just because it's so hard to quit when you're high on the euphoria of being on the bikes.