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Day 38 - June 1 - Hiking in Utah

"Oh! You're the guy!"

Hi, and welcome back to my bike blog.

Coming Down with the Sickness

All through the night, I had a nose that was either stuffy or runny. I woke up feeling weak, dizzy, and with a slight headache. I woke up an hour after my alarm, and figured that I'd feel better once I got on the bike. So I did, and I did. The hills were harder than usual, and my head wasn't all there today, but I was fortunate to have a very downhill day. The total uphill today was just about 450m, and the total downhill was 1.1km. As I got lower and lower, it got hotter and hotter, and now, in my bike shorts and T-shirt in an air-conditioned restaurant, I find it hard to imagine wearing my long pajama pants and a sweater just this morning.

I suspect that part of my sickness is caffeine withdrawl. In Toronto, I rarely drink things that have caffeine in them. I only drink tea when others visit in the winter, and I drink pop when I eat something really spicy at a restaurant (seriously, try it, get something absurdly spicy, wait till your mouth is on fire, and take a drink of pop. It's one of my favourite combos). Now, on the bike ride, I would use caffeinated soft drinks as a go-to energy boost. I drink sweet tea often, and hell, I put teabags in my water for a while. It's a far-fetched theory, but it's better than the alternative, which is that I'm actually getting sick, and that I'll have to spend a few days resting.

Hiking in the Desert

This is Assaf's bike blog, but occasionally, there are guest posts. Sometimes Assaf is replaced, sometimes the blog is replaced by postcards or videos. Today, the bike has been replaced. That's right, I got off my ass, and went on a hike.

I am staying with Kevin Walker, a friend of my dad's, near Moab, UT, whose backyard is the Utahn backcountry desert. Utahn? Utah'n? Utan? Utahnian? I arrived at his house, after biking along some dirt roads that literally went through a stream, and up 11% slope hills, and started chatting in his back porch. Thirty minutes later, after drinking as much water as I could, and bringing with me nothing but my sunglasses and an apple, we started walking into the hills. Kevin specifically told me not to bring anything with me, as there was going to be some climbing involved.

Very quickly into the hike, I made my first mistake. I stepped off the trail. Kevin has a very strict, and very correct, "leave no footprints" policy. Out here, in the desert, footprints can last a very long time, spoiling the untouched nature. There are also some fragile nitrogen fixing cryptobiotic soil crust that grow off the trail, and they should not be trampled down. Plants here, Kevin told me, are so old that one can often identify them in photographs from a hundred years ago. Some of the plants here are over three hundred years old. It's not worth walking on these.

And so, the trail from his back yard led us down to a creek, where there were 800 year old indigenous rock petroglyphs, and a shallow, but fast-flowing stream. We walked along the streamside path, running into a few groups of weekend hikers enjoying the cool waters in the first truly hot weekend of the year in Moab. Kevin always lead the way, the way he knew like the back of his hand. He told me that a few times a week, he does the route that he's taking me on today. His record is 20 minutes to get to the peak of the route. We took two and a half hours to get there and back.

The streamside path was a narrow, single-file sandy path flanked by large rock formations on both sides. On our side of the stream, where Kevin's house was, were large cliffs of rough rock, whereas on the opposite side were wide, undulating sedimentary hills, nearly barren, with only an occasional bush or tree peaking out through the cracks. The hills on the other side of the stream almost reminded me of elephant trunks, with their smooth, dry texture and long movements between them. If our side was Chopin, the opposite side would be Beethoven.

The stream eventually turned into a fast-moving waterslide that fed into a pool. The pool was swimmable, but got very shallow downstream. On one side of the pool, at about my height, were overhanging cliffs, and on the other side, a steep rock climb. Kevin hopped right in to the water, swam a bit, and got out of the pool on the cliffside with what I can only describe as a YouTube-worthy contortion powered by unimaginable strength. After being reassured that there's another way out, I, too, waded, then swam into the pool. It was refreshing. The water was cool, and carried away my sweat and sunscreen downstream to pollute other lands. The strong stream provided a swimming treadmill, and the waterslide was a superb natural playground. I understand Kevin's desires to live here and do this hike every day.

And so, we continued the hike on the other side of the stream, where there was no trail, and we had to be careful not to step on anything other than rock. This is where it got steep. We arrived at a crevice in the rock, about 3m high, which had near-perfect footholds. We scrambled up cliffs, steep slopes, and hopped from rock to rock, from foothold to foothold. Kevin waited for me, and helped me climb when my inexperience proved too much for the climb.

It's fun climbing. Every cliffside, or scramble, or crack in the rock is, like climbers always say, a riddle to be solved. I felt like I was in a rock climbing gym, only it was the desert, my clothes were soaking wet, and I wasn't wearing a harness. I can't tell you what the drops were, since I never bothered looking, but to Kevin's credit, I never felt unsafe, and the hike was at exactly the level I could do. The vertical climbs were challenging, but doable, and the slopes were steep, but I could still grip on with my biking shoes. I really understood why I couldn't bring anything with me. I needed all four limbs to do this hike.

After much climbing (for me, for Kevin this was a stroll through his backyard. Literally.), we got to the top of a big rocky outcrop. The wind there was strong, and the height was astounding. I looked down in disbelief that I actually managed to climb that. We lingered for a few minutes, and then started making our way down. I must admit that for large parts of the way down, I was on my butt, or doing an awkward crab-walk. We backtracked our steps, at times literally stepping on our old footprints to minimize damage to the environment. By the time we reached the stream again, my clothes were bone dry, and I didn't get them wet again. A few minutes later, we were back in Kevin's porch, walking there the same way we came.

The Image Gallery


A cool looking rock, with mountains in the background.

This rock looked like a capybara

Not an arch, but an alcove that, with some more erosion, might become an arch one day.

Characteristic Utah landscape.

My first arch!

An old-timey abandoned gas station.

Check out these ravines...

In the 40s, some guy decided to build a house inside the rock. He blasted, dug, and built for decades with his wife, and they turned parts of the house into a diner, then a souvenir shop. Now it's just one of many American roadside attractions that dot the US. I stopped by there to eat an ice cream sandwich, buy some postcards, and, of course, take a tour of the house in the stone.
Another visitor saw me in biking gear, and asked where I was going to. I told her I was biking from Miami to Portland. She then gasped, and said "Oh! So you're the guy!" It turned out that she stayed in the same campsite as me, and the owner told her about me and this ride. Funny that we ran into each other, but for a brief moment, I really thought I was famous.

Another gorgeous valley.

Check out these cliffs!

The stream that crossed the road on my way to Kevin's house.

Kevin's house. The road is very steep, and very pebble-y, making riding the bike hard.

The sunset lighting the hills in Kevin's back yard. We climbed the tallest one in this picture.

The Map

Today I biked for 80km over the course of just under four hours. The last hour of this was entirely downhill, and I pedaled maybe four times total in that hour.

Thanks for reading! See you tomorrow!

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