Moki Dugway and Natural Bridges (I made it to California!)
I made it! I’m in Pasadena and arrived safely albeit extremely tired. The last couple days have been quite entertaining. Since the last post I’ve visited Bryce Canyon, Zion, and Grand Canyon National Parks. I’ve met several cool people and rode some extremely hot days. It’s been a blast, and I’ll get to that in due time.
This is a short post about the day after Monument Valley. I was scared this day; the road I wanted to take had a big warning on the state map about being gravel and switchbacks. My fear wasn’t completely without cause, the road ended up being pretty much what it claimed although my bike can handle most things I throw at it.
The road is called Moki Dugway, and it climbs 1100 feet in just 2 short miles. Driving up to the cliff was impressive. From this vantage you cannot even see where the road takes you; it is just sheer.
quite a sight huh?
Well, the switchbacks weren’t that bad, and most had some pavement right at the worst point making it easier on the bike. One of my favorite views is this looking back down. You can start to get an appreciation for how steep the walls were and how high the climb was.
and looking out into space and Valley of the Gods
Very fun stretch of road.
I continued to Natural Bridges National Monument. This turned out to be a very beautiful park with canyons and some of the best natural bridges in the world. It would also be a great staging area from which to travel due to its central location near a crossroads.
The obligatory bike pic. I’ve got a bunch of these now!
I decided to do the long hike which took me to three bridges in ~10 miles. It would have been shorter except I forgot where I parked my bike and walked an extra mile and a half. Of course I was worn out by the end of the hike and super mad at myself for not planning better. It worked out fine though, and I was stronger because of it (literally and figuratively). The ranger said it wouldn’t rain on me and sent me to hike in a canyon. Well, it rained - a lot. Things were slippery, and I didn’t take many photos of that part. The hundreds of waterfalls were nice to see though.
Canyon from above
A natural bridge so big you could fly the space station through it with room to spare, and that is big. This one was my favorite. The others were nice but not as tall or not as scenic. You can kind of imagine a 1 pixel tall person standing on the ground below this.
The hike was as amazing as the rest of the day, and you can check out the photos here. Also, the rest of Moki Dugway here.
July 19th, 2010 at 7:36 am
Cross,
Great photos. Can’t wait to get going on our trip. You talked about riding 400-600 miles a day. My wife and don’t worry about the miles, just the hours. We limit it to 6-6 and a half hours a day. Broken up into one and a half hour segments. This way we don’t get tired. We get lunch in the middle break and take a half hour in the other two. It usually works out to 300 -400 (depending on the road) miles a day. Of course, we do a lot less if were sightseeing (for instance, we plan on breaking up the Blue Ridge Parkway up into three days, that works out to about three hours of driving a day, but lots of time for scenic overviews). Keep up the beautiful photography.
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