It was nice waking up not dead, the awkward clerk having reminded us slightly of Anthony Perkins in “Psycho”. The fact we were the only guests at the motel didn’t help. We nabbed a banana and a couple of muffins from the free breakfast our host provided, said “Thank you!” and peeled south towards southern Utah, one of my favorite places on earth.
There were threatening storms to the southeast as we headed towards Cedar City and they appeared to be parked over the Zion National Park area. My cell picked up enough signal to verify that indeed the forecast was rain ahead. The plan was to hit Zion and work our way east towards Colorado, seeing as much of the orange sandstone state as possible before heading back for Texas.
The rain stayed just ahead of us as we made Cedar City. The map showed a scenic backway to the Zion/La Verkin area, and though it sounded good we had some concerns since the clouds were black over the area. I told The Butterfly that we may have some “fun” since it had been raining and it wasn’t clear whether the road was paved or not.
As we made our way slowly up in elevation, the road was wet, but the aspens were a brilliant yellow. The rain started and continued, as the initial blacktop section dropped away and the graded, crushed gravel sections began.
The temperature fell to the lower 40’s as we climbed higher, leaving the yellow tunnel of leaves and entering a higher and flatter area where the gravel sections turned to dirt and the road got slick with mud. My bike wandered immediately and I heard Kim shout in the headset as she got a bit sideways but kept it upright. It was tense as the rain continued and I wondered how many miles of mud lay ahead. My rear Heidenau was sporting 13,000 miles and had less than 1/8” tread so it was not working well. Even worse, Kim’s bike was wearing the somewhat new TKC-70’s from the dealership, which are glorified street tires. My experience with the TKC-70’s that had come on my bike at purchase were not good, so I knew Kim had a handful on the slick stuff - not to mention a new and bigger bike notorious for ill handling in sand and mud.
Eventually the muddy open area began to transition back into aspens and a more solid road with crushed gravel. With the transition came some blue skies and sunshine and we began to relax a bit. It was to be short-lived.
Again we came into an open area with threatening skies and started uphill on a slick dirt section. Almost immediately, Kim’s bike went sideways about 20 feet ahead of me and did a 270º spin, throwing her down hard. My bike almost went down as I stopped. Kim was not obviously hurt, however an old neck injury got fired up with the impact.
The mud was only about 2-3 inches deep, but it was as slick as grease. We could barely stand, having to take baby steps to keep from falling. Lifting the bike was impossible at first, our feet sliding out from under us and when we got traction the bike would simply slide away from us when we tried to lift. I was able to spin the bike on its case and head fairly easily until the rear tire got into a slight rut, giving us just enough of an edge to catch and we finally got it upright.
I took a couple of minutes and aired her tires way down in the vain hope it would help the TKC’s in the slick stuff. She got going again and in less than 30 feet had to bail. We had no idea how far it was to better road conditions, but we were about the halfway point and made the decision to go on forward since we knew how muddy it was behind us. For the next couple of miles, I had to dog-paddle her bike through the mud, then walk back to my bike and do the same. A couple of vehicles passed us, both having turned sideways in the mud coming downhill towards us, thankfully only to straighten as they crawled past. In my rearview I watched them spin and slide to the ditches.
It was exhausting and I wanted to give up. Thankfully it wasn’t raining, but if it got worse ahead we might be stuck for some time.
Check out the car in my mirror…
A pickup came along and the driver said it got worse ahead, but that blacktop was only a couple of miles away. Kim was exhausted from walking in the mud and I doubly so, having to ride one bike, then walk all the way back to the other and bring it forward. My legs felt like lead. It seemed to take hours to finally get into better sections, followed again by stretches of slick stuff, but eventually the road got better as we made for La Verkin. The blacktop was much further than 2 miles and maybe the guy did it to give us hope, but it was exciting to see the back side of the peaks in Zion to our left as we rode. The skies cleared a bit but the weather wasn’t stable.
We finally made the blacktop and then the main highway intersection, stopping for gas and a snack at the nearest gas station. After a short rest we headed on Highway 9 for Zion. To say we were tired after the mud-fest would be an understatement. As we neared the park, we stopped to look for coffee but the hordes of tourists drove us away. As we got closer to the entrance, I was shocked to see how many busloads of people were there. My last trip through southern Utah, including the parks, was almost solo for the duration as there were almost no people anywhere - it was late spring then and I assumed mid-October would be the same. Wrong!
There were so many people and it was late in the day so we decided to skip the park and go on ahead, our crusty brown 1200’s faithfully purring away. We continued on through the otherworldly terrain on Highway 9 until reaching Mt Carmel Junction and turning north. It was getting dark when we hit Hatch to check for a motel. None were available, but Kim found a good priced one further ahead in Panguitch.
It was completely dark when we arrived, waiting in the lobby for a long time before the owner finally returned. He had been helping his daughter at her Indian restaurant down the street since her only waitress had called in sick. Indian food sounded good, but we were beat and muddy. Kim washed her rain jacket and pants in the shower while I relaxed on the bed.
Eventually we mustered our strength and wandered down to the “Tandoori Taqueria”, where we had a good meal of spicy chicken wrapped in nan, taco style.