Norskie's Blog

Day 5: Grand Canyon

Another cold morning, but least I'm in a hotel room. After dressing and packing the bike I walk across the street for breakfast. Pancakes! While waiting for my order I bring up some cached webpages on this PDA and read the prehistory of Texas. It's much the same as prehistory of other states: Ancient people lived there and did stuff. The pancakes are much heavier than regular pancakes though. These are very heavy. They'll last me a while. After breakfast, while getting on the bike, my room-neighbor is loading up his new Corvette. I notice his New York plates and comment on how far he is from home, and responded that he's driving Route 66 end to end, as a nostalgic tour. He used to do it with his wife, but she passed away recently and this is how he's reliving her memory.

By about 7am I'm back on the road and ride to the Grand Canyon. It's an uneventful ride and while I'm riding through the Kaibab national forest the trees aren't much to write home about. Once at the canyon I park on the rim to take in the splendor of this huge gouge in the earth. At ten miles across and 5000 feet deep it's the biggest canyon in North America (Hell's Canyon between Oregon and Idaho is the deepest, at 5200 feet), 277 miles long. The colors are in hues of red and brown. The canyon walls are pretty steep, leveling out in a plateau before narrowing the final 1500 feet to the Colorado River below, which is only seen from some of the viewpoints.

Also taking in the view was a rider on a new Ducati ST3. He had picked it up in San Francisco and was heading home to Wisconsin. He said he likes the ST3, a bit more refined than his previous bike, an ST2, and was staying in hotels on his way home. My next stop, after a quick glimpse of the canyon, was to figure out what I wanted to do. Spend the night? Continue on? There were some hiking trails that caught my eye, especially a ridge hike. The camp office was open (it was 9am or so) but wasn't signing up new campers until 11am. I also noticed the sign saying last night's lows were 34F. Brr. Parking the bike, I changed into hiking gear (which took about 20 minutes... Grrr) and started on a rim hike. This hike, which terminates at Hermit's Rest, runs between the ridge and a road. The road is closed to private vehicles but shuttle buses which stops at several points along the 8-mile trail. It appears that about ten percent hike the trail, and at various points get on the bus. That's what I did too, after about four miles. I got some photos but I'm not sure they capture it all; the smog from Los Angeles was causing it to be a bit hazy.

The views were excellent but after a while it all started to look the same. Don't get me wrong, the canyon is massively vast yet intricate (reminds me of a fractal equation plotted out) but I don't think spending another day seeing it from the ridge would do anything more for me. I'd like to hike down to the river along Angel's Rest trail (13miles) and take a mule-ride back up, but I haven't made reservations for that and didn't want to spend a chilly night at 7200 feet. So I went back to the bike and spent another 20 minutes changing back to riding apparel and repacking everything on the bike.

This time it really ticked me off. It's clear that the Grand Canyon, with it's shuttle buses everywhere, would be a perfect place to ride to, park the bike, set up camp, and then enjoy the park without having to get all the gear back on to ride to another area of the park. Unfortunately I didn't spend the night, because I only brought one sleeping bag because my hiking boots and backpack took up too much space. In the past (Glacier, Yellowstone, Olympic) I've learned that riding then hiking is inconvenient; this time I was extremely frustrated. It put me in a foul mood for a day and a half.

Leaving the Grand Canyon via Cameron I stopped at a few more viewpoints including the Watchtower. Now the crowds are starting to piss me off too. The Watchtower has 82 narrow steps to the top, and more than four tourists were not able to get all the way to the top due to weight or knee problems. One was complaining to an attendent that there should be elevator for people with disabilities. WTF !?!?!!?

Sweaty and angry I returned to the bike and left the park and all it's dumb tourists. I can't imagine how bad it must be in the summer. Continuing towards Cameron I passed through the Navajo and Apache reservations and their tourist traps selling jewelry. As I was leaving the reservation I got a chuckle out of the sign "Nice Indian Store Here" and "Friendly Indians". Hm, does that imply the other ones are nasty or take scalps?

After Cameron I pointed the VFR south towards Flagstaff and took a little detour into the Sunset Volcano national park and looked at some Wakutpi ruins. Flagstaff is nestled in some mountains with plenty of pine trees. It's located 5600 feet above the sea, so it gets cold at night, plus it was too early to stop so I continued east on I-40. I was approaching the meteor crater which I had on my list of things to see, but when I arrived at the exit it was 15 minutes after it closed. Dang. Eastward I go.

I-40 through eastern Arizona is flat. There's nothing there, just sagebrush. I ride through this crap until I get to Holbrook which has the Petrified Forest National Park and US-180 which I was going to take to Las Cruces, NM. The signs for the park sent me through Holbrook which is a dumpy little town along Route 66. It did have a "Sleep in a Teepee" attraction with classic cars parked out front - that was interesting. Once on the south side of Holbrook I find another sign saying the park is 18 miles further, it's open until 7pm (it was currently 6:45) and there's no camping at the park. Grr. I consult my map and find a KOA just a few miles east on the interstate. KOA's are decent campgrounds. They are clean, have nice facilities, etc. However, the sites aren't secluded, there are a million kids there, and they charge too much (like $25-30 for a single tent site). On my way there I find a Route 66 Hotel that looks to be in good shape compared to all the other places, and the rate is $22/night so I stop in and ask to see a room. It looks clean, some of the wood walls and cabinets have been replaced by naked plywood. It smells funny too, not bad, but just old. It's probably 60 years old. I take the room, unload the bike, and since I can't cook dinner and need more provisions I head off down the road to Safeway. This is probably the first place I've been where I haven't felt safe so I bring my 6-inch inch with me. I'd prefer my pistol but Oregon's Concealed Handgun License isn't reciprocated by any other state, and Jennifer has our can of pepper spray. So knife it is. At Safeway I get a couple cans of soup, and since they don't have chinese food to go like the Safeway's at home, I grabbed some chicken fajita salad and french bread. Back at the hotel room I put the salad on the bread and see... A Roach scurrying across the floor. Once I get over my disgust I quickly trap it underneath the empty salad container. Looks like I'm keeping everything zipped shut and the lights on tonight. After locking up the bike (if the threshold to the door wasn't 2.5 inches tall I'd roll it in) I packed everything up ready for an early departure.

Checking over the maps first, I notice there are no towns with gas stations (according to my PDA's mapping software) along US-180 to Las Cruces which means I won't take that route. It's remote enough along the interstates; I can't imagine how barren of gas a remote road through a national forest must be, so I decide to take the interstate through Albuquerque then head south and then east to Carlsbad Caverns in the morning. I can't sleep with the lights on, so I read a little ...