The Grand Canyon and Other Scenic Roads in Inconvenient Places

[zx-greg]

Cross posting this from another forum which, unfortunately, has proven unreliable. Hopefully y'all will enjoy this report, too.

What started as a planned day trip to make sure I had the right luggage for a big trip next month turned into a 3.5 day, 4 state, 1500 mile adventure. We saw sunset and sunrise at two National Parks and visited a third Park. We paid more per gallon of gas than ever before. We saw all kinds of weather and all kinds of temperatures. We hiked, and we camped. And we connected all these dots on a map with motorcycles.

With my wife and son out of town helping my mother-in-law on the East Coast, I found myself temporarily single for a few days. Several of us had been planning a day trip to test out our luggage. Instead two of us decided to skip town for a few days and go see the sites. Three days limited the distance we could travel, and snow in the Sierras limited our options in the California mountains.



When you can’t visit the mountains and you don’t want to visit the coast, you go to the desert in California. Or in this case, California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada.



We decided to connect the dots between some National Parks and combine it with a run up the Extraterrestrial Highway, route 375 in Nevada. It’s so named because it is next to a top secret Air Force test range where classified, unrevealed aircraft are tested. Area 51, the fabled site of America’s captured aliens (space, not illegal) is inside this test range. We would cross 375 at night hoping to see the secret aircraft (er, aliens) overhead. We planned to finish the trip with a tour of Scotty’s Castle and the Ubehebe Crater on the north end of Death Valley. The aliens foiled our attempt to learn their secrets as you’ll read….

[zx-greg]

Day 0.5, Thursday, May 4 – Work to Joshua Tree, 180 miles

First we decided to go to the Grand Canyon, about a day’s drive from Los Angeles. The first time I visited the Grand Canyon with my wife, we only had a few hours on a packaged tour and found ourselves whisked along the Rim in a bus. It was all very rushed, and I wanted to spend a little more time seeing this amazingly beautiful National Park. We needed to break up the trip a bit between LA and the GC to give us time at the Rim of the Grand Canyon, but how?

By camping in Joshua Tree National Park. Joshua Tree is a newer National Park spanning two deserts, the high elevation Mojave and the low elevation Colorado. Throughout the park there are yucca and joshua trees as well as startling granite rock formations that make this one of the most popular rock climbing destinations in the world. The granite was formed by underground pressure followed by erosion of the surrounding softer dirt leaving boulders that look to have been stacked by the hand of God.

First, we needed dinner. Miles and I agreed to meet at Hutchins’ Harley Davidson. Running a little early, I stopped in Cabazon to see the dinosaurs. I would continue to see man-made dinosaurs throughout the trip. Strange roadside sightings, huh?



It proved to be perfect timing because Miles pulled up next to me at a traffic light just a few miles from the diner/motorcycle dealer where we had planned to meet.

Hutchins, the dealership owner, started riding in 1939 and rode for the US Army in WWII. After the war he worked as a mechanic in one of the oldest Los Angeles motorcycle dealerships (Harley, of course), eventually buying out the dealership, running it for a few decades then retiring to the desert. In Yucca Valley he opened a new Harley Davidson shop eventually adding a metric bike annex and most recently a small diner. While the metric bike shop is mostly a mix of dirt and sport bikes, the Harley shop is a veritable museum with a nice flat tracker and even a US Army bike from WWII.

The diner was decorated with all kinds of Harley memorabilia and photos. The menu was what you would expect at a motorcycle shop with the Harley burger (1/2 pound), the Honda burger (1/4 pound), and the BMW Special (knockwurst and sauerkraut). The homemade bread pudding with Jack Daniels sauce was excellent.



After a good dinner we rolled into the Park and set up camp as the sun was setting.



Camp was a simple affair – a sleeping pad on the ground and a mummy bag on top of it. I slept well in just shorts and a t-shirt.

[zx-greg]

Day 1, Friday, May 5 – Joshua Tree to the Grand Canyon, 413 miles

Sunrise was at 5:30 so we had no choice but to wake up and be on the road by 7.



We rode out of the Park and grabbed breakfast at McD’s before heading out to Route 66, the famed Mother Road and original transcontinental highway.



We stayed off interstates as much as possible using Route 66 as an alternative to I-40 wherever possible. We still needed gas so we pulled into Needles, the last town in California. Sadly my bike takes premium unleaded so I spent $4.199/gal, the most money I have ever spent on gas in the US.



We then found a Route 66 I never expected. I thought of Highway 66 as an interstate of yesteryear.



It’s been forgotten and bypassed. I still expected it to be fairly straight even if it was only 1 lane each way. I was surprised and excited to find the stretch between Topock and Kingman running through Oatman. 15 mph switchbacks, extreme elevation changes, and a strange and unfriendly little tourist town in the middle of hills in the middle of nowhere in Arizona. You will definitely get your kicks on this section of Route 66.

[zx-greg]

After lunch in Kingman surrounded by hot rods, we continued on Route 66.



Route 66 straightened out but still remained preferable to I-40 to Seligman. We stopped at a local high school to put on most of our rain gear. The clouds looked ominous and we were starting to get the slightest bit wet. The weather remained uneventful through Seligman and on to Williams. We were just about an hour from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and Miles just had to comment about the lack of bad weather while we wore our rain gear.

That was a mistake. The road to the Grand Canyon is mostly straight and on a high plain, gradually climbing into a forest only 10 miles or so from the Rim itself. The road is very exposed. Or rather, two motorcyclists with most of their rain gear on caught in a thunderstorm while being hailed on are very exposed. Hail hurts when it hits your neck. Fortunately after 30 miles of rain and 10 miles of hail, the weather cleared up as we rolled into the National Park. We checked into our cabin and found prime parking spots.



Thanks to nsalas for recommending that I keep checking back with www.grandcanyonlodges.com for in-Park lodging. Just a few days before we left I found a cabin available 1/4 mile from the Rim for half the price of the Holiday Inn outside the Park.

With no pavement at the Joshua Tree campgrounds and no pavement at the cabins, we made full use of our most important farkles. I had found my little piece of plastic roadkill in the back of the AMA magazine.



But Miles bought a Genuine Harley Davidson accessory for his bike at Hutchins.



After checking in, we quickly unloaded the bikes and headed down to the Rim for a nice hike. It was good to stretch our legs after being on the bikes all morning and half the afternoon.





Somehow we misread the distance to Hermit Rest, the farthest “developed” point on the South Rim before heading into the backcountry, as just 3 miles. We hiked and took opportunities for more photo ops.

[zx-greg]

We realized we had barely reached the Abyss, just the halfway point to Hermit’s Rest. And it was an Abyss with the bottom straight down several thousand feet below us. The Long Way Down. When will they install the escalator? Seriously, I do like the fact that, for a change, the government is not trying to protect you from yourself. You have fantastic views and if you’re stupid enough to fall in a giant ditch 12 miles across, well, it’s your own dumb fault. There aren’t many fences or rails to interrupt the terrific view.



We had been hiking for 90 minutes, how could it have been only 1.5 miles? It was getting late.



We resigned ourselves to a tour bus and headed back to Hopi Point to watch the sunset.



After checking the map we figured out we had walked about halfway to Hermit’s Rest like we thought. Only we had walked 4.5 miles not 1.5 miles! After dinner and bed, I got up early to go see the end of the sunrise.

[zx-greg]

Day 2, Saturday, May 6 – Grand Canyon to Zion to Las Vegas, 559 miles



Cup of coffee in hand and huddled in my jacket in 30 degree weather, I saw a beautiful scene.



After breakfast we headed east out of the park, stopping at Grandview point.



Go home, morons! (er, morans!)



At the Watchtower I collected souvenirs for my family.



While in the park, we counted at least half a dozen languages as well as American, British, and Australian English. We took the opportunity in the parking lot to talk with two German tourists who had rented Harleys out of Phoenix to go sightseeing. As Miles pointed out, Europeans come to the US to travel on bikes while we dream of heading to the Alps.

[zx-greg]

After leaving the park we headed into the Navajo nation reservation. In spite of the empty and vast area, the road reminded me of traveling in Brazil. Every few miles Native Americans had set up wood and cloth shacks selling jewelry, native crafts, and cold drinks. Head out of Rio de Janeiro and you’ll see the same poor people selling the same items in the same shacks. We rolled into Cameron for gas. With its gas station, convenience store, dining room, and hotel, it reminded me of the Lanchonettes, private rest stops common on the highways in Brazil. The roads around the Grand Canyon themselves were fantastic, a mix of open terrain and FAST sweepers with huge elevation changes. Perfect pavement. In fact the pavement was perfect and clean for the entire trip. We could not have asked for better road conditions. Nor could any of the other bikers. We saw dozens of Harleys, a handful of Goldwings, and 2 or 3 Honda STs. This one just happened to pass by as I was taking a picture of Miles.



We rode on and crossed the Colorado River at the Navajo Bridge.



There we had the luck to see 6 California Condors. Combined with the 7th I had seen that morning in the Grand Canyon, we saw about 5% of the world’s population of California Condors in a day.



The North Rim was still closed – when we had hail the day before the North Rim got snow – but we rode through the Kaibab Forest just north of the Grand Canyon anyway. Once again a fantastic road. So many fantastic roads. So much beautiful scenery. In such inconvenient places as Miles said.

So inconvenient, in fact, the we rolled up on two Brazilians on Harleys. They had been separated from their group when one had run out of gas. We were only a half mile from Jacob’s Lake and gas. They spoke no English, but I was able to talk with them (my wife is Brazilian). In true Brazilian fashion their solution was… interesting. While the fuel-less rider steered his friend pushed the left saddlebag with his right foot while I pushed the right saddlebag with my left foot up to Jacob Lake where we found their tour group. I would say what a coincidence – two Brazilians found the rare American that spoke Portuguese. Miles disagreed pointing out the two Germans we had already talked to and the half dozen languages -- from Asian to Slavic to Latin -- we had heard that day.

We rolled on to Fredonia, where we found a Chevron that was out of gas but otherwise had the essentials for a good life.



A quick stop at the other gas station in town revealed only 87 octane so I just took 1.5 gallons, enough to get us to Hurricane in Utah for lunch and a full tank of gas. Funny enough, we got pelted by a swarm of bees shortly after entering Utah (the state uses a beehive symbol on all their highway routes). From Hurricane we rode on to the Kolob Canyon area of Zion National Park.



The north end of the park is relatively lightly used. It’s mostly considered an exit point for canyoneering as you walk up the Narrows or one of the other slot canyons from the southern end of the park. We saw maybe 2 dozen vehicles along the 5 mile stretch of road inside the park compared to the 2 dozen cars I saw at every trailhead in the south end of the park when I visited last year.



I found the views of the Kolob Canyons to be even more spectacular than those leading up to the Narrows at the southern end of the park. Day hiking is not nearly as good, though, with only a simple 1 mile out and back route that is not considered “backcountry.”

We made a quick pit stop at the park before heading on to Nevada. This is a vault toilet with Men’s and Women’s entrances on either side. Wonder where the short, middle door leads?



We headed north up I-15 towards Cedar City before exiting the interstate and heading west towards Nevada. Once off the interstate we made very rapid progress into Nevada. We cut through a couple of nearly deserted towns, passing this old hotel along a rail line.

[zx-greg]

Then we pulled into the gas station in Panaca and our entire plan changed. We had planned to eat Alien burgers at the Little Ale’Inn then ride the ET highway in the evening, eventually making camp when we got tired.

Now we saw that the Speed Triple’s tire that had looked fine just 120 miles ago at Zion Canyon (I have the photo to prove it) was out of tread.



There was no discussion. We both knew we had to go straight to Las Vegas, the only place that might have tire service somewhere on a Sunday. We would miss the ET highway and Scotty’s Castle, two places I have been trying to see since I first learned about them in 2002.

We rolled south down route 93, a dead straight road through one of the most remote areas of the US. We stayed between 65 and 70 mph as a compromise between keeping the tire as cool as possible and not getting run over from behind by some brain dead driver. It turned out to be an interesting vantage point. Steady speed. Minimal traffic. No wind. All we had to do was watch the sunset over the mountains. There was serenity somehow on a tiny vehicle moving along a valley floor.

The city of Las Vegas has more hotel rooms than any other city in the world. The greater metro area, of course, has more. In fact, there are more hotel rooms at the four corners of the intersection of Tropicana Boulevard and the Strip than there are in all of Boston. So even last minute, finding a room should be easy right? Not when there is a Pacific Islander convention going on downtown and the Oscar de la Hoya fight happening on the Strip. We were offered a room with a single bed at a Comfort Inn in North Las Vegas for just $400/night. Or a junior suite at Cesar’s Palace for just $2000/night (yes, that’s TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS). With the help of a friend with internet access, we scored a two-bed smoking room at an EconoLodge surrounded by adult shops and wedding chapels for just $150/night. The last thing I saw before heading into the room for the night was our neighbor propositioning a hooker for $100/hour.

[zx-greg]

Day 3, Sunday, May 7 – Las Vegas to home, 371 miles



After an uneventful night we got down to the business of finding a place that could change a tire on a Sunday morning. Miles scored some sympathy with a local stunter shop. The two guys there said they’d change the tire so long as we got there before the owner showed up.



We were on the road around 12:30 with a brand new set of Michelin Pilots on Miles’ Triple. It was a $500 set of tires but at least it came with a night at a motel in Vegas, right?

Ever head towards LA from Las Vegas on a Sunday afternoon? You share two lanes of I-15 with tens of thousands of your neighbors. We were not looking forward to that so we headed due east almost to Pahrump before jumping off on Old Spanish Trail into Tecopa. We were within 10 miles of the entrance to Death Valley National Park but we would not enter.



Instead we headed southwest on to Baker for lunch. Air conditioning was a welcome relief from the 104 degree temperature outside. We discussed our trip home, and agreed to separate. Miles would head due south through the Mojave National Preserve, Joshua Tree National Park, and Anza Borrego State Park before heading west to home. I would head southwest lane splitting for almost 60 miles of the gridlocked I-15 Vegas-LA traffic before heading south through the Big Bear Lake mountain resort area and into LA.



This was my third attempt to visit Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley. Maybe fourth time is a charm?

The trip was otherwise fantastic. Even the detour was nice, looking back. I would have missed that sunset if we had gone tearing off through central Nevada looking for aliens. The luggage worked out well. Camping was easy in the desert (no need for a tent). I now know how to pack without saddlebags for my upcoming trips and still have space to ride. We had time to spend at the Grand Canyon slowing down a bit and seeing it. As expected, the company I kept was terrific. And as Miles said, the only problem with the scenic roads was that the scenery around them was so distracting.

[paxman1]

Thanks for the pics and trip report I so enjoy these things from everyone at this forum. All of them inspire me . When did you take this trip ? How long and would you change anything if you could ?

Thanks again,

Mark