Day 5
Out of Escalante to Cannonville, Utah, Paradise Canyon, Death Ridge, Grosvenor Arch. And the search for the Paria river bed.
| Jim at the motel in Escalante was vital in pointing our way towards some neat riding South of town in Paradise Canyon and Death Ridge. We rode right out of Escalante down the Smoky Mountain trail into paradise canyon and entered "Death Ridge". At least I guess we did-----we rode thru it and lived to tell about it. I don't know the story yet of Death Ridge but will find out. |  |
| I supposed I'm on
top of Death Ridge in this picture--------maybe I'm dead and am too stupid
to know it !!! Overlooking this valley was breathtaking---gasp, gas,
cough, gag, gag !!!! Kenny lets get out of here !!!!!!
You can see Kenny's dual GPS set up here. It worked out very well for him. The riding here took us South down Alvey Wash, Southwest thru Little Valley Wash, South passed Horse Mountain, then West to Grosvenor Arch. |
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| Ok-----"Grosvenor" Arch----on our top ten list of pretty sights. We had a great lunch here of crackers, cheese, ham and Orio cookies-----topped off with a cool gatorade. Kenny unloaded his camera tripod here for a great shot of the both of us. |  |
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Grosvenor Arch
A few miles Southeast of Kodachrome Basin State park. Look closely---there are actually 2 holes in the rock. |
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| We rode into Cannonville, Utah and I rode passed this old gas pump and was laughing in my helmet. I had to go back and get a picture. If you can't read the sign on the pump, it reads "Too Pooped To Pump". And the old gas station in the background was neat. |  |
| This picture was highly significant to our trip. Can you figure it out---I figured not. We went down a dead end trail searching for an easy entrance to the Paria River bed. There was a lot of deep sand on the trail and we had to backtrack about 10 miles---which I despise as I don't like to ride the same place twice. After bactracking I suddenly noticed I didn't have my glasses on under my riding goggles. Oh no---I couldn't read or see my GPS !!!!! Kenny knew where they were and said I laid them on the ground back at the dead end. Where tho??????? "Right where you pee-ed he said. So I ride back the 10 miles while Kenny waited but when I got there I couldn't see my glasses anywhere. Well----I finally seen the wet spot and there they were-----so now you know what the dark spot is on the ground next to my glasses. More than you wanted to know maybe ??? |  |
| We gave up
on finding the Paria river bed finally and I thought we would have to go
on and by--pass it. We went back to the Motel for a good nights sleep.
Riding the Paria river bed was to be one of the big highlights of our
trip. Me and Kenny were so dissapointed. The river was in a very deep
canyon and you rode down it and ended up at the old movie set of "Gunsmoke"---an
old show made in the 50's. It was last used for some shots of the Clint
Eastwood movie "The Outlaw Josie Wales" in 1976, my very
favorite movie. I had to ride it----and after checking in with the BLM
(Bureau of Land Management) office and the nice lady there--it was declared legal riding ----or so we
thought. She told us it was legal to ride our bikes down the river
bed---but then said "I would like to ask you not to". We would
definitely not do the river bed any harm---as after a rain, all traces of
our passing would be totally gone.
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Day 6 Down the Paria-----and off to the Grand Canyon-----the sign said "Closed for the Winter"--Did we make it---read on to Day 6.