Day 8

From Cannonville back to Escalante over some snowy mountain passes.

We took off very early in the morning from our Cannonville, Utah motel. We were the only ones there as it was Sunday and they were closed-----had the whole place to ourselves. I found this beautiful backcountry road thru Cowboy land just Northwest of Tropic, Utah --open range country. And there were many cattle crossings. It was very nice and cool and there was the ever present Utah blue sky.     I caught this old road going North off of route 12 going right passed the West side of the tiny Bryce Canyon airport.
This picture was taken going up to Barney Top mountain. I wasn't sure if the trail would take us thru this area. We talked to a camper and he assured us the trails and roads went over the pass. He didn't know of the snow we ran into tho.
We read this sign going up to Barney Top Mountain---it was by Pine Lake which is about 10.5 miles Northeast of Tropic, Utah.
I'm thinking of entering the Paris Dakar race-----well, maybe when they make it a dualsport ride.

We rode thru this stuff for miles-----always thinking that around the corner it would be impassable.
If we had to go back it would really mess things up for us. I thought this was so neat-----such a straight stretch of mountain top riding----which is very unusual. This was on Barney Top Mountain---elevation about 10,200ft.
Yeh-----I'm stuck again !!!! No need for a kickstand. Kenny helped me out and we proceeded on. Sometimes you could ride confidently on top of the frozen snow----sometimes you would sink down in the soft snow. And sometimes you would go over the handlebars converting from hard to soft to hard !!!!
A jeep had went this far--heh, heh, heh, heh !!! Looks like bait for a hungry dog to me.  I'm standing on a frozen 6ft. deep snow drift and there is another one about 200ft. beyond it. We are at the peak of the mountain. We could have turned back--but it wasn't our style. I can brag about that now that us old farts luckily made it thru this stuff. As I scouted ahead on foot and then on my bike------we could talk to each other with the helmet communicators in case one of us got in trouble

Here is Kenny riding right over the same drift. This picture is just from the other side. We went around the next snow drift and luckily never hit anything this bad again.
Out of the snow we had a beautiful view and a nice ride down the switchbacks of the mountain. Escalante is probably visible from this overlook. We kept going North when all of a sudden my GPS went into another county and I lost all trail and road detail. It was very cold--there was much snow and ice and we were without navigation and I turned back and took Old Escalante Road into Escalante. My buddy Kenny has kidded me ever since about turning around when the GPS had no detail. I sometimes wished we had went on-gotten lost-froze to death---starved to death--never to see our loved ones again :)  I have been very careful since to load plenty of detail into my GPS--never to suffer such humiliation again :)
We rode right down into Escalante, Utah again and wanted to stay with our good friend Jim at the Circle D Motel. Jim owned the restaurant building next door also. They had the best homemade pies in the world. And we were lucky enough to sample them twice on this trip.
Please--if your ever in Escalante, stay with Jim and his wife at the Circle D Motel. There's fancier in town, but we loved staying with Jim. Jim has 3 motorcycles--a Gold Wing, a Honda Shadow and Suzuki 250 which was actually his wife's. Plus a 4-wheeler and 2 six wheelers----Polaris's I believe. And if he likes you---he'll put you in the "Suite". Which is where we stayed.

Day 9      Up Lost Creek, Thru Death Box Hollow, Over Hell's Backbone Bridge, thru Wolvering Loop trail, Across the Colorado again, into Blanding, Utah.