And back again.. CO-WY-UTBDR-NV to CA

Last August I took a quick and fairly direct trip from Auburn CA out to Denver to show up for orientation for a college program I started. As seen here... http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=819387 After the ride, I left my bike at a buddy's house and flew back to CA to resume work. A month later with some time to kill, I flew back to Colorado to take a less direct route back to CA. I knew I wanted to drive through Estes park and see Lake Granby, after that I figured I'd wander my way to the UTBDR for a hundred mile taste of trail, then slab it back to CA on highway 80 with a pitstop at Bonneville. Not too much to write from here on out so it's mostly a photo dump in chronological order. Schpedoinkle...

New tires (:








Mrs. Elk... Came whipping around corner to a decent little herd.






Sausagefest






Got lost above Lake Granby for half a day on trails that disintegrated into nothing.. Had a few uncomfortable moments realizing I probably couldnt get back up some of the steep and rocky trails I was going down.


Favorite picture of the trip.. That's Granby.


Good luck shined on me and I found my way out with only a few bails off the bike. Set up camp, had a cigar, ate some mac and cheese and froze my balls off. Got down to 21F, had to scrape ice off the bike in the morning. Not a bad first day. (:

I agree. Granby is a pretty pic. And the tires? What kind and did you like them?

It's a Heidenau 150 on the rear, note the super awesome solid rubber strip, and a TKC front. I'm torn over the tires, the Heidenau's performance in the mud and loose dirt makes me depressed. Love the TKC front but I must admit the speed wobbles on the freeway are a bit annoying. On the road the Heidenau is perfect. While I'm happy with the road performance and bummed on the dirt, I have to wonder if I went with the TKC rear if I'd be so irritated with the road performance that it would trump the dirt performance. Tough call as I spend a lot of time on slab and yet still want something that will dig. Ill try the TKC next, hopefully I'll still be ok with the slab riding.

As stated before, frozen man parts in the morning. Packed up and headed wyomingish.












Stopped off at a bar in Wyoming for a burger and Guiness. Had a little help from this gal.






Saw a sign for Flaming Gorge so I headed south out of Wyoming down to Utah.















Set up camp and headed into a nearby town to pick up a steak and a couple tall cans












Stopped off at Bear Lake UT for a throwback pepsi before I start the UTBDR (;


















Came across a Utah whorehouse


Freeze dried lasagna, freeze dried ice cream, a cigar and no beer. :l

That is a spectacular photo!!!

Pleasant to see HDR done right and not a gaudy over vibrant over contrast'ed photo.

Woke up early, looked around for the cat that shit in my mouth then remembered I had a cigar the night before. Time to hit the trail, wasn't feeling the camp breakfast option so I headed to town to restock, grab some food and jump back on the UTBDR again. Closest civilization was the SW corner of Wyoming. Great trail so-far, definitely glad I downloaded the tracks from the website, some of the views I took in were fantastic, I can't wait for the Colorado tracks.



Ermegherd!!!


Ermegherd Ermegherd Ermegherd!!!!!! Talk about one stop shopping


Back to the trail























Big F'n Bee





The Great Stanky Salt Lake. If all of Utah was like the Salt Lake area I'd hate it. As it is, especially on this trip, I found a new appreciation for UT. It's amazing how drastically the scenery can change in a short distance.


I decided to cut my trail riding a little short and peel off on the highway to take a storm I was trying to avoid head-on. Every direction I could go had black clouds looming over it, I figured I'd ride NW to 80 and get hosed. At least if I get dumped on on the freeway, if it gets too bad I can always get a cheesy motel for the night and dry out. From Salt Lake to Wendover I got dumped on off and on but not enough to pull off. I had it in my head to ride the Bonneville Salt Flats at night and camp somewhere close by so I let my goretex do it's thing, put in a little Megadeth in the earbuds and let the freeway melt by.


By the time I was 50 miles out of Wendover the weather cleared up into a pretty epic sunset.




Bonneville :)


On my iphone I managed to see some dirt trails from satellite imagery, thought it might lead somewhere cool so started looking for trails out in the hills above the flats. Finally found a good trail that kept climbing, took it till I ran out of trail and set up camp. Couldn't really see anything as it was pitch black so I just made some food and hit the sack. The view in the morning was beyond spectacular.



My Dinner guest


Tarantulas are suckers for freeze dried Mac and Cheese. Knowing this makes them less creepy.


UP NEXT: Waking up to realize I camped on the top of the mountain >:)

I just read your CA to CO ride report and enjoyed the photos you've taken. What kind of camera are you using?

Great pics and report.

Great photos. I would have shit if I saw that spider while camping.

Woke up one morning in Baja to find a six inch long centipede in my sleeping bag with me. Holy crap!!

How is the BSN program going? Thanks for the RR.

JG

sweet!

DirtWarrior: You're not going to be believe this but 100% of my pictures are from my iphone 4s :) I use the apps Pro HDR, BeFunky Pro and 360. All of my favorites came from Pro HDR, brilliant app.

Tank and eakins: Thank you sirs, glad to see you guys are enjoying the RR.

Live2ride Tahoe: Just sent you a response back on your message. Yeah I think I would have crapped my bag worse on the centipede, spiders don't bug me too much luckily. The BSN program is expensive but easy busy work.. I'll be glad to be done so I don't have to worry about the MAGNET push with the hospitals. On a side note, in honor of your forum name, here's a couple pictures of riding in Tahoe 2 days ago on NYE morning.

It took me a few hours to fall asleep last night as the winds got a little crazy with the non-stop tent flapping going on. I figured it was probably from not having much wind protection as there really wasn't much of anything around me when I set up camp. In the morning I realized this was because I managed to camp on the mountain top. The only thing higher then me was a rock spire that I couldn't resist climbing for a photo op.



Forgive me for taking a ton of pictures of my campsite, I was pretty proud of myself..














Once I thoroughly documented my campsite, I headed down to try the salt flats in the day and see if there was anything going on.. As luck would have it, there was a race that day













Wicked tough


I heard this one did 400 something mph..








I finally tore myself away from drooling over the races and hit the road in search of food covered in gravy..
F yeah..


The rest of the day was pretty boring.. I-80, good weather, 500 miles of slab in one day. Put a good play list on the earbuds and phased out until I got home.

Auburn.






Thanks for following along

BRUTSQD!

Spectacular report and brilliant photos.
Mmmm, Pepsi in a bottle.

Great pics from the iPhone and +1 on HDR accenting the natural look w/out distracting. Sweet sunrise surprise camping spot payoff too! That's always worth a bunch of shots and you must have been pretty jazzed. Your in the zone when it all comes together like that. Thanks for the ride along.

Rich

Nice campsite! Enjoyed your pics and write-up.

Think this one is worth quoting one more time

Freakin beautiful photos and good story. Amazing the quality shots that come from our phones nowadays :huh

Thanks UpSt8, yeah I've been pretty surprised with the pictures it's been able to take. I still need to get a real camera and figure out how to use it. Some of the HDR pictures posted by the inmated are mind blowing.
-T

Hi BRUTSQD. Great ride report and pics. Thanks for taking the time to post.
Your campsite at the Salt Flats on top of the mountain brought back memories. I've been there but didn't spend the night... Most of the time a trail that dead end is a pain, but once in the while you get to the end and you've got to stop to take it all in. I felt that spot was one of them...
I see you rode with a GPS. Would it be ok for you to share your gps track? Or even a google map of your dirt roads?

QSrider, I actually didn't really use my gps much outside of Colorado and Utah. I found the trail next to the flats by looking at sattelite imagery and zooming in to see established trails while I was driving around in the dark. From bear lake Idaho I followed the top 1/3 of the UTBDR route from ID south all the way to highway 50. Absolutely loved the trail, fast, scenic and close enough to civilization at regular intervals to pull off for supplies aka beer. If you go to the UTBDR website you can download their tracks as I did and jump on the trail wherever is closest to you. This next summer ill be finishing the souther portion of the UTBDR and doing the ORBDR and WABDR in the early fall. Hope this helps, happy trails
-T