Less Talkin', More Rockin' 2012 LA to GC ADV Ride

[FYYFF]

Originally Posted by RedRockRider

Great ride. Very entertaining to follow along. Thanks for posting.

Since you are at Navajo Lake, a tribute pic of my bike near the "end" of the lake on the way down (via dirt) to Zion.



Thanks again. Great write-up and pics!

Thanks RRR. Navajo Lake was so beautiful. Camp host told us that it is 800 feet deep.

[browneye]

My one pic of the lake. As the sun was getting low the color of the water and sky just jumped out at you.

Off to the right here is Navajo Lake Resort. There are log cabins, a general store, and boat launch. This place is just beautiful. And Utah is very OHV friendly. The whole area is cross-crossed with trails open to motorcycles and ATV's. It's used but not abused. The trails and roads are dusty.




Once we got to Navajo Lake and found a suitable campsite, everybody got setup for the night. Half the group wanted to hang out, then go back to Ducks Creek for some relax time and dinner. Half wanted to ride up to Cedar Breaks to see it since we were so close. Highway 14 cuts across Dixie National Forest. As you climb from east to west you hit Duck Creek, a quaint little town and campground, then Navajo Lake, and if you keep going you turn and head north into Cedar Breaks.

Highway 14 has been closed since October 2011 due to a massive slide, about 8 miles from Cedar City. So currently the only way to get to the 15 freeway is to go north through Cedar Breaks.

Joel, Paul, Frank, and I, rode up and into the Monument. It's even prettier than Grand Canyon, just not as huge. But definitely large and very picturesque for sure. The colors are amazing.



Way off in the distance, in the valley below, is St. George Utah. Cedar Breaks is at ten thousand feel elevation. Yes, it's closed in the winter. In fact, the campground up there had not opened yet.

[Ford_Prefect]

Originally Posted by Cedar Breaks National Monument

Highway 14 is open Monday through Thursday from 7 pm to 7 am, and on Friday from 5 pm through the weekend until Monday at 7 am. This will continue to be the schedule throughout July. Before traveling, please check www.restore14.com.

Since you mentioned HWY 14, I thought I would post this up for you... just in-case someone, like me, sees the Cedar Breaks NM and thinks "Hey that would be cool, perhaps I should go there this week." :)

Which I just may have to do now that you posted up these wonderful photos, it looks very charming.

Here is the link to their page, which is where I found the quote.

http://www.nps.gov/cebr/index.htm

Cheers

[browneye]

Originally Posted by Ford_Prefect

Since you mentioned HWY 14, I thought I would post this up for you... just in-case someone, like me, sees the Cedar Breaks NM and thinks "Hey that would be cool, perhaps I should go there this week." :)

Which I just may have to do now that you posted up these wonderful photos, it looks very charming.

Here is the link to their page, which is where I found the quote.

http://www.nps.gov/cebr/index.htm

Cheers

Yes this is so. Which leads me to my final segment, my ride home...

We found out hwy 14 was closed while we were doing our trip planning. So we planned to take a dirt route south from Navajo Lake along the eastern edge of Zion. Some of the group actually did go this way, watch for an upcoming report from them on this leg.

With the nps site we learned they had just opened the hiway for traffic into Cedar City on memorial weekend. They were also opening it overnight when the road crews were done, so from 7pm to 7am. Once we got to Navajo Lake it was the eve of my departure to head home on Wednesday. I made mention to the group that I really wanted to just hit the hiway and get back to Mesquite to the car and make the long trek back to the LA basin. But I would have to get up bloody early as the hiway closed back down at 7am. And Utah is an hour ahead, so 6am our time.

Well, 4:40am I woke up and checked the time and figured I had about an hour to pack up the tent and gear and hit the road. So I went to work. I hauled my gear down to the parking lot so as not to wake anyone at camp. I finally got everything loaded and rolling by 5:40. It was at least a 20 minute ride to the closure so I figured it would be really tight. Othwerwise I would have to go north through Cedar Breaks, out to the 15, and south, at least 50-60 miles extra.

By the time I was pulling out a few sleepy heads were starting to rise, said goodbye to riddler990 who thought he had food poisoning as he had been barfing all night. Rruugger and Buster714 shook hands and said goodbye.

I was flying, railing the corners, riding that ol' husky like a sportbike to get there before the closure. I got to the road closure right about 7am Utah time and rode around the barricade, kept going out the pass. Well gee, the closure isn't for another several miles. Finally I came to the construction closure and the guy had just padlocked the gate and was walking away. I rolled up and he looked back, then shook his head, like oh boy, what's this sorry sucker doing here. I stopped and shut down and said in my friendliest voice, "Pretty please?? I don't think I have enough fuel to make it all the way back up and around the detour." So he unlocked the padlock, opened the gate and let me through.

I kept going down the grade towards the contruction site. They have the roadbed rebuilt and were working on paving it. They already had the steamrollers out and were watering the gravel getting ready to lay down some pavement. I kept going, finally getting to the Cedar City end of the closure. I went by a row of contstruction trucks and I could see the guys looking to see what the hell a motorcycle was doing riding through there. I got to the other locked gate at the end and there wasn't a soul in sight. I stopped, got off, and thought someone would see me and come unlock the gate. Hmmm...I don't see anyone coming. Now what? So I looked out to the ends of the gates, one side was the embankment, not much clearance, the other side was a drop-off cliff at the end of a K-rail with just enough room to ride through. So away I went and made it to Cedar City for coffee by 6:20 Utah time.

The rest of the trek was uneventful. I made some calls as I had not had any cell service for at least a couple of days, and made it back to the car by 9am. A 7 hour freeway drive and I was back home.

This trip will be a forever memory of adventure, good times, commeraderie, and excitement. I am so ready to do it again!

[NSFW]

Originally Posted by FYYFF

After lunch we took pavement to our last camp spot, Navajo Lake at Dixie National Park. I don't need to tell you how beautiful it was. Half of the group left to see an other close by scenic area while rest of us went down to the lake to look around and take some pictures.





We had this thick forest on the back of our camp ground full of deer. Unfortunately I couldn't take any pictures of them.

ers, glad you and other took pics of the lake while we were out riding....

Originally Posted by browneye

My pic of the lake. As the sun was getting low the color of the water and sky just jumped out at you.
Off to the right in the pic is Navajo Lake Resort. There are log cabins, a general store, and boat launch. This place is just beautiful. And Utah is very OHV friendly. The whole area is cross-crossed with trails open to motorcycles and ATV's.


Joel, Paul, Frank, and I, rode up and into the Monument. It's even prettier than Grand Canyon, just not a huge. But large and pretty for sure.



Way off in the distance, in the valley below, is St. George Utah. Cedar Breaks is at ten thousand feel elevation. Yes, it's closed in the winter. In fact, the campground up there had not opened yet.

chris...those are nice!

cedar breaks is only @15 miles from the campground, easy to get to and fun highway.

me, paul and frank behind the visitor center



this reminds me of bryce canyon



after stopping at the first vista by the visitor center, we went and rode up to check out the views from the other overlooks



frank



from a different vantage point






on the north view overlook



without the PPs



you can tell the road to cedar has lots of curves



on our way back, stopped to see navajo lake from the hill above



our camp is just across the lake

[STU CAZZO]

I was a little lazy on the third day in the camera department, so I only took a few! I will post what I have! I was kind of dissappointed that our stay at "the Weap" was so short, there was lots of exploring that could have been done, but we had to move on to Indian Hollow.

This was a fast pace day with a lot of smooth dirt roads and a alot of slab! The beauty returned after lunch at Nedra's and a our fuel stop. The following roads were like riding on ball bearings and kept climbing to bring us to the higher elevation campground at Indian Hollow. This was a tiny little camp so we had to cram in due to the limited usable tent pads. We hiked down to the lookout which had some spectacular perspective and then went back to camp to kick back and end the chilly night with a nice campfire.

We woke up early the next day for the following segment Pt Sublime-N. Rim-Lee's Ferry.


Gas up!



Eat up!


Wait up!


Tim & Jon chillin

[STU CAZZO]

For me this was the most pleasurable day of ridding. We left Indian Hollow and headed for Pt Sublime. Riding through these forests was spectacular. I didn't have my GPS but good thing the others did, because its soo easy to take a wrong turn and get lost in these forests.

Getting to Pt Sublime took some time but the view is the best I've seen of the GC. At Pt. Sublime you are at the Nothern end of the GC and feels like your standing over it. The feeling is Sublime and neverending!! I could of stayed here for hours! We took a break and some pics and kept moving on.

Next we would enter the GC National Park via fire road at the North Rim. We stopped and had some lunch then moved on past the Vermillion Cliffs to Lee's Ferry.

This is what most of the roads looked like.


Pt. Sublime



ERSIN


TIM



Me!!


Day 4 to be continued.......But for now I gotta boggie!!

[NSFW]

about time to see frank's version.




come by tomorrow, i have your stuff left in my truck.

[browneye]

Originally Posted by h8chains

about time to see frank's version.

Cool pix too.



EDIT: BTW fellas...9K views. Whoa.

[liorsmotoride]

[STU CAZZO]

Originally Posted by h8chains

about time to see frank's version.




come by tomorrow, i have your stuff left in my truck.

O.K. Thanks Joel

[NSFW]

Originally Posted by STU CAZZO

O.K. Thanks Joel

frank no rush if you don't have enough time. have fun in montana. send me your spot share page if you get to figure out how to use that thing.



pano of cedar breaks



after cedar breaks, we rode to duck creek for dinner





missing are chris and tim



the food was good except for jon who has a sensitive gastro system....... strange, we all had the same burger

[MNCherryinCA]

Wow...awewsome pics! Nice RR!

[M1Jeep]

Day four entailed leaving Lee's Ferry and heading to the Navajo Bridge for some pics and then to our final camping destination - Mojave Lake.

Leaving Lee's Ferry camp - Aram:




Navajo Bridge:






John (rrugger):


The visitor's center was also beautiful:




From the Navajo Bridge we slabbed it a short while to the trail head (Johnson Canyon) that leads through the Vermilion Cliffs:


The road was fast and fun. FYYFF:




Dropping into Glendale, UT:


Glendale, UT did not have any restaurants that we noticed so we continued down Hwy 89 to Orderville, UT and found this neat little ice cream shoppe/deli:








After lunch we hit the pavement to our final stop - Navajo Lake:




The ride to camp was ultra scenic!




We finally made it to camp and picked our spots. My camp neighbors:




Joel, Chris, Paul, and Frank went to check out Cedar Breaks NM while the rest of us were pooped and wanted to change into our regular clothes and check out the lake. The plan is to meet them at the restaurant in town afterwards.


There are some really nice camp spots along the lake. Park your car in the lot and hike your gear 100' or so into your camp spot. Niiiice!




Jon, Aram, and Ersin:


The fellas:


Camp the next morning. It was so F-ing cold that that night. It was around 1:30am when I heard Joel, "Guys! Guys! I'm freezing my ass off...can I sleep in your tent?!" (...ZZZzzzIIIP!) Thank God Ersin had the larger 3-person tent!





This was one of the best camp spots of the trip for me with the exception of the camp host cleaning the latrine at 6am! But that's another story! Second to Toroweap. Just as beautiful, but in its own different way. Each camp we stayed at was drastically different from the next, which was exciting because each day was a surprise.

Day 5 to follow...

[FYYFF]

Originally Posted by M1Jeep

Camp the next morning. It was so F-ing cold that that night. It was around 1:30am when I heard Joel, "Guys! Guys! I'm freezing my ass off...can I sleep in your tent?!" (...ZZZzzzIIIP!) Thank God Ersin had the larger 3-person tent!

Dudeeeee.... That was out little secret...

Yeah, that's what happened. It was really cold that night. In the middle of the night I heard a scream "Guys! It is f'ing freezing out here, I'm f'ing freezing. Ersin, let me in"
It wasn't like I was in a house with a locked door. I said OK but he was already in the tent setting up his sleeping bag.
Once Joel was in the tent it took him 30 minuted to get comfy and fall a sleep. And then I had a Dolby THX sound of snoring. Rich on one side, Joel on the other...