vacation pictures #3: biking Gooseberry Mesa, Utah

[ilanarama]

After two days in Zion NP (and five days of our road trip) we were desperately in need of a shower. We left the park and drove into Springdale, the town just outside the south entrance, and bought showers at a small outfitter's store that some of the people we'd talked to in the campground had recommended. While I showered, Britt chatted with the guy behind the counter about canyoneering, rock climbing, hiking and biking, and ended up buying a mountain-bike map and getting a recommendation for Gooseberry Mesa. The couple we'd camped next to (the ones with the shiny red Sportsmobile) had mentioned it as a nice place to camp for free on BLM land with a great set of biking trails. So that's where we headed.



It was indeed pretty nifty. We found an out-of-the-way spot to set up the van, and then went exploring on the bikes. The next day, we did two different rides. First we rode the "Windmill Loop," which involved taking a dirt road across the mesa to the north edge, then riding back along the edge on a trail that wound through brush and slickrock and was sometimes literally on the edge. Then, after lunch back at the van, we rode the "Practice loop" trail, which was like a slickrock playground, then followed the jeep road which cuts completely across the mesa to the cliffs at the far west end. (It was a very cool jeep road, alternating slickrock and sand, and one that I was much happier to bike than drive.)




Neither of us are particularly skilled mountain bike riders, so we stuck to the easier trails. This also meant we didn't have to keep our eyes glued on the trail all the time, and could instead look around at all the cool scenery, including the remarkable red and white cliffs that fanned out from the mesa, and the beautiful flowers. (Cactus flower picture especially for jeddy83. Note that there are two different color flowers on the same cactus, and that one of the flowers has a bee in it, enjoying a good nectar wallow.)



(By the way: for those of you not familiar with Flickr, if you click on any of the pictures I posted, you will go to the Flickr page for that photo, from which you can look at other size versions. I uploaded all of these as 1024x768, and it's worth looking at the large version of the stripey cliff picture. And just wait until the next two batches - we got into some incredibly photogenic places.)

After our rides, we headed south, over the mesa on the other side, then east through Fredonia and the national forest just north of the Grand Canyon, and then finally back north along House Rock Road, which lies along the Paria - Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness. We camped about five miles south of the ranger station we'd visited on our third day (yes, we were going in circles), planning to go the next morning and try again for a Coyote Buttes permit. (And we saw jackrabbits at our camp spot. Can you see them?)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

That was what I was remembering the whole time I was reading this and drooling... er... looking over the pictures. I'm *very* glad all the teeth were still in residence when you returned!

Eric W.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Hee! Both of us fell over a few times, though - our new bikes (these are the ones that we got as part of the SMB deal) have the kind of pedals that click into shoes, and we bought shoes to go with them, and so occasionally we twist our feet and the shoes don't pop out and out we go. Britt has fallen more than I have, mostly because he attempts things I just look at and say, "No way," but both of us now have bruised shins from failed attempts to get out of the pedals before toppling. Fortunately neither of us fell on any of the numerous cacti in the area. :-)

[(Anonymous)]

[chuckle] Yeah, I've been a victim of that too. Mine tend to be the pull-up-at-a-stoplight-thinking-it's-about-to-change-only-to-discover-it-hasn't-and-I -have-no-forward-momentum----I-haven't-clicked-out----I-suck-at-trackstands----and-slowly-topple-over type... Very amusing for the other folks stopped at the light, I'm sure

Eric W.