Biking Across America (10 page)

That Saturday had been a hard day of riding, and Sunday promised more of the same. The Hogback was ahead of me, a three-mile section running across a narrow spine of rock with drop-offs on either side and no shoulders. I'd heard horror stories about this
section; bicyclists had even been killed in accidents there. My hope was that since it was Sunday there would be less traffic as I crossed the treacherous stretch.

The morning's passage through Grand Staircase-Escalante was an incredible ride. At Boynton Lookout, I stopped to take in the inspiring vista before me. For miles the road wended its way through a great outdoor cathedral. I rode in awe and reverence, drifting around curves, admiring fascinating and colorful rock formations, gliding through deep canyons. However, the inspiration waned somewhat when, at the lowest reaches of the canyon, I realized I would have to work my way uphill again.

The Hogback, like everything else in life, was not as difficult as advertised and my worries never materialized. I met another biker and asked him how close I was to the Hogback. “You're on it,” he told me. I had already done two of the three notorious miles.

Then came an eight-hour uphill climb to an elevation of 9,600 feet. When I finally arrived at the Homestead Overlook, the views were stunning. The view of the heavens also stunned me. Several storm fronts were joining forces, and heavy black clouds were heading my way. I quickly pushed off and was blessed with miles of downhill.

Five miles out of the town of Grover I saw the sheet of water heading toward me. I ripped my raingear from the panniers and was once again the man in black.

This storm was ferocious. I was on level ground, so at least I could continue pedaling through the mayhem. Water flooded the roadway and pebbles tumbled down the steep banks along the highway. A honk and a wave from a passing motorist told me I wasn't the only crazy person on the road. The friendly greeting came from the driver of a Mustang convertible. His car's top was down and he too was being pummeled by the downpour.

At the intersection of Routes 12 and 24, the little settlement of Torrey bills itself as the Gateway to Capitol Reef National Park. I
found shelter there under the awning of a building. While lamenting my misfortune, I noticed a Days Inn a short distance down the road and knew immediately that my day was done.

I took my bedraggled self to the front desk and was pleased to find a friendly proprietor offering a great deal. A motorcycle rider also arrived and announced that this storm had been the worst he had ridden through in his entire life.

I repeated the routine from the day before, going through another wash, rinse, and dry cycle. Although I was twenty miles short of where I had planned to be, I was comfortable and dry. Surely the worst was behind me and tomorrow would be better.

I was wrong, of course.

Because the storms had forced me to end the previous day earlier than planned, I had not reached my goal of Hanksville. Now I had no idea where I might end up at the end of this day. I was still in areas of extreme desolation and lodging was limited.

It always works out
, I assured myself.

The morning started off in splendid fashion. A few miles, and I entered Capitol Reef National Park. It was another exhilarating ride through canyons and giant rock formations. The park is so named because the spires and giant white domes carved out of Navajo sandstone bear a resemblance to the United States capitol building.

Nestled deep between canyon walls is Fruita. The area's early Mormon settlers planted fruit trees here on three hundred acres along the Fremont River. Many varieties of apple, cherry, peach, and apricot trees grow in twenty-two orchards. Today the National Park Service owns these orchards and tends 2,600 trees. Passersby are welcome to have a free snack, but there is a charge to take home a basketful.

Although I had been blasted by rain only on the last two days, the locals told me they had seen ten straight days of rain. The Fremont had overflowed its banks, and when I saw a giant beaver ambling along, I surmised that he had been rendered homeless by the flooding. Native Americans called the beaver the “sacred center” of the land because the beaver dams create native habitat for other wildlife. The displaced rodent I met was now traveling directly on the yellow line in the sacred center of the road. I recalled hikers on the Appalachian Trail who would sometimes travel by car to avoid difficult sections of the trail. They were given the dubious title of “yellow blazers.” This beaver slowly slogging down the center of the highway was truly yellow blazing. I feared for its life and shepherded it gradually off to the side of the road.

The storms had displaced me too. I had wanted to be in Hanksville the previous night, within reach of Blanding on this new day. But the rain had completely altered my schedule. Blanding was 180 miles from Torrey, an impossible goal for that evening. Instead, I set my sights on the Hite Marina at Lake Powell. That would still be a 100-mile ride, but the skies were cloudless and blue, and the terrain was mostly downhill or flat. I could do it.

From the information I had, lodging at the Hite Marina did not look promising.
But something always works out
, I thought again.

In a valley ringed by flat-topped mesas, I came upon a small, ramshackle building: a market advertising pastries, organic coffee, and freshly baked bread. A coffee break sounded good, and I lifted my bike over the rocks and burrs littering the driveway, walked up the ramp, and announced myself.

With a floppy hat covering long locks, Jack looked like a throwback from the '60s. He ground his organic coffee for my beverage, and I asked how he ended up out here in the middle of nowhere.

“I have forty acres here that own me. The Fremont River flows through the back of my property, so I can irrigate my land. I raise
goats, and I bake bread and pastries in that stone oven I laid up out back.”

“But where were you before ending up here?” I asked, sensing a story.

His answer was something he said he'd heard on a Smothers Brothers show back in the '60s. “If I hadn'ta been there, I wouldn'ta been here.”

Down the road, in Hanksville, I took my time lunching on two hot dogs. The day was extremely hot and I was in no hurry.

At the edge of Hanksville, I left Route 24 and turned south on Route 95, changing direction and now pedaling into a strong headwind. The route led down into a canyon once again, with red walls rising on either side of the highway. The deeper I rode into the canyon, the hotter it became. I pulled off the road and released some air from my tires, hoping to avoid another blowout.

The blue expanse of Lake Powell shimmered in the distance. This lake was created when the Glen Canyon Dam was erected on the Colorado River. Above the dam, canyons were flooded and an entire recreational area developed around the resulting 186-mile lake. I had done a river trip through the Grand Canyon with each of my children individually, and each trip had started just below the dam.

I crossed a bridge over the Colorado, just before the river flowed into the lake. A sign pointed in the direction of Hite Marina, my goal for that day. The marina turned out to be just a small visitor center and a little grocery store. Lodging here, rather than being limited, was nonexistent. The clerk suggested that I could sleep on the banks of Lake Powell. But I had pedaled a hundred miles and wanted to sleep on more than grass.

“Could I possibly continue on to Blanding?” I wondered aloud.

“That's an eighty-mile ride, and most of it's uphill.” The shocked look on the clerk's face told me even more than her words.

There are good ideas and there are bad ideas. This was not one of my better ideas. But I wanted a bed to sleep in. And I wanted very much to get these long and lonely stretches behind me.

It was already six o'clock in the evening, but I reasoned that if I could ride at a rate of 10 mph, it would be possible to reach Blanding by two in the morning. As I said, good ideas, bad ideas.

This was a bad, bad decision.

The sun was setting over the lofty red cliffs. Brilliant orange streaks across the sky announced the ending of the day. It was also the beginning of the longest night of my life.

I soon met a car coming from the direction of Blanding. The young driver, who had a kayak atop the vehicle, stopped and asked if I needed help. I told him I was trying to make Blanding that night.

“You're doing what?” he exclaimed incredulously. “There's nothing between here and Blanding.” I assured him I knew that, but I thought I would be okay. He offered me water, and I filled my bottle from a gallon jug he handed me. “You're more of a man than I am if you pull this off,” he said.

At eight o'clock, darkness set in. I flicked on my headlight—and nothing happened. Not a ray, not even a glow. Nothing. I inserted my extra set of batteries. Still no illumination. The two days of rain had apparently corroded its connections and left me in the darkness. I rubbed, flicked, and manhandled the light till it at last gave forth a feeble beam. As I rode, it occasionally flared to its full power, then flickered out completely. A bump in the road would turn it off, and another bump might turn it on.

Whenever the lamp refused to shine, I found the center or side line on the highway and tried to follow it. But even that pale white line was sometimes difficult to see. Clouds obscured the moon and the night grew eerie. Small trees and bushes took on dark and
sinister shapes, looming up like misshapen creatures of the night. Throughout the entire night, only two vehicles passed me.

I had stopped for a short break when, in the blackness beside me, I heard heavy movement and snorting in the brush. Yes, I was scared out of my wits. The quietness of the night was ripped by my scream, followed by the sound of pounding hooves—running away. I was in open cattle area and had probably happened upon a herd, but it was so dark that I could not make out any shape or form that might have belonged to the snorts and hooves.

I was so alone. The creature that had been stalking me for many days now pounced, and I had no defense to fight it off. Here in the dark wilderness, abject loneliness hit me with a vengeance and toppled all my resistance. Sadness came with the loneliness and rolled over me with such power that I couldn't even pray for comfort; I could only groan.

I am completely alone out here in the darkness. Worse, no one even knows I am here; none of the people I care about know that I am lonely and desperate and miserable
.

I had once before lived through something this awful. That experience also happened along the Colorado River, not far from where I now rode.

On my first river trip through the Grand Canyon, our captain pulled to the riverbank one morning for an excursion into a canyon. Usually these hikes are on well-defined trails, but this was an unmarked walk back to an abandoned miner's cabin. Not everyone on the boat chose to take the hike, and along the way, some who had started decided to turn back. The heat was intense, and we walked along exposed areas where the sun hit us directly. We later learned that the recorded temperature at Phantom Ranch, at the bottom of Grand Canyon, was 120 degrees that day. Only the captain, my daughter, and I reached the mining site. Others gave up the hike and returned to the boat.

On our return, we found one of our group, an older gentleman, lying on the trail. He was one of those who had turned back, but he'd suffered heatstroke and had fallen along the trail. We found him incoherent, with a bleeding face, and out of water.

We were quite a distance from the boat and any assistance. Fearing the man would die if help didn't arrive soon, the captain attempted to radio planes that might be flying overhead, but there was no contact.

I offered to hike back to the rest of the group. But on my own, far from the river, I lost the faint trail and became disoriented. The day was extremely hot. I walked into a spiny cactus and the blood ran down my leg. Under a rock overhang, I took refuge from the sun and begged God to help me.
Please show me how to get back to the boat. And God, if hell is anything like this, help me to live a life to avoid that
.