The Adventure Begins

The V-Strom and the Wee-Strom
(Lee's 1000 cc) (Bernie's 650cc)


First of several high passes

View of hwy 12 through the Escalante

Day 1 on the bikes – Price to Escalante

April 4, 2008

We arrived in Price, Utah just before noon and met our congenial vehicle storing host, Denis. After a tour of Denis’s garage and his interesting collection of bikes and cars we unloaded and prepared our bikes.

Our planned route took us down hwy 10 then hwy 72 through Fish Lake national forest and finally onto hwy 12 into the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument. (ie park). This route exhibited some of the best Utah scenery that I have seen. There are some significant elevation changes along the route and vegetation changes from desert sage brush to mountain pine and poplar forests. The highest point along our route was 9600 ft asl. Luckily we both brought electrically heated jacket liners because the temperature was not much above freezing along the high ridges. There was still significant snow on the hillsides but the road was clear.

Our overnight location is a motel in the town of Escalante. Tomorrow we are continuing south on a mix of secondary highways and dirt roads. If the weather is warm enough we plan to camp tomorrow night in Winslow, Arizona.

20 Hours on the Road

April 3, 2008

As I left Fernie heading for Calgary to pick up Lee I had a nagging feeling that I had forgotten something.

The plan was to load my bike on the truck and haul an empty trailer to Lee’s place in Calgary, load his bike and pack the truck. After a good night sleep we would head south. Everything was falling into place nicely. With the bikes loaded. We opened a bottle of wine and enjoyed on of Lee’s fantastic meals. Suddenly the light went on. My helmet! Where is my helmet? Oh Shit! I left it in Fernie.

We made a few calculations and discovered that it was only 80K out of our way to reroute through Fernie. So we were on the road at 5am, met Linda at the Blue Toque for breakfast and then continued south. Hopefully with all needed items.

The trip was uneventful. We arrived at a Motel 6 in Lehi, Utah just south of Salt Lake City, almost exactly 20 hours after our early rise in Calgary. It was a long day but it’s only a couple of hours to Price, Utah where has Lee made arrangements to leave the truck and trailer for 6 weeks.