Southern
Utah has some of the most spectacular scenery on earth. Utah's Kane County
has barely 6,000 residents in its 2.5 million acres, but it includes 3 National
Parks (Zion, Bryce & Grand Canyon) and 2 National Monuments (Lake Powell/Glen
Canyon & Grand Staircase-Escalante). The land is gouged by deep
river gorges and the largest collection of slot canyons in the world.
Utah is also the most OHV-friendly state in America. Our friend, Phil
Sherman, invited us to join him in organizing a ride out of the Kane County
town of Kanab.
Patty
and I signed on for 10 days. We arrived with the first wave and left with
the last. The first thing we needed to do was a little exploring. We visited
an old movie set then hiked to a place with spectacular
"toadstool" rock formations. The hike
took us along a scenic canyon and up onto a bluff
with those weirdly eroded sculptures. The next day we took off on our ATV's
and found a few water problems, sand
traps, and a cave full of water. We also ran into
a number of washouts and went to the trouble of filling in the first one.
We made it across only to be stopped by a much deeper
washout around the bend. We also found some Anasazi ruins under a rock overhang.
The ruins were pretty deteriorated, but there was a family
portrait on the wall and pottery shards
laying around everywhere.
This
area of Utah is world famous for it's OHV trails. Kane County includes segments
of the Paiute and Great
Western Trails as well as a lesser-known riding area called Hog
Canyon. That one gave us some of the more challenging routes that we've
encountered. We even rode some trails that were rated "double
red diamond", which is several steps ABOVE a mere "black
diamond" rating. When Patty and I were learning Rock Climbing skills
a number of years ago, our instructor stressed the importance of maintaining
3 points of contact with the ground at all times. We put that lesson
to good use in Hog Canyon. As you probably know, photographs never do justice
to the terrain. Our pictures never seem to portray how steep
and scary the ascents/descents are in real life. On more than one occasion
we had to pile weight on to keep from flipping.
Our
next adventure was a 20 mile run up the Paria River. We've always wanted to
do the multi-day backpack through the lower part of the Paria River from Buckskin
Gulch to Lee's Ferry. Now, however, the thought of a multi-day backpack is
just not as appealing as it once was. Riding through a slightly
less spectacular section of the river is a reasonable alternative that
still offers a few challenges. There must be a hundred river
crossings in the 20 mile stretch that we rode. The trek started out with
Bob stalling in the middle of the stream and Patty rescuing
him with her winch. Then Patty had her turn when she got
lost and asked Phil for directions. He swears he pointed
right and she went left. But, in any case, she drove into a deep pool
and screamed as the muddy water came right over the handlebars! The scenery
through the entire ride was outstanding. And to top it off, the canyon narrowed
until we could no longer ride and had to take
off on foot to the end where our
group assembled at an impassable dry fall.
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