360 mile Northern Utah loop around the Uinta Mountains
Rider Magazine said they wanted rider stories, and since I'd just finished a "favorite ride", even took some pics, I sent it to them. But they didn't want it, so if you want to read it I figured I'd post it here, since I took the time to write it.
That was the final straw, so I rolled the ST into the shop and pulled the plastic, an all day job, figuring something was loose and started tracing wires. Finally when the power came on and off again I discovered the culprit. One connector was loose in a green three wire plug hidden in the fairing. Bumped just right, it would move a micro millimeter and the fire would go away. A new three prong plug fixed the problem...hopefully. I reinstalled the plastic, another choice chore and when morning came,headed out on a little...one hour test ride, but it didn't quite turnout like I'd planned.
Now Vernal, Utah isn't the end of the world, but like I tell my friends, you can see it from here. It's one of those places you don't go through to get anywhere. One hundred and eighty or so miles from anywhere both ways and HWY40 is the only way to get here unless you wind down from Wyoming.
Leaving Vernal, I joined in the paradeline with the other “Basin†traffic, much of it trucks from theoil fields of Northeastern Utah on HWY 40, westbound. In less than an hour I had pushed through Gusher and Roosevelt, named after Teddy arriving in Duchesne (Dooshane), which had been a bustling place back in my high schooldays of the early 70's when they were building Starvation Reservoir and the rest of the Central Utah Water Project, but it's now mostly boarded up due to the oil slump. In the middle of town, at the only stoplight, I turned north onto SR87, planning to take the upper country back roads home and motored up onto Blue Bench.
Back around 1905, entrepreneur Jesse Knight figured he could irrigate the miles of sage on Blue Bench and turn it into a farming oasis. Didn't happen and although you can still find remains of his miles of concrete irrigation ditches, sage brush is still pretty much the only crop grown there.
With the ST humming along reliable as a rock (again!) and as it was one of those gorgeous early June mornings, instead of making the “quick†loop home, about six miles north of Duchesne I turned left onto SR 35 and headed on the “DO NOT MISS†ride in northern Utah, Circling the High Uinta Mountain Range via Wolf Creek Pass, the Mirror Lake Highway into Wyoming and back past Flaming Gorge reservoir. A little more than an hour ride!
SR 35 out of Duchesne has some interesting things to see, if you watch for them. Like why would anyone carve a monkey's head out of that six foot boulder and is there an Easter Island like body under it?
Thirty miles along the river from Duchesne, I rolled through Tabiona where a statue, with no explanation why, immortalizes another rider who passed through the area.
Just past “Tabby†I passed through Hanna, almost famous for it's one watering hole/restaurant “FabriziosÂâ€, a favorite of local bikers making the Salt Lake-Wolf Creek Pass loop.
At the end of the valley, the road bends to the left when you again cross the Duchesne river and start up Utah's Wolf Creek Pass. The first time I rode Wolf Creek in the early '80's, it wasn't paved. I rode my '83 750 Shadow with my Father- in-law, Ron Liddell on his '81 750 Virago which was a much better ADV ride than the Shadow. Back then it was fifty miles of bad, often muddy road. Today, it's a wonderfully paved rider paradise, ranging between 6,000 and 10,000 feet, but I am pretty sure that we began the Adventure bike infatuation with that first trip.
Wolf Creek asphalt is terrific so it's a favorite loop the Wasatch Front riders make from the Salt Lake City area and is heavily ridden most summer weekends. For some reason there seems to be a lot of motorcycle accidents on Wolf Creek and the “wanna be racers†make it worse, so it's heavily patrolled. Unfortunately, three riders died there last week, riding too close in a group when one bike went down and took two others out. The sign says it all!
Unfortunately, like most of the western forests, many of the evergreen trees here are dead, victims of the Chinese Bark Beetle. It's only a matter of time before this area falls victim to a forest fire.
On top of Wolf Creek is the Masashi Goto monument, which is a good place to take a break and pay your respects to the Japanese aviator whose round the world flight ended in tragedy when he crashed here on July 4[SUP]th,[/SUP] 1929.
After switch backing down off Wolf Creek, I rolled into Francis where many Wolf Creek riders turn back towards the Wasatch, but I turned right at the four way stop and headed towards Kamas, a small early Utah mining town that has exploded into a suburb of the Park City Ski resort just ten miles away. In the middle of Kamas I again turned right, at the light of course, but decided to stop for a burger at Dicks Burger shack as there's no watering holes (or gas) for the next 78 miles of the Mirror lake highway, till you get to Evanston, Wyoming.
The Mirror Lake Highway is heavily traveled, especially on weekends, as the recreation hungry masses of the Wasatch Front flock into the mountains. While it's beautiful ride, you can't make much time, often crawling behind a struggling RV. I wanted to stop, but could only pause at Provo Falls as it was a Saturday with no place to even park a bike! So, I took a quick photo, then headed up over Bald Mountain pass then cruising past the beautiful crystal clear mountain lakes of Lost Lake, Lilly Lake and the famous Mirror Lake, still covered in the middle with ice. Yes, even in June there is still snow along the road.
Suddenly I realize the morning has become afternoon. I've ridden 134 miles since I started out on my “short†ride and now I have to decide whether to turn around and retrace my path or press on towards Evanston, and the 195 miles ahead to Vernal. The 7+ gallon fuel tank on the ST makes the decision, and we ride on, quickly dropping in elevation from the 10,715 ft of Bald Mountain Pass to a low 6749 ft in Evanston (we're in the Rocky Mountains remember?).
There's three ways that you can tell when you're in Wyoming. 1st; the first resident you'll see will be a “goat†or Pronghorn Antelope that easily outnumber the two legged folks who call this vast state home. 2nd; You'll wonder what those miles and miles of wooden fences paralleling the roads are for, but if you've ever spent a winter in Wyoming, you'll know exactly what those “drift fences†are all about. And 3rd; there's almost no place in Wyoming where you can't gaze across hundreds of miles of rolling sage covered hills and not see snow capped mountains way out there in the distance.
After a quick fuel stop in Evanston, I grab I-80 eastbound. Normally I avoid the super slab and it's thousands of semi-trucks that must be passed, but today like the Bandit, I've got a long way to go and a short time to get there, so I endure thirty miles of I-80 until I can exit off onto SR80 into Fort Bridger founded by the famous Jim Bridger and Louis Vasquez with the restored fort named after the famous frontiersman, but there's no time to visit on this “short†test ride.
Just past Fort Bridger I hang a right onto Wyoming SR414 that becomes Utah's SR43 and I rocket across the Wyoming prairie towards Manila, UT as I've still got a lot of twisty mountain road to cover past Manila. Here I let the ST stretch it's legs. I won't admit to rolling along at almost triple digits...for awhile... as I can see the deserted road ahead for miles, but only for awhile as those 53 miles go by pretty fast.
In a few short hours I've almost completely circumnavigated Utah's Uinta Mountains, the only east-west oriented mountain range in the U.S. and Utah's highest point, Kings Peak at 13,534 ft. Right in the middle of Manila I swing right, southbound on SR44 and quickly find myself dropping into the deep multi colored canyons that surround the west end of Flaming Gorge Reservoir. This is another spectacular part of this trip,where at one moment you can see the sapphire blue waters of Flaming Gorge Reservoir sparkling against the surrounding mountains, then a few moments later I've switched back high onto yet another pass where I can see much of the road just traveled that seems to go on forever.
Now I've got to scoot as it's getting late, but in this country especially in the morning or evening, a rider really needs to ride cautiously as the critters are on the move and here they range from half pound squirrels to fifteen hundred pound moose. On this trip alone I've probably seen three dozen deer and a couple hundred antelope. Rounding a corner just past the Flaming Gorge Dam turn off where I join SR191, I find myself bearing down on a massive cow elk and her calf standing broadside in the road. Warily, I slow down to a crawl and allow her to herd her youngster off the road, (you never want to get between a big mama critter and her youngster...ever!) then I roll on and after another two dozen stupendous mountainous twists I finally start down the even sharper hairpin switchbacks (20 mph!) that drop down past the Simplot Phosphate mine where they've moved a whole mountain, arriving back in Vernal just a the sun kisses the ridges to the west.
Having gyrated a bit for pictures and such, Mr. Garmin says we've traveled 363 miles since leaving Vernal a little over seven hours before. Not too bad when you figure I had originally planned on just an hour test ride. But that's the how it is out here in the west. It's a long way to anywhere and sometimes even longer to get back...to the edge of the world!
Rider Magazine said they wanted rider stories, and since I'd just finished a "favorite ride", even took some pics, I sent it to them. But they didn't want it, so if you want to read it I figured I'd post it here, since I took the time to write it.
From the edge of theworld...and back
For months I'd been battling a frustrating electrical problem on my '94 ST1100. Occasionally I'd hit a bump and fire would go away, usually just long enough for the thing to backfire like I'd loosed a round from a .357 magnum, then it would run fine all day...until one day after a ride to the edge of the world, it didn't and I had to push that beast three blocks home. Ever pushed an ST? Luckily it didn't happen while I was out there out at the edge!
Now Vernal, Utah isn't the end of the world, but like I tell my friends, you can see it from here. It's one of those places you don't go through to get anywhere. One hundred and eighty or so miles from anywhere both ways and HWY40 is the only way to get here unless you wind down from Wyoming.
Leaving Vernal, I joined in the paradeline with the other “Basin†traffic, much of it trucks from theoil fields of Northeastern Utah on HWY 40, westbound. In less than an hour I had pushed through Gusher and Roosevelt, named after Teddy arriving in Duchesne (Dooshane), which had been a bustling place back in my high schooldays of the early 70's when they were building Starvation Reservoir and the rest of the Central Utah Water Project, but it's now mostly boarded up due to the oil slump. In the middle of town, at the only stoplight, I turned north onto SR87, planning to take the upper country back roads home and motored up onto Blue Bench.
Back around 1905, entrepreneur Jesse Knight figured he could irrigate the miles of sage on Blue Bench and turn it into a farming oasis. Didn't happen and although you can still find remains of his miles of concrete irrigation ditches, sage brush is still pretty much the only crop grown there.
With the ST humming along reliable as a rock (again!) and as it was one of those gorgeous early June mornings, instead of making the “quick†loop home, about six miles north of Duchesne I turned left onto SR 35 and headed on the “DO NOT MISS†ride in northern Utah, Circling the High Uinta Mountain Range via Wolf Creek Pass, the Mirror Lake Highway into Wyoming and back past Flaming Gorge reservoir. A little more than an hour ride!
SR 35 out of Duchesne has some interesting things to see, if you watch for them. Like why would anyone carve a monkey's head out of that six foot boulder and is there an Easter Island like body under it?
Wolf Creek asphalt is terrific so it's a favorite loop the Wasatch Front riders make from the Salt Lake City area and is heavily ridden most summer weekends. For some reason there seems to be a lot of motorcycle accidents on Wolf Creek and the “wanna be racers†make it worse, so it's heavily patrolled. Unfortunately, three riders died there last week, riding too close in a group when one bike went down and took two others out. The sign says it all!
On top of Wolf Creek is the Masashi Goto monument, which is a good place to take a break and pay your respects to the Japanese aviator whose round the world flight ended in tragedy when he crashed here on July 4[SUP]th,[/SUP] 1929.
The Mirror Lake Highway is heavily traveled, especially on weekends, as the recreation hungry masses of the Wasatch Front flock into the mountains. While it's beautiful ride, you can't make much time, often crawling behind a struggling RV. I wanted to stop, but could only pause at Provo Falls as it was a Saturday with no place to even park a bike! So, I took a quick photo, then headed up over Bald Mountain pass then cruising past the beautiful crystal clear mountain lakes of Lost Lake, Lilly Lake and the famous Mirror Lake, still covered in the middle with ice. Yes, even in June there is still snow along the road.
There's three ways that you can tell when you're in Wyoming. 1st; the first resident you'll see will be a “goat†or Pronghorn Antelope that easily outnumber the two legged folks who call this vast state home. 2nd; You'll wonder what those miles and miles of wooden fences paralleling the roads are for, but if you've ever spent a winter in Wyoming, you'll know exactly what those “drift fences†are all about. And 3rd; there's almost no place in Wyoming where you can't gaze across hundreds of miles of rolling sage covered hills and not see snow capped mountains way out there in the distance.
Just past Fort Bridger I hang a right onto Wyoming SR414 that becomes Utah's SR43 and I rocket across the Wyoming prairie towards Manila, UT as I've still got a lot of twisty mountain road to cover past Manila. Here I let the ST stretch it's legs. I won't admit to rolling along at almost triple digits...for awhile... as I can see the deserted road ahead for miles, but only for awhile as those 53 miles go by pretty fast.
In a few short hours I've almost completely circumnavigated Utah's Uinta Mountains, the only east-west oriented mountain range in the U.S. and Utah's highest point, Kings Peak at 13,534 ft. Right in the middle of Manila I swing right, southbound on SR44 and quickly find myself dropping into the deep multi colored canyons that surround the west end of Flaming Gorge Reservoir. This is another spectacular part of this trip,where at one moment you can see the sapphire blue waters of Flaming Gorge Reservoir sparkling against the surrounding mountains, then a few moments later I've switched back high onto yet another pass where I can see much of the road just traveled that seems to go on forever.
Now I've got to scoot as it's getting late, but in this country especially in the morning or evening, a rider really needs to ride cautiously as the critters are on the move and here they range from half pound squirrels to fifteen hundred pound moose. On this trip alone I've probably seen three dozen deer and a couple hundred antelope. Rounding a corner just past the Flaming Gorge Dam turn off where I join SR191, I find myself bearing down on a massive cow elk and her calf standing broadside in the road. Warily, I slow down to a crawl and allow her to herd her youngster off the road, (you never want to get between a big mama critter and her youngster...ever!) then I roll on and after another two dozen stupendous mountainous twists I finally start down the even sharper hairpin switchbacks (20 mph!) that drop down past the Simplot Phosphate mine where they've moved a whole mountain, arriving back in Vernal just a the sun kisses the ridges to the west.
Having gyrated a bit for pictures and such, Mr. Garmin says we've traveled 363 miles since leaving Vernal a little over seven hours before. Not too bad when you figure I had originally planned on just an hour test ride. But that's the how it is out here in the west. It's a long way to anywhere and sometimes even longer to get back...to the edge of the world!
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