| ||||||||||
Day 24. Cedar City, UT to Zion National Park, UTYesterday: Day 23. Cedar City, UTTomorrow: Day 25. Zion National Park, UT
2 September, 2003 -- Day 24.
Today brought me from Cedar City, Utah into Zion National Park, where I am spending tonight and tomorrow night in the tent. Knowing that today's ride would be pretty relaxed, I was in no hurry to get out of the hotel. By 9 or 9.30, I finally hit the road, leaving Cedar City behind as I made my way into a world whose landscape over the course of the distinctly transitioned into the what I imagine when I say the "Southwest". Rock formations, mesas, and deep canyons carved by the tiniest of streams. This is what I wanted to see, and finally on the 24rd day, there it was. The route today was mostly downhill, leaving from Cedar City and heading southward, eventually joining I-15 (yes I actually rode ON it) for about 11 miles. Leaving I-15 at HW17, I passed through the small village of Toquerville before decending to the lowest point I had crossed since somewhere West of Pollock Pines, California. Crossing the LaVerkin Creek, I was at only 3,100' above sea level. From there, I turned onto the main road leading into Zion, whose main gate rests some 20 miles from the town of LaVerkin, past Virgin and past the old ghost town of Grafton (some of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was filmed there). Some of this stretch climbed -- the park's main entrance is at around 3700 feet -- but I noticed no uphill. Just a steady ride deeper-and-deeper into the canyon carved from the Virgin River where every pedal stroke caused my jaw to drop lower-and-lower from the beauty. Welcome to the Southwest. When checking into the campground, the park rangers told me about a group of cyclists who were camping not too far away from me who are apparently riding as part of a "Backroads"-run cycling tour. After setting up camp, I rolled over there to talk some cycling smack with them. It was still relatively early in the day and only a couple of the stronger cyclists had arrived (i.e. daaaaamn, they were some cocky bastards). In any case, they had ridden from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon that day (around 120 miles) and were near the tail end of their 10-ish day trip to Bryce, Grand Canyon and Zion... by the end of the day, when a brutal hailstorm moved in, much of their party was still out there... I will spend the day exploring Zion National Park by foot.
|
