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Day 26. Zion National Park, UT to Fredonia, AZYesterday: Day 25. Zion National Park, UTTomorrow: Day 27. Fredonia, AZ to Marble Canyon, AZ
4 September, 2003 -- Day 26.
I rode into Zion a couple days ago from its south entrance and the Adventure Cycling maps had me exiting the park through its Eastern entrance, heading out of the park to Mt. Carmel Junction before turning south to head to Arizona and the Grand Canyon. The eastern route out of the main canyon at Zion takes you up a steep series of switchbacks as you climb your way out. At the end of these switchbacks lies two tunnels straight through the rock that were blasted back in the 1930s. The two tunnels are relatively narrow and require that only one lane of traffic be moving at a time when any larger vehicles pass through (RVs, etc), so Park Rangers are stationed at either end to control the traffic. These tunnels are 1.1 miles long and 0.2 miles long. These tunnels have no lights inside. So the whole time I was at Zion in the back of my mind I wondered about these tunnels. The Adventure Cycling Maps had me going through the tunnels, but every piece of literatute I could get my hands on clearly stated that no bikes were allowed in the tunnels. What the hell? Well, having been too lazy to actually ASK anyone, I just decided to go for it and start my 45 minute ascent up the switchbacks to see what happened once I got to the tunnels. I figured in worst case, I would hitch a ride from someone with a pickup truck... Anyway, I get to the Park Ranger station and ask her what the deal is with bikes and she says to just wait there until she can flag down someone with a pickup truck. Simply enough, she would do the work for me. Nice. I waited not more than 5 minutes before some unsuspecting soul rounded theb end and was flagged down by her... "I have a favor to ask", she says to him... so I load my bike into the back of the pickup (i was suprised that i could actually lift the thing) and hop in myself as he took me through the two tunnels and dumped me on the other side. Thank you sir, I said. He drove off and I found myself in what seemed to be an entirely different world on this side of the tunnels. I had entered slick rock country (see the photos). Beautiful. The day had a couple climbs, I stopped often for water and food and generally had a lazy day -- still sore from yesterday's hikes. I stopped for lunch at a restaurant serving Southwestern cuisine where I learned that this is the area where a *ton* of old Westerns had been filmed, and where an occasional movie is still filmed today (they claim that more movies have been filmed in this area than any single place in the country outside of Hollywood...). For lunch, I made it a point to order some Sopapillas and smother them in honey, reminding me of the days when I lived in northern New Mexico, when my Ph.D. advisor, the illustrious Professor Ioannis Kevrekidis, would never fail to eat a couple dozen of these things before the main meal arrived. But I digress. During lunch a torrential downpour let loose, lightning and all. The electricity flickered and I was happy to be dry and inside. This was when I decided that I had more or less had enough riding for the day and that I would ride the 5 or 6 miles up the rode into Arizona into Kanab's small sister village of Fredonia, AZ, before bunking up for the night, saving the big climb for tomorrow. I will at very least climb up to Jacobs Lake and will most likely then descend to the Colorado River and end the day at Cliff Dwellers, AZ.
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