I was especially stressed out the last two weeks because it was a busy time for the ski shop. In the middle of our season-end rush, I also put in a lot of hours helping flip the store from ski shop to bike shop, and then helping with the massive tent sale that offloaded hundreds of last year's bikes from stores all over the front range. There was no time for anything but working and sleeping and surgeries. Oh, yes, right in there was another surgery for my mom- apparently immediately following her mastectomy there was a massive amount of bleeding in the surgery site. We wondered why her swelling never went down, and assumed her plastic surgeon had inflated her tissue expaner much more than expected. We went in for a check up a week later and they told her that all the extra bulk was blood that was not draining, and that they would need to do another small surgery to clean it out and speed up recovery. Add that to the fact that her ride from Scott City, Karlin and Sherry, had to navigate all over Colorado because that was the very day that road crews closed I-70 through Georgetown so they could remove some unstable boulders from above the road.
As I was helping set up for the tent sale, Bobby was home calling bike shops, looking online, comparing, and shopping for a bike. We saved a lot of tax money this year by becoming an s-corp, and we have saved all year as we are used to doing for a tax bill that usually uses up every penny we have managed to save through the year. We had originally planned a month-long trip to Maui with that bit of bonus cash, but as spring got closer, I kept reminding him that he didnt love his old Trek EX7, that we will probably get comp bike hauls at Keystone Bike Park this year through my job, and he knew he would wish he had a freeride bike if that happened, and what would last longer, a bike or a vacation? My logic must have been fairly airtight, because he stopped shopping for airplane tickets.
After reading hundreds of reviews, he decided that his dream bike wold be an Ibis Mojo- a carbon fiber cross country mountain bike, full suspension, with five inches of travel in the front- two inches more than what he has been riding on, and a world of difference in what he can ride over. Only problem was, there are only two Ibis dealers in Colorado- one in Golden, and one in Fruita. My bike shop is not a dealer. And Ibis bikes, while cutting edge in bike technology and the lightest mountain bikes on the market, are expensive. He could have bought the frame and I could have built him one with components bought through my shop, it would have saved some money, but he wasnt sure he wanted to wait for so long. He went back to the drawing board and decided on a Santa Cruz Heckler- a much cheaper, simple full suspension bike with a single pivot, and six inches of travel in the front- something he can downhill Keystone on this summer, not nearly as light as the Ibis, but a solid bike that would treat him right. We made a trip down to the bike shop in Golden where I bought my bike to see if they had a demo. They did not, but several other bikes that were close. We looked into a few Rocky Mountains, and considered a Trek Remedy, but after having owned a Trek that had very clumsy geometry for his riding style, he was open to owning another one but not sold on it. The last option we looked into, since we ride the same frame size (we probably shouldn't, but I like my bikes big), was me ordering an employees-only shop form bike, bikes that they make available to employees, since they know employees will sell more of the bikes they ride and love, and then I would let him ride it. But the waiting time is long, and he would not have his bike for several months. He finally decided against the Heckler, or it's sibling bikes, the Butcher or the Bullit, in favor of the Santa Cruz Nomad, a bike that is somewhat of a flagship for Santa Cruz's freeride bikes. The reason for him changing his mind was that my store had two Nomads that were transfered in for the tent sale, and they were marked down almost $1,500. I didn't want to bother any managers to get special permission to make an early sale, so he waited in line with about 120 other people until we opened the gates to the tent, and stood in line another hour to pay for it while I was spinning from one customer to the next, answering questions, pointing out differences in bike geometry, answering the unending question- "carbon or aluminum?", explaining the differences between air shocks and sprung shocks. I did not know until much later that he had actually taken the plunge. That evening, he put a pair of pedals on it and we took a bike ride together, just a quick ride around the neighborhood, and he came back to the house so excited he was practically jumping.
On the day after closing day, I had to work shifts at the store, but as soon as my shift was over at 2pm, I sped home, we threw food and clothes into the camper and our bikes into the back of the truck, and we left for Moab.
The next four days were a long series of going to bed with the sun, getting up and shivering in the desert dawn chill, breakfasts of carbs and cholesterol cooked over the small gas flame in the camper, taking the dog for bike rides around the campground and lake and then locking him in the camper, loading our bikes up and driving them to whichever trailhead we had chosen for the day, and spending the afternoon biking, powering over petrified sand dunes, through canyons and winding up hidden trails, faintly marked by rock cairns or the remains of tumbled rock cairns, scratches on rock left by a former rider's bike cleat or pedals, an occasional black mark from a tire that passed that way once, then dropping off ledges and rockpiles back down to the truck, back to town for a bite to eat, then to the camper to find an extatic dog waiting for us, ready for another run around the campground, then a bit of reading until it was too dark to see, and shivering under the covers until our feet warmed up enough to fall asleep. A few nights it stormed, wind buffeting the camper and the tent-end we slept in, flinging rain against canvas. The wind blew almost the entire time we were there, surprising us as we rode around the ends of rock walls into it walls of wind, exhausting us into zombie-like states by the time the sun dipped behind the Moab Rim.
The first day, we rode the Moab brand trails after a false start and a twenty mile trip back to camp for B's helmet after he discovered he had not gotten it along. Most of the Brand system, a network of trails around the Bar-M chuckwagon, a dinner show located several miles out of town, are very easy to ride. Bar M is the main loop, and is ridden by hundreds of beginners as they try out their legs and their bike handling skills to determine if they are cut out for Moab biking. Circle O, Rocking A, and Bar B are all spurs off of Bar M (notice they spell MOAB?) and all slightly harder rides. We did a quick loop around Bar B and went back to camp, where we rode up over Flat Pass to the backside, to the beginning of the Steelbender jeep trail, explored the canyon a bit and located a few ancient petroglyphs, then back over the pass, where we sat above Faux Falls and watched the sun dip behind the rim.
The second day, I awoke feeling a bit grimy, after sweating with no shower all day the day before. I had not washed my hair the two frantic days before we left, I had only hopped in and out of the shower in the mornings and since I was spending the days outside in the tent, didn't want to deal with wet hair- it takes hours to dry, especially in the cold. I planned to wash it before we left, but we left in such a hurry, I forgot until we were on the road. So that morning was about four days of hats and sweaty helmets and I was feeling seriously unnattractive and looking like a bit of a scumbag. Inspiration struck when I rode past the waterfall with Andy that morning, before the sun had climbed high enough to peek over the rocks that sheltered our camp, before warm rays had penetrated tents and campers and caused the campers in them to stir. The waterfall was about a half mile above camp on a rough, deep sand road, then a small hike from the parking lot, and not a soul was around. I glanced around, making sure I was alone, then peeled off all my warm layers, leaving them in a pile in the sand, left my bike leaning against a juniper bush, and splashed across the icy stream to a small sandy area under the waterfall. My feet were numb after just a few seconds in the water, icy runoff from the La Sal Mountains a few miles away. I took a deep breath, and stepped into the pool under the fall, and my numb feet shot out from under me on a smooth mossy rock that slanted into the water and I landed on it with my bare butt, which followed suit and rocketed me into the icy pool. I scrambled up, and out of habit, looked around to make sure there were, indeed, no observers, at the moment more concerned with being caught looking foolish than being caught looking naked, then waded my numb self under the fall, and stood gasping as it pounded down on the top of my head for about fifteen long seconds. I carefully emerged, picking my way over the mossy rocks with absolutely no feeling in my extremeties, squeezing out my hair and shaking water out of my ears, and waded back across the stream to my clothes. I put on my long, baggy shirt, long enough that it covered my butt and the scrapes across it from my high-speed entrance into the pool, and walked over to a rock that the sun had finally reached, and sat, letting the sun and the cool breeze dry me off. It was then I made an interesting discovery- the toe next to my pinkie on my left foot was covered in a layer of bright red sugar sand. I reached down and brushed it off, and uncovered a deep cut on the end of my toe.
In the meantime, Andy was going certifiably nuts. He had tried to join me under the waterfall, but the thundering, pounding water drops scared him, which caused him to assume that I had lost my mind. He whined and jumped and ran in circles at the edge of the pool, unsure which method of recovering his mama would be best, hit the same rock I had hit and rocketed into the water on his back, then scrambled back out in a sneezing panic, his tail clamped between his legs, and finally decided that racing up and down the path might be most effective. When I climbed out, he immediately tried to jump up and lick my face, claws over naked goosebumpy skin, which made me reflexively shriek and kick and swing my arms at him, and sent him into even more of a frenzy. As soon as I was back on the safe side of the stream, he began to shed all of his extra adrenaline from the whole experience by racing up and down the deep sand path, kicking sand all over my lower half, where it stuck, into the water, through the stream, down the path, up the path, a little yellow blur that was fast turning red with all the sand he was kicking up onto himself. He finally stopped in front of me, tongue hanging out the side of his gaping grin, even his tongue covered in a layer of fine red sand, the flopped over in the sun to roll on his back in the pillowy trail, feet kicking in the air, then looked up at me with his jowels drooping down over his eyes, all upside down, with an expression that, I swear, was a question and statement all in one- we're done...right?
I pulled my socks over my toe that had almost stopped bleeding by then, slid my almost dry self back into the rest of my clothes, put on my bike shoes, and retrieved my bike, feeling as exhilerated, alive, and as wide awake as I had felt in a long time. Andy ran beside me back down to camp, gradually drying off, pouncing on immaginary things that moved in the soft, silky, deep sand road, chasing scent trails, grinning up at me, enjoying this fabulous adventure we were on. Back at the camper, I tied him up outside in the gravel and I sat with my foot in a cereal bowl and emptied a bottle of Dasani over my toe, which was still numb enough it only looked painful, and discovered the cut was not deep inward, it had merely peeled about two milimeters of skin from the end of my toe, a flap which was still attached at one end. I dug in my backpack for butterfly bandages and neosporin, stuck it down, put some gauze over it and wrapped it round and round with duct tape, and stuffed it back into my shoe. About five minutes later, it finally started hurting.
An hour later we set out to find Tusher Canyon, a ride my boss at the bike shop highly recommended. He had warned me not to go straight up onto the mesa, it would make sense when I got there. He also warned us not to dry to ride the wash that led us to the trailhead, if there was any way we could drive it- the sand was bottomless. We drove up the wash until it closed in on us, and we figured we couldnt be more than a mile from the trailhead, it was not worth scraping the truck up just to save ourselves some riding, so we got out and rode- right past the trailhead, cryptically marked by two piles of about four small rocks stacked on top of each other on a slickrock ledge. About a quarter of a mile of deep, wheel-sucking sand later, B reconsidered being able to get his truck through the wash, and turned around to go get it, while I continued on in search of the trailhead. I made it a mile and a half in sand that stopped me dead every few turns of my pedals, forcing me to limp with my swollen, duct-taped toe jammed inside my shoe, pushing my bike. When I reached to turn-off for Monitor and Merrimac, two rock formations in the area, I knew I had gone too far, and I turned around. B eventually found me leaving deep, wiggling tracks in the sand, and I climbed into the back of the truck with my bike and held on for dear life while he bounced over rocks, and finally, on the way back down the wash, saw the rock piles.
We did exactly what my boss told me not to, not thinking we were doing it. We didn't go straight up the wall, we wound around to the right, reading meaning into every rock that looked as though it belonged, every scuff on the rock, every disturbed-looking pocket of sand in the slanting, undulating layers of slickrock. (Can you see me? I'm the little ant right in the middle of the photo.)
We finally crested the top of the mesa, and began looking for a trail, but all we found was undisturbed, pristine cryptobiotic crust. We sat with our legs dangling over the edge of the mesa, soaking up the sun and the colors of the red land and blue sky, ate some granola, and decided the ride was a lost cause. The B squinted and pointed. "Does that look like a road to you?"
It did- a long line of discoloration worn into the rock. It disappeared around the corner of the mesa to the west of us. We descended the slanting waves of rock that separated us from it, several spectators on ATVs watching us from below, then took it, and soon began finding rock cairns that marked portages up the rock faces, which we climbed, slipping in our bike shoes, my toe throbbing with every step and misstep. At last, after several more dead ends where the so-called trail ended in cliffs, we found it, the landmark beaker-shaped twin towers that marked the entrance to the slickrock playground, all rounded knobs and washes and waves.
We played around a bit, sat on the edge of it and enjoyed the afternoon and another granola bar, and retraced our steps, flying back down across high-angle slickrock sidehills, portaging over ledges, back to the truck. It was an exhilerating day, and one where we were never close to death, but we were still glad to have survived it. We had spent the day high, high off the ground, high on dangerous terrain, high on the desert drug- that drug that turns everyday people into idiots because they lose touch with the desk jockeys and clones they have accepted themselves as, and decide they have now truly found themselves- something so beautiful and so dangerous and so wild as the land they have spent the day in makes them feel as though they can live forever, and if they die, they can die happy, and their newfound high makes them forget simple things like the laws of gravity and the way softer substances like skin and bone must yield to harder substances like rock.
We eased back out of the wash, careful not to scrape truck doors on rocks, different people, just like after every other ride. That's the beauty of the great outdoors, and of beautiful places, like the desert and the mountains and the ocean and the plains. You can have an epiphany every time you go out, and you never use them all up. In fact, you just stop callin them epiphanies. You stop calling them anything, and when you say you need to go for a bike ride, nobody understands what you mean except for those who understand perfectly.
The next day, another trail through lonely, sandy washes, over high rock outcroppings, howling wind competing with us, pushing us back one moment, pushing us forward the next. And the next day dawned beautiful, not a cloud in the sky, not a whisper of wind. We rode more of the Brand system, Deadmans to Circle O to Rocking A, ten miles of climbs and descents and ledges and rough slickrock. The voices of other bikers drifted to us, the bikers themselves hidden in the landscape, the dead stillness making them seem close, even though they were a half mile away. We talked in low tones when we stopped, started lizards from their naps in the sun, and when we got back to the truck, loaded up our bikes, grabbed a snack from the camper, and hit the road for home.
Home is cold. The sky is gray and it wont stop raining or snowing, depending on which side of freezing the tempurature is hovering. It's time for me to go to work. My mom and her friend from Sweden, Karin, are staying for a few days, up here for another checkup, and I did not go with them to the doctor because I had too much work to do. Which I do. Too much to sit here typing. So until next time...
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