There’s always one day on a trip where you think “Was this an incredibly bad idea to ride today?” – I guess (with 2 days left) this was probably it.
Last night gusts peaked around 50 mph, and several trees and a bunch of tree branches fell down around the hotel. Unfortunately today wasn’t looking much better after the front (and rain) moved through.
The smart thing to do would have been to stay another day and wait for the weather to clear.. but I wasn’t in a very good hotel & location and I was only 3 days from home.. sooo.. into the wind forecast of 20 to 40 mph.
Leaving Grand Junction was pretty gusty for the first 30 minutes and then settled down. I was feelin’ pretty cocky at this point, with the sun rising behind me and the winds blowing away all the haze/clouds, the scenery was quite stunning all the way into Utah.
Then I started climbing the passes and noticing more and more snow.. hmmm.. I guess with rain would also come snow.
And more snow.. and more snow.. and then snow plows.. and then trying to avoid ice and staying in semi-truck tire paths where there seemed to be more grip. Then around 7000 feet, I also got 40+ mph sideways gusts of wind.
I think I did this stretch at 45 mph for about 45 minutes trying to maintain a 6″ line of clear road.
Occasionally a car would pass me spraying me down with salty dirty slush (hence the picture of my bike looking salty.. If this was earlier in the trip I’d hose it off, but I only have 2 days so… it can wait.)
Once started there was no real way to abort.. so.. just hoped for the best and made it through.
There was 1 crashed Harley on the other side of the road, and another guy drove off the road towing a uhaul. The cops were pretty busy.
Well after that, it was just more gusty wind going down the mountains, eventually turning south to go to St George. Things started warming up out of the 20s/30s/40s once I got within about 20 minutes of St George, so good job, whoever controls the weather.
Tomorrow the “scenic” route across the desert an Death Valley with the traditional moto-stopover in Kernville meth hotel (it used to be pretty nice, it declined significantly during covid.)
Dennis Rides - Motorcycles & Bicycles 