Picking up where we left off last night, we cleared out our camp and resumed grinding up the hill toward Cedar Breaks. This was maybe 1200ft of climbing in 1.5hrs, so not great for me. Winding up to the visitor center saw the temperature drop about 10 degrees, with plenty of wind chill, so we were in pants and jackets and gloves. The view at the visitor center was good, but largely not unique to the other places we've been to, particularly Rainbow Point.
I wouldn't recommend it if you were already seeing Zion and Bryce. Though Gabe and Matt certainly have differing opinions on what's the best visit some these parts.
We proceeded north to Parowan, along an extremely steep descent. With the strong head- and crosswind, we had to be very vigilant in the turns. Fortunately, there was very little traffic. I think we did about 10 miles in 30 min. The later half of it, with wide roads showing the warming climates as we ticked down 1000ft but 1000ft, will be one of the most memorable descents I've been on.
After lunch, we headed into what would be an afternoon of heavy wind. Stick your head out of the car at 50mph and you'll have a good idea of what we were hearing.
The Gap itself was an oasis from the wind thanks to its winding valley walls.
We stopped at the Dinosaur Tracks site to look at the hadrosaur fossil footprints and accidentally hiked up a fairly technical trail halfway before hikers coming down corrected us. Good view though:
We then moved on to the nearby Parowan Gap Petroglyphs, right on the walls of the gap.
The gap is a sand dune that gathered here long ago and then became sedimentary rock. A river actually cut through that rock; it's not just from highway construction.
Left here as a waysign or maybe story on the scribe's migration through the pass, the details of the glyphs are based on local tribes' input, which seems not that rigorous to be. Still very cool to see something thousands of years old left open to the elements.
After exiting the gap, we were in for a hurting. The winds picked up even more, and there were no stretches of tail wind like before.
A genuine dust storm coming right at us:
The afternoon was hot, dusty, and extremely windy. I had to alternate eyes a while to tear up enough to wash out the dust. The road was not too steep, but the wind took 5-6mph out of our normal speeds. I'm not sure the exact physiological factors, but my heavier weight and extra leg mass make step climbs much harder but riding flat into the wind much easier (compared to Matt and Gabe). I'd gladly trade the afternoon wind for this morning's mountain scaling effort. Easy is certainly relative, though. Having to steer the bike straight for blasts of crosswind every several seconds and hardly being able to hear anything but the sharp roar of angry air isn't easy. I managed to tolerate it more than the other two. It took an otherwise easy day into an unforgettable and unpleasant march.
We made it to our destination, a KOA campground in Cedar City. $35 for a tent site vs $60 for a cozy wood cabin made it a no brainer, especially in the face of the wind ripping through the town still.
We got delivery, too. Been a hard couple of days.
No comments:
Post a Comment