Editor's note:Columnist Lee Benson just finished bicycling through Utah's five national parks: Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon and Zion. This is his concluding report.
I am back in my office in downtown Salt Lake, staring out the window as workers across the street continue to tear down the ZCMI Center mall. It is quite a contrast from where I spent the past nine days, bicycling through Utah's renowned national parks.
Although in one way I suppose it is no contrast at all. Over time, downtown buildings erode, not unlike the arches, spires, towers, caverns and waterpocket folds of southern Utah.
And in the case of downtown Salt Lake, at about the same pace.
Anyway, it was good to be gone, and it is good to be back. Even seeing spectacular, awe-inspiring, description-defying natural wonders can hit a saturation point. I'm no Edward Abbey. I knew I'd been out in the Utah outback awhile when Panguitch looked like a metropolis.
And it was, as several readers have pointed out to me, quite warm out there. One e-mailer wondered if I was crazy, cycling the parks in July. Another declared it an absolute fact.
The crazy thing was, I was trying to avoid the heat. Last year, when I bicycled through Utah along the length of U.S. 89, I left three weeks later and had one day that hit 103 outside Kanab. I didn't want that again, and as it turned out, I was successful — this time I got 105 at Hite and 108 in Zion Canyon.
But by the time it got really hot every day, I was usually inside with air conditioning, praising whoever invented Freon. My wife, bless her, drove support and had an uncanny knack for pulling up with ice and snacks at just the right moment. She would turn down her Jack Johnson CD and pull over like a national park Mother Teresa. Then she'd turn up the CD and be off.
When she left halfway through the trip and I partnered with my friend Paul Harman, Paul bribed his college-age daughter, Kimmy, and her friend, Emily Hutchison, to provide support.
The high point came a little after noon at the end of a ride from Torrey to Escalante. There were the girls at a place called the Trailhead Cafe, having already ordered smoothies and burgers that were cooking on the outdoor grill. In addition to recommending the Trailhead Cafe if you're ever passing through Escalante, let me say by way of a big thank-you, those girls have a bright future in the hospitality industry if they want it.
So that took care of the heat problem, more or less, and in a way, I think the heat was actually a help when it came to traffic control. With the exception of a few stretches of U.S. 191 and U.S. 89, my route getting to and from the national parks was unencumbered by congestion.
When my son Eric and I rode the 100 miles between Blanding to the junction of state Routes 95 and 276 — a stretch called the Bicentennial Highway — we were passed by a grand total of 78 vehicles traveling in either direction, and that included one Highway Patrol car that kept going back and forth.
Eighty miles from Blanding, at Hite Marina, was easily the most isolated point of the trip. No cars, no cell-phone service, and the
paved boat-launch ramp that used to get so much use in the 1980s now ends about half-a-mile short of Lake Powell.
And when we looked up, we saw buzzards.
Other reflections from the 2007 National Park Tour:
At the Hickman Bridge trailhead in Capitol Reef National Park, there's a sign that reads: "$250 fine for writing on rocks." Hopefully the fine is not retroactive to the ancient Fremont Indians, whose rock-writing is on prominent display half-a-mile up the road.
In the parking lot of the Gonzo Inn in Moab, the bumper sticker on a full-size Hummer read, "No Road, No Problem." The Hummer's personalized license plate read, "BIG-HUH." It was from Texas.
At the Zagat-recommended Hell's Backbone Grill in Boulder, which is run by Buddhists, waiters and staff catch flies and other insects in a vacuum tube and release them outside, refusing to harm any living thing. "After you've been here a while, you realize to do anything else is barbaric," our waitress explained. After which she asked, "How would you like your steak?"
They don't sell much bottled water in Torrey, where the town's water supply, which originates at Sand Creek in Thousand Lakes Mountain, contains no chlorine. "Drink lots of this and you'll feel 20 years younger," said a local. "We should market this stuff."
In Arches and Canyonlands, they have erected road signs that demonstrate that motorized vehicles legally need to drive at least three feet from bicycles. Hopefully these "Three Foot" signs will spread to all of Utah's highways. They are a big improvement on the "Share the Road" signs.
And finally, a salute to the Ksyrium wheels I invested in after numerous spoke failures on last year's journey. Not a single breakdown in 500 miles, not even a flat. Much to the buzzards' chagrin.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.