Day 26: Boulder, UT - Updated!!!

Day 26

June 11, 2015

Miles: 28

Escalante to Boulder

UPDATED !!!

***

We woke this morning at about 7:00am without an alarm clock.  Actually, every morning we pretty much wake without an alarm clock :)  And we woke to great weather this morning (sunny skies) despite the forecast for thunderstorms. We quickly got the bikes packed, filled the tires with air and then went to the same restaurant where we ate both breakfast and dinner yesterday. They have great coffee, a spinach quiche and homemade multi-berry muffins that we just couldn’t resist!

Awesome muffins

Steve loves his coffee

We left the town of Escalante at about 9:00am and headed for the mountains.  But first, we needed to make a stop at the post office.  Steve had bought a new camping sleeping mat because the one he brought had sprung a leak.  The last time we camped his mat was deflated by the morning.  So he bought a NeonAir ThermaRest that weighs under 1 pound and is ½ the footprint of his other one when packed. That means Steve was able to offload another 1.5 lbs today!  All good considering the climb ahead of us.   

After much thought, we decided to climb ½ the distance up Boulder Mountain today and into the town Boulder, and we decided to tackle the second ½ tomorrow.  After reading a few blogs from other bicyclists and the map descriptions of today's route, we knew the climb would be challenging given the varying grades (6%-14%) and elevation.  Tomorrow we will hit the summit at 9700ft.  It will be the highest elevation yet, so we wanted to be able to take it slow.  Also because tomorrow’s forecast again is for thunderstorms and usually the mornings are clear and the thunderstorms come in the afternoon.  

Today’s ride included The Hogback; a stretch of highway that the map described as either the ‘highlight’ or the ‘terror’ segment of the most scenic section of Rt12.  A 3-mile, narrow, two lane stretch of highway along a narrow spine with no shoulders or guardrails and has drops on both sides.  By noon, we knew it would rain soon; we wanted to make it to The Hogback before it rained for obvious reasons, but unfortunately it started raining just as we started riding the spine.  

Honestly the map description was more terrifying than the actually ride across.  We spent way to much time thinking about it because the spine was less than ½ mile of The Hogback in total.  The rest however was absolutely beautiful!

Hogback Vantage Point 1

Hogback Vantage Point 2

Hogback Vantage Point 3

Trying to get a picture

In The Hogback

Calf Creek

Taking a break

A short story - before riding across the spine and with 7 miles left to ride before we would reach Boulder, we stopped to put on our rain gear.  At this stop area, a couple had just pulled over to take a look at the view.  They told us that we would hit a gas station and small market that served coffee just up the road.  The woman then said 'you ride up one hill and then a straight shot into the valley.'   We were very excited because this was unexpected.  It wasn’t on our map, and it was raining now so we were happy to be able to get out of the rain soon.  We crossed the spine then rode a couple miles more.  Then rode another couple miles.  Steve and I knew that people driving in cars are notorious for giving bad estimates to bicyclists, but this was too much! Then it dawned on us.  The women was referring to the town of Boulder.  How does ‘up the road’ translates into 7 miles? I don’t know, but at this point in our ride we only had 2.5 miles to go and it had stopped raining, so we didn’t much care.  We just kept saying ‘it’s just around the corner’ or 'it’s at the top of the hill.’  We had a few good laughs over this!   This is the gas station and the market the woman was referring to. It was about 1 mile away from the motel, so we stopped to have lunch and to warmed up.

Lunch

Staying warm

We had one more, one-mile, climb before reaching the motel.  There were three motels in Boulder, so I didn’t call ahead to reserve a room.  As we rode by the first motel the neon sign read no vacancies.  Then the second motel no vacancies.  We then rode up to Pole’s Place and luckily the sign read vacancies.  We didn’t know what to expect because there weren’t any cars in the lot.  I was preparing for the worse, but to my surprise this place is spotless, however doesn’t have WiFi.   This post was done purely via hotspot and sadly no pictures at this time.

We have the place to ourselves

Tomorrow we are planning to ride to Torrey about 37 miles total with the first 13 miles uphill to reach the summit!