4 Corner States Ride Revisited

6 Sep 2010

In August of last year, I started a ride through the four-corner states, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. After meeting my friend Rick from Texas in Durango, we began our four week trip by riding the Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. The next day Sept 1st, we were riding to Chama NM to ride the Cumbres Toltec Scenic Railroad, when I had an accident riding my motorcycle. The previous night, I did not sleep well and while riding I got drowsy, drifted off the road, and crashed. This is called forgetting the “shiny side up” rule. Although the bike didn’t look it, it was significantly damaged and would need a lot of repair. It got towed to Durango Harley Davidson. Although I didn’t feel all that bad, since I was still walking, X-rays at the hospital in Pagosa Springs showed several broken bones. The ride was over though it had barely begun. Rick rented a car and drove me back to California, then drove back to Pagosa Springs, retrieved his bike and headed back to Texas.

After surgery, physical therapy, change of sleep medication, motorcycle repair and retrieval, and memorizing the “shiny-side up rule”, I began replanning the ride Rick and I started the summer of 2009. On his return trip last year, Rick had developed some problems with his XS-1100 Yamaha. After learning the fine arts of carb synchronization and electrical system troubleshooting, Rick completed repairs on his bike. We are both anticipating getting on the road again and finishing the trip we started a year ago.

We plan to meet in Chama NM, and ride the Cumbres Toltec Scenic Railroad http://www.cumbrestoltec.com/. Then spend the next few weeks riding through Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. We also plan to ride the Verde Canyon Railroad http://verdecanyonrr.com/, take several scenic routes and visit several national parks, monuments, and historical sites, including The Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Mesa Verde, Four Corners, Canyon de Chelly, Monument Valley, Natural Bridges, Canyonlands, Arches, Bryce, Cedar Breaks, Zion, The Grand Canyon, Montezuma’s Castle, Sunrise Crater, Meteor Crater and The Petrified Forest to name a few before ending our ride in Gallup, NM, September 19th, some 3200 miles later. In all, Rick and I will have each ridden roughly 4000 miles round trip for this 22 day ride. http://rideplanner.harley-davidson.com/rideplanner/share/208376

The ride starts August 29th for me, stopping in Flagstaff and continuing to Chama NM, where I will meet up with Rick. After riding the Cumbres Toltec Scenic Railroad the next day, we start our ride together on Sept 1st, riding up through Pagosa Springs which is where I forgot the “shiny-side up” rule, exactly one year ago to the day. We may stop by the hospital to see if any of the staff that treated me are still there.

The return trip for me will begin in Gallup, NM and end in Ridgecrest two days and 848 miles later, with stops in Page, AZ and St. George, UT. I’ll be heading west on 264 through the southern portions of the Navajo and Hopi Indian Reservations before stopping in Page, AZ. The next day, I’ll continue west across the southern end of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument before stopping in St George. From there, I’ll continue west through the Shivwits-Piute Indian Reservation to I-15 into Las Vegas, then head north west on I-95 through the eastern portion of the Mojave Desert, and Beatty, NV. Then I’ll head south west on 190 through Death Valley and turn south on 178 toward Ridgecrest. From here, I’ll continue this ride log with the actual events of the ride as they occur.

Aug 29 - Left Ridgecrest for Flagstaff, AZ and arrived at 4 PM.  Mileage was roughly 460 @ 37 MPG.  The weather was nice.  It started out in the 70s, but by Needles it was 94.  After Kingman it cooled down and there was some cloud cover.  After Williams I got a little rain and the wind started gusting a little.  I stopped at the Harley Shop in Belmont.  They call it the Harley Davidson at the Grand Canyon, I don't know why.  It's 70 miles to the Grand Canyon from there.  They should call it the closest HD shop to the Grand Canyon maybe.  I got the requisite t-shirt, dip dot and a siren for my security system.  The instructions were totally wrong for my model, but it ended up being an easy install.  Now when the alarm goes off I'll be able to hear it.  Of course, I won't be able to get to my bike until whoever is tampering with it has taken whatever he wants, but at least I'll know to expect it rather than be surprised when I find missing parts.  It was a nice day for a long ride.  More of the same tomorrow I hope.

Aug 30 - Made it to Chama, NM around 2:30 PM.  Still waiting on Rick however.  I'm here at the Chama Trails Inn.  Nice place.  Chester and Starla are gracious hosts.  Chester lets up park the bikes in the back on the covered patio. Got a little wet today.  Not so much that I needed my rain gear however,  Leathers were fine.  Chester provided some rags and a place where I could use his hose to clean the bike up.  Looks like new again.  Got better mileage today for some reason.  Mileage was 377 @ 42 MPG.  I guess yesterday was mostly uphill, and today was mostly down.  Took lots of pics along the way, some even turned out okay. The canyons west of Kayenta are very picturesque and most of the way along highway 64 into Chama is very pretty.  Tomorrow Rick and I will ride the Cumbres Toltec Scenic Railroad.  Chester said he'd give us a lift to the depot, so we could leave the bikes at the hotel.  Hope Rick gets here soon.  I'm hungry.  More tomorrow.
Aug 31 - Chester gave us a ride to the depot and we boarded the bus to Cumbres.  Seems someone torched the trestle outside Chama and the train no longer goes to Chama.  We boarded the Cumbres
Toltec Railroad in Cumbres and had an excellent trip all the way to Antonito.  This train ride is advertised as the most scenic narrow gauge railroad in the US and rightly so, the scenery is "absolutely spectacular" to steal a phrase from Huell Howser.  More spectacular than the Durango to Silverton Train in my opinion.  We stopped in Osier for lunch.  It was more like dinner.  We had a complete Thanksgiving-style turkey dinner and it was all-you-can eat.  After lunch we had some extra time, so I walked over to the Toltec Gorge and got some pictures. When the train from Antonito showed up we continued our trip.  The docents explained all the important points along the trip.  This railroad is the highest and longest narrow gauge train in the US (maybe the world).  The train follows the Rio de Los Pinos river and skirts the Toltec Gorge. Tanglefoot and Whiplash Curves were fun. They threw in some less important stuff as well.  It takes takes 1 gallon of water for the train to go 22 feet.  That's less than three turns of the wheels. So the train has to hold a lot of water.  After getting to Antonito, we took the bus back to Chama and Chester and his brother Ernie came to pick us up and return us to the hotel.  Later we had a light dinner at the High Country restaurant, still being pretty full from lunch and called it a night.  Tomorrow we head to Montrose.  Passing the spot near Pagosa Springs where I crashed exactly 1 year before.

Sep 1 - Rick and I left Chama and headed for Pagosa Springs where we had breakfast at the same place we did last year.  Although we looked some for the place where the accident occurred, but neither of us could identify it.  Needless to say, we passed it.  From Pagosa Springs we headed north over Wolf Creek Pass at 10,850 ft to South Fork.  We also crossed over Spring Creek Pass at 10, 900 ft and then headed into Lake City where we stopped for gas and some refreshment.  We continued on highway 149 along the picturesque Gunnison River and crossed Slumgullion Pass at 11,530 ft to US 50 where we crossed the Blue Mesa Reservoir a couple times.  This is Colorado's largest body of water.  From here we turned off highway 50 to check out the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.  This is an amazing gorge carved by the Gunnison River.  The gorge is so deep and narrow that the sun hardly shines down to the bottom.  We stopped at several overlooks and followed trails to the edge of the gorge. As the sun began to set, we got some amazing pictures and headed into Montrose CO.  We stopped at the Best Western and later had some great Chinese a the Panda Palace.  Excellent food and plenty of it for the price. Mileage was 322 @ 44.7 MPG.

Sep 2 - We left Montrose and headed south on highway 550 down into Ridgeway and then on to Ouray which is a small mountain city, tucked into the San Juan Mountains.  This is a beautiful little city with only highway 550 in or out. We continued on into Silverton for gas and stopped for a break wandering up and down the streets checking out the many historic shops.  While there we heard the arrival of the Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad train. We continued south to Durango along the Million Dollar Highway.  In Durango, we stopped at the Harley Davidson shop and met with Trevor in the service department that managed the rebuilding of my bike last year.  Trevor was happy to see me in better shape than the last time he saw me.  Next to the Harley Shop is a Serious Texas Barbecue restaurant.  It's serious barbecue alright.  From Durango we headed to Cortez, CO.  Along the way a motorcyclist passed us like we were parked.  Later we saw him parked in front of a Colorado Ranger.  In Cortez, we checked in for a couple nights.

Sep 3 - We had breakfast and headed for Mesa Verde National Park.  This is the park that Rick briefly visited before one of his coils went out on his XS 1100 and limped home toward Ft Worth.  No such problem this time.  We had a great time in Mesa Verde.  We stopped at the visitor center and got tickets for a tour at Long House cliff dwelling. Our guide was Ellen.  She was very nice and well informed, plus she signed for some of the group that were hearing impaired.  Long House was a great place that we got to wander around in somewhat.  Each of the cliff dwellings have several kivas which were used primarily as places of religious worship.  We also saw other cliff dwellings and surface dwellings throughout Mesa Verde, including Cliff Palace which is the largest known cliff dwelling and Balcony House.  This place was unusual since we had to climb a tall ladder to enter it then climb out on our hands and knees with more ladders to climb before reaching the surface again. On the way back, we stopped at Shiloh restaurant for dinner in Cortez.  What a great place.  Ambiance could not have been better.   We sat next to a coy pond feeding them bits of bread crumbs.  The sirloin tips and three berry pie and ice cream were great.  Rick had an Elk steak which he said was excellent. Today was our first laundry day.  Mileage 93.5 @ 43.5 MPG.

Sep 4 - We left Cortez for Kayenta AZ.  First we made the requisite visit to Four Corners to validate this 4 Corner States trip.  Then we headed to Ship Rock and then to Canyon de Chelly National Monument (pronounced Shay).  The road there was an excellent motorcycle route through the pines with many twists and turns.  We stopped in the park at several overlooks into the canyon.  This place has amazing views.  The canyon is immense.  The ruins do not compare to those in Mesa Verde, but the canyon is strikingly different and beautiful.  This was a great adventure.  We gassed up in Chinle and had a late lunch, then headed to Kayenta.  Mileage was 261 @ 45.0 MPG.

Sep 5 - We ate breakfast in a little cafe in Kayenta and headed to Monument Valley.  We got some pictures along the way and checked out the visitor center.  We continued north on 163 to Mexican Hat, then headed west on 261 stopping at Goosenecks Overlook and then on to Moki Dugway.  Moki Dugway is a mining route on a narrow gravel road with steep grades up and down and tight turns for 3 miles.  We got some great shots of the road from the top.  From here we continued north to highway 95, then headed west to Natural Bridges National Park.  This park is rather small with several overlooks at several you guessed it, natural bridges.  From here we headed east to Blanding and then to Monticello.  We got gas and a late lunch here and headed for the hotel, where I spent half my time adding to this post.  Mileage was 120.8 @ 45.1.

Sep 6 - Today was a great day in many ways: weather was excellent, riding was exilerating, meals were scrumptious and scenery was again "absolutely spectacular".  We started out leaving Monticello heading west on Creek Road.  This road was a a short cut and a great bike riding road up into the mountains and down to the road leading into Canyonlands.  On the way, Rick passed a good size rattlesnake out sunning himself next to the road. There were several overlooks that we stopped at, took little walks to the view points and got several pictures.  We stopped at the Needles Outpost to top off @ $5 per gallon.  Rick's Yamaha took 2 and my Road King took 1.5 gallons.  Do the math. We then headed out of Canyonlands to highway 191 north and then west on the next road to the Needles Overlook.  This was a great road that we could take at high speed to the end where we stopped to browse Canyonlands vistas from several hundred feet up.  The view was, well you know.  We could see the Colorado River off in the distance.  We headed back to highway 191 north and then into Moab, got gas and a little oil for the Yamaha.  My digital readout indicates oil full still.  We decided to take in the La Sal Mountain scenic loop.  What a trip!  We climbed several hundred feet with continual twisties, cool mountain air and clear skies.  We stopped at a spot with a great overlook at Castle Rock.  Then headed down the other side toward Castle Valley and then turned west on highway 128 that follows along the Colorado River.  We arrived back in Moab in time for dinner.  Denny's has some great food when you're really hungry and the milkshakes are giant size.  Always check the dessert menu first, so you know whow much dinner to have.  We headed to the Best Western Canyonlands for the night.  What a nice hotel.  If ever you are in Moab for the night, stay here.  Milage 241.9 @ 44.8.