Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Gould Rim/JEM Trail/Hurricane Rim Trail

After I finished washing dishes and mopping sweat and dust off my body last night I realized that I didn't have enough water left to mount another adventure like the last three. I promised to be back in Colorado by April 5 and today is April 3. So this morning I hooked up the pod, hauled it down off Gooseberry, dumped my poop tank, and headed for Hurricane, UT.

The last time I was here Jim and I rode Gould and the JEM Trail and they made a fabulous loop. Seemed like the perfect way to say goodbye to southern Utah. So that's what I did. I got the T100 and the POD parked near the cell phone towers just above Hurricane, threw on my long-sleeved wool jersey (one of the last clean things I have, and you have to be kind of liberal to call it clean) took a single water bottle and hit it.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Gould was pretty new last time I rode it. There were some sections that were pretty rough from having been recently picked out of the hard soil. Not now. It's smooth like a baby's butt. I dug that trail. Man, it was sweet. Of course JEM is sweet, and the Hurricane Rim trail is nice bit of effort, technical riding, and pretty views. Nice 25 miles (could be shorter, but I rode the JEM all the way out then came back to the intersection with Hurricane Rim).

So, last night as I was drifting off to sleep I hatched a plan for tomorrow. What better way to wrap up this tribute to Utah than by riding the White Rim in a day? I can't think of a more absurd, surreal, and pointless gesture than riding myself into the ground in order to express esteem I feel for the Colorado Plateau. Rims, baby. Rim Ride Moab, Gooseberry South and North, Little Creek, Gould, Hurricane, and finally the grand daddy of them all. The Great White Way.

And besides, it will make me tough. I'll probably stagger through Darner's race on Saturday like a corpse, but as a wise man said, "Whatever doesn't kill me makes me want to eat a whole quart of vanilla ice cream".

Yeah, baby. Yeah! (better quiet down I guess, I am in a library.)

5 comments:

Scoty in Salida said...

YeaYeah, Get back To WORK!

AS ever, such Great reading!

Banks

FixieDave said...

White rim sounds real good!

Ed said...

Dude, you rock!!

And wool is always clean ;-)

See you soon,

Ed

Grizzly Adam said...

Jeesh..what a perfect few weeks you have been having. I am jealous.

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