Riding the road less traveled... NW Utah

Well Hi there everyone, been taking it easy since my return from my south of the border excursion. Well after my 11,000 Mile ride poor ole "Moya" my 990 needed a little TLC So, I flushed the coolant, and even though I only had 2600 miles on the oil since I changed it in Houston, TX I went ahead and changed it out too.

My OEM drive-line had been through a lot and the ole chain was looking pretty tired so I ordered in a a new set of sprockets and chain (steel sprockets) dropped my counter down to a 16 tooth.... I really like it so far.

She cleans up real good after using De-greaser, and a good old fashion power wash.




Pretty...... ain't it




Well all loaded up and spring is a trying, so off I go





I had posted up on the local M/C board if anyone wanted to head south, originally I was going to Escalante Staircase in southern Utah hit the Smoky Mtn road and Hole in the Rock rd, but alas no takers and the weather had become very iffy. So, I decided just to wander..... didn't even take my GPS, went old school and packed a map... and we're off.

Took back roads and farm roads down to Oakley, neet little town, grabbed a snack and drink-n-took a short walk around. On the way down hit a fun FtoM I never rode ended up here at Balanced Rock





See fun road




Oakley









Interesting Link of area http://www.summitpost.org/cache-peak-id/152960



From there it on south down Birch Creek heading to Grouse Creek.........

Beautiful ride through the Cedar Hills







44 miles later I finally rolled into Grouse Creek in Grouse Valley UT..

I know there's people living there I saw smoke rising out of the chimneys. There was a very nice LDS ward across the street was a school K thru 5 I think for all the Ranchers kids.




Pulled up to the local store and no one was in........ Figures! well at least there's fuel here (the last one for 100 miles)








OK, so some of the picturesque building of GC.





Down town





A link to Grouse Creek http://www.grousecreek.com/intro.html


So headed south towards 30, 21 miles of straight gravel road, soooooooooo I rolled on the throttle






Finally hit the highway and I now have 65 miles on the clock out of Oakley, and I've not seen a soul, nada, one person.


Well, I cross the highway heading south, four and a half miles later I come up on this







Here's the 90 rail bed








Well it is getting late in the day and wind is kicking up so I think I'll start looking for a place for the night. I can see a stand of trees about 1/2 mile away guess I'll head over there.

Cool!




Rolled down to the oasis of threes







Cool, this is the place for tonight; set up camp and started walking around collecting firewood



















Pretty neat an Eco-friendly cabin looks like it even had electricity once upon a time.





The trees were just starting to bud out also there is a small pond of water on sight I could even hear water running from someplace.

Settled down to eat and it was weird quiet, as I was reflecting about the day, I had my first external noise since Oakley



Then it went silent except for the wind. This tree was just odd to me...... guess one would deduct the prevailing wind direction... from the south.




Figured I'd get a fire going



Yup, I having a good conversation with myself. and then this damn song popped into my head and I started dancing around the fire all alone in the middle of the desert..


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Well that's it for now more later. Man that tree is wicked looking...




Here's some history of the area http://www.onlineutah.com/lucinhistory.shtml

Really enjoying the RR so far, Sam. Love Utah And rarely see much on this part of it. Thanks

Lucin IS a long way out there

Very interesting. Checked in for this one. Thanks!

Morning, for those who popped in... Thanks. So to continue on with my little day tripper ride. I thought I would get a great nights sleep, but that wasn't to be; you see the problem of being around the only water, particularly an open source is every friggin nocturnal animal seems to come into to fill their thirst during the wee hours and so along comes the days scuttle-butt conversation. Song birds, small indistinguishable quad peddled creatures scurrying here and there. This accompanied by a very audible hoot... over and over again all night long swooping from tree to tree. Then a pack of coyotes came in for a drink and are so lippy yap, yap, yap!

I finally faded off when a west bound train came rolling by startling me awake again, 30 minutes later another, finally sunrise and the desert oasis fell silent. Crawled out of my bag only to greeted by this fella



He didn't like me taking his picture




Packed up enjoyed my cup of coffee and headed off south towards Wendover 50 miles out









I went about 8-10 miles when the wind started really kicking up and a blackness encroaching my way. Well for those who live out here, we know what happens to these back roads when wet...... not a pleasant experience, trust me, so I did a turn around because I figured if I'm going to get wet I would rather be on pavement

Started hauling butt back north and while up on a rise I spotted and anomaly sitting out on the flats north east of me; looked to be a mile or two out hum, I have to research this later. It looked like old large pipes well here is what I researched after getting home

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Nancy Holt's Earth Art she placed this out here back in 1976.

I will come back again soon but because of the approaching weather and two, the ground out there is still tacky and soft from the last rains a couple days ago. time to get

Headed out to the pavement and started hauling east on highway 30 well Rosette.. no gas, Park Valley, still no gas a few miles later BING, the amber low fuel light illuminates; crap. well I know you can go about 30 miles on reserve, not wanting to proof this too often. Snowville Ut, Gas and had to stop off for a lunch "Millies" interesting experience.

Well wind is howling and intermittent rains, so, where can I go.. Oh! I've never been to the Golden Spike Historic Site it's close so off I go.

Rode by the ATK rocket plant, didn't stop maybe another time here's a link on the site http://www.atk.com/

Arrived at Promontory to an almost empty parking lot went in an no choo-choos







Well a few other folks showed up too (the ones I passed on the way out) So Ranger Dan or what ever his name is said the trains come out 1 may for the season but he took us down to the engine house and gave us dang good history and tour of the trains














The engineers were busy polishing the brass and going over the machines for the upcoming season.

Anyway the wind was pretty steady and a light horizontal torrent of rain was coming down where-in someone made the statement "suck to be you on that motorbike" "whatever!"

I was going to go find this place as it's some 16 miles south of here, perhaps another time... soon

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So well the forecast was not promising so I took off for home. I had to chuckle to myself in the helmet because the last time I was this close to Brigham City (back in January coming home from my Mexico trip) the weather too went to hell-in-a hand basket. Oh a long cold wet ride to the house some 280 miles just slabbed it down the freeway.. boring, but it felt good to get out.

I noticed a little different running a 16 tooth on the 990. better acceleration (really) loved the low speed performance too (slow speed maneuvering) seems the RPM's at highway speed increased around 600 rpm and dropped from 43-44 mpg highway to a consent 41-42 not a bad trade off. I normally don't do freeways and prefer dirt roads so at speeds in the 40 to 60 MPH range the fuel economy issue is a mute point.

I will definitely be back to explore this area more, i.e ride the 90 miles of grade some interesting things out there to see.

http://byways.org/explore/byways/68996/travel.html

The Ranger told me about a cool geological site in the Bovine Mountains called "The Devils Playground" think I'll go looking for it too.

I'll light this thread up again when I have more to add.

OK my last few shots; looking out on the Salt Lake












See you out there

Love it.

My God, but I do love Utah. One of my favorite places on earth!

Thanks for the trip and pics Sam, glad you got out for a ride!

Good stuff, Sam.
Thanks!

I'll have to go out to Lucin one night after those coyotes

Good choice not being out there in the salt/clay when it rains

Looks like a nice ride Sam

Awesome looking ride Sam

Hey Becky It was a good ride, but I had to cut it short because of the weather. Hope your up to riding soon

Signal, yea the ground heading out to the tunnels was sticky along with the incoming storm I didn't want to end up like this...




Hi AL and Jason nice of you to drop in. I starting to experiment with my camera more.

Ok, I carried my GoPro around in my back and forgot I had it so I did get a short video of riding around the Chinese Arch section of the Transcontinental RR grade. Trust me, it's much more inspiring to be there. I'm am just waiting for nature to dry out a bit and plan my fuel and water then I'm going back to finish up my ride.

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A couple from the area-

Near locomotive springs (east of Kelton on the RR route)


Oout there somewhere




My favorite-

Awesome




So are looking for rascally coyotes in that Camo ?

Rascally KTM's

Yup- but they ARE sneeky

Strange out there- I've been out there and not seen or heard another person for the whole day. Eagles, crows, bunnies- and a few dogs if you get lucky.

Edit= its a strange special kinda place, looks like you "found it"- can you imagine trying to build a railway, or cross it on a horse, or on FOOT?

Funny you should mention this; as I stood around the campfire that evening I just couldn't shake off the fact of these tenuous folks, not to mention the emigrants off the Mormon/California trail just north and west of me. I think I remember mention of a 10 mile stretch of RR being laid in one day :eek1 all with hand tools and sweat of the brow.

Funny, I traveled 100 miles and saw no one not a soul and yet that evening felt an almost religious kind of peace out there.

Sneeky huh, maybe you need a night vision scope

Sometimes you just gotta ride! With others or not, it's all good. If I waited around for other people to ride with over the years I would probably have to deduct 2/3 of the miles I have covered.