What you are about to see is some pretty spectacular writing. In it Jim Redd a Chicago city dweller,
takes a Utah most of us think of as being hot and dry this time of year and turns it into a virtual
paradise. And do be prepared to laugh, especially when you think about the the fact that the Pocket
Mail lady in whom he confides is about the size of a check book:
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**The Soapstone Cutoff Debacle**
I biked 15 miles uphill today, then turned around and freewheeled 15 miles down. As you may suspect,
Pocketmail Lady, downhill is better.
But let me back up and tell you what I'm doing out here in Utah on a bike, anyway. Do you remember
when we first met? How could you forget? It was at a campground two days ride due west of Chicago, I
forget the name but it was the one with the campground dog that terrorized the guests one by one and
when my turn came stuck his snarly snout in my tent and got a head-slam with a rolled up deLorme
atlas. When that event occurred I was riding the Chicago-DesMoines leg of a national relay promoting
a National Bicycle Greenway.
Well, I'm in Utah for the same reason: that's where Salt Lake City is, and I'm supposed to get to
Boise by the 11th to receive a proclamation from da mare and get my picture taken for riding 400
miles across the desert. But it's for a good cause...
I re-read my last letter to you, about my arrival into Salt Lake City, and I apologize, Pocketmail
Lady, for its dark tone. But my disposition can be excused by having spent 10 hours in the clutches
of the airline industry. But I've recovered now, and ready to look on the brighter side of things.
And wouldn't you know it? The next day did dawn bright and clear and those foreboding streets of
the night before were now filled with happy SLC citizens escaping the city in their motor
vehicles, determined to have some fun somewhere else on the Fourth of July weekend. I rode to Lisa
Romney's (of da mares office) to pick up the Pocktmail device (for where would our relationship be
without it,
P.L.?). (And thanks, Lisa, for getting it for me. Sorry we didn't get to meet in person).
It was now time for me to get on the road for Boise. But what route? None looked very promising.
Luckily, Stephen, the owner of Liberty Heights Fresh Market at 1100 E and 1300 S pointed me toward
Immigration Canyon which has historical as well as scenic value and is virtually car-free, besides.
(BTW, could someone Google that market? I'd like to send him email. His organic fruits were
delicious and got me well on down the road).
Or up the road, in this case. Immigration Canyon, he neglected to mention was a 9-mile uphill, but I
made it my Emmigration Canyon anyway and passed the time by chatting with a couple other cyclists
heading up. One was a teenage girl on a Huffy who gave me directions but said she wouldn't be able
to keep up with me because she had asthma. I admitted to her my half-pack a day Pall Mall habit and
maybe that made us even. She wasn't amused. "But I don't deserve it," she said. I'd obviously made a
mistake and was obliged to reflect on my insensitivity for the next mile or so.
The descent from Emmigration Summit led directly to Interstate 80 which I had no choice but to take.
After 15 miles or so, it dumped me off at an upscale "Main Street" district of a winter ski resort.
I came here looking for a bike shop open on July 4 to get toe clips which I had forgotten in
Chicago. Cute and quaint "Main Street" developments, as you probably know, Pocketmail Lady, offer
ample opportunity to spend lots of money, so I got out fast and headed toward Jordanelle campground,
which involved an unpleasant intrusion onto US40, which is really a freeway by any other name.
I made myself at home in the so-called "primitive" area of the campground which means you have to
walk a few yards from your RV to set up camp. I had a tall boy and a Pall Mall overlooking the lake
and pitched my Eureka! for the evening on the concrete slab provided.
The next morning, after a screaming 5-mile downhill on the shoulder of US40, I turned north heading
for Boise. But at a roadside country store I heard of the Rainbow Gathering taking place this very
weekend up in the Wasatch National Forest. Being an old hippy myself, my curiosity got the better
of me and the store clerk was more than happy to direct me to a dirt road shortcut which would get
me on track for Wasatch: the "Soapstone turnoff" which he assured me was a pristine pathway through
the forest.
With the vision of this idyllic dirt ride in mind, I rode 15 miles, mostly uphill, to the turnoff,
which looked ok until I started riding
PM.
The first thing I noticed was that the "dirt" had the consistency of volcanic ash, sucking my tires
in like sand. It was all uphill but the granny gear was of little use; it just made the tires sink
deeper. I heard the distant buzzing of mutant four-wheeled insects and a swarm of them soon rounded
a bend, pulverizing the dirt into volcanic dust and leaving me eating a fair amount of it. I had
entered the dreaded ATV Zone, which I was soon to discover extends throughout the National Forests.
After an hour pushing and pedalling I took a nap near a large herd of sheep and when I awoke my path
was clear: I must give up this misguided dirt road endeavor, admit failure, and go back to where I
had started from. It was an exhilarating 15-mile downhill passing alpine meadows of golden flowers
and watching the evening unfold as shadows moved at glacial speed across sheer walls of granite.
Yes, Pocktmail Lady, downhill is better, as I mentioned, so the half day chasing the Soapsone Cutoff
was salvaged somewhat after all.
The lesson here, of course, is to use discretion in following anecdotal route suggestions from
strangers no matter how well-intentioned. Their judgements are likely impaired by a severe case of
car-think.
Jim on the Road treadlightlytours.com
Next: The Bald Mountain Pass challenge and the search for the Rainbow Gathering on the way to Boise.
**Rethinking the Rainbow Gathering** Dear Pocketmail Lady,
The town of Kamas seemed much as I had left it six hours before, on my ill-fated search for the
Soapstone Cutoff, except the clerk who sent me there was no longer on duty at the country store
and was thus spared my wrath. But that episode was behind and now nightfall was closing in with
nowhere to camp.
As I was examining my maps and rethinking my options in front of a candy and pastry shoppe, I was
approached by two couples, all four clutching various candies. The husbands both wore tie-died
t-shirts and the wives had "Save the planet" and other buttons stuck all over the place and wore
beads. They were, sadly, in my age group, and one of the wives asked if I had been to the Rainbow
Gathering. I said I was looking for it and she gave me driving directions, saying they were headed
back to Florida. They had driven from Florida to Utah to save the planet, and spoke in tones of 60s
idealism. Get over it! I screamed silently.
After this episode my zeal to locate the Gathering diminished and became less the next day as I
encountered more refugees driving their clanking and sputtering vehicles out of the mountains. But
the aging hippies from Florida did remind me that you can camp anywhere in the National Forest, so I
got some supplies and that's where I headed, and camped for the night near a stream just inside the
Wasatch-Cache National Forest.
Jim on the road.
P.S. to my family: Who's the smart-butt who switched my bottle of camp soap for Jojoba oil?
treadlightlytours.com
July 7, 2003 **Cameraless at Mirror Lake** Dear Pocketmail Lady,
Mirror Lake shimmers in the early alpine sunlight. But the light won't touch the lake for another 20
minutes; it is reflected from Bald Mountain rising twenty-five hundred feet above the pines beyond.
Its earth-tone face is mottled with sparse green patches of vegetation, and equally with whites of
snow. It arches smoothly across the blue of the sky -- itself with patches of clouds mirroring those
of snow on the mountains -- forming an almost perfect parabola.
As I sit on this rock drinking coffee at the 10,000 ft level in the Wasatch Mountains, the sun,
rising behind me, begins to paint the pines a lighter shade of green on the opposite shore and the
lake surface becomes a rippling pastel.
The Uintas is the longest east-west mountain range in North America and is the headwaters of the
Bear, Weber, Duschesne and Provo Rivers. I followed tributaries of the Provo yesterday on my way up
from Kamas, an elevation gain of 4,200 ft in 30 miles.
After my disillusionment with the search for the Valhalla of the Rainbows, the trip shaped itself
into an assault, so to speak, on the summit of the Uintas Mountains. I had never biked to 11,000 ft,
and that was reason enough.
The grade began modestly enough, with occasional brief downhills. The road was smooth 2-lane
blacktop with a 2 or 3 ft shoulder. Traffic fairly heavy, it being the Fourth of July weekend, but
mostly kept its distance. There was even a tailwind.
As I climbed, the deciduous forests gave way to coniferous, and the tailwind became cooler. Not so
bad, I thought, still pedaling on the middle ring. But a couple of hours up I saw a message someone
had scrawled in white paint on the road: "Scott, 75 miles to the summit. Here is where the climb
really begins." Looking up from that foreboding message to Scott, whoever he is, I saw the peak of
Bald Mountain with its patches of snow.
And here is where I switched to the granny gear and that's where the chain stayed for the
next 20 miles.
But the overwhelming beauty of the landscape distracted me from fatigue. I stopped to rest every
couple of miles, covered my face with my red bandana, soaked in the cool cascade of the Provo. Lay
face up to the sun 'til it dried.
Back on the road, I established a comfortable pedaling pace, sustained by peanut fuel from my
handlebar bag, George Christensen style. I supplemented this with a banana I bummed from a tourist
at the Provo Falls overlook. He said he had never seen a cyclist this far up (which got me to
thinking how many have done it? If any of you know of anyone who has cycle-toured, fully-loaded up
the Mirror Lake Scenic Byway in Utah, shoot me an email.)
The scenery got more astounding with each switchback, passing calendar-photo alpine lakes. And
I swear, when the road peaked out at the Bald Mountain overlook, rolled over and descended
toward Mirror Lake campground I was almost disappointed the climb was over. I felt like I could
pedal forever.
My coffee is cold now, and there is a dead mosquito floating in the cup. The entire lake is
illuminated with the sun, and the blue-green pastel of its surface is now fringed with gold where it
meets the pines. The clouds have disappeared and Bald Mountain is a swath of textured russet carved
from the sky.
Jim on the Road Mirror Lake Campground Wasatch-Cache National Forest, Utah
treadlightlytours.comtreadlightlytours.comOpen ↗
Local access to PocketMail mobile e-mail now available in Europe, North America & Australia
pocketmail.compocketmail.comOpen ↗
Jim Redd can be found at: cyclechicago.orgjimredd.phpOpen ↗ His email on the road
is: [email hidden]
If you want to start from the beginning and/or follow Jim our other NBG relay riders as they move
forward in the National Mayors' Ride at
<http://NationalBicycleGreenway.com/Events/Mayors_Ride/schedule.php>, point to their blog at
<http://www.nationalbicyclegreenway.com/Events/Mayors_Ride/reports.php>. All of this excitement will
al be consummated at the second annual Santa Cruz NBG Bike Fest on Sunday August 17 c/:o
<http://www.nationalbicyclegreenway.com/Events/Festival>:
btw: If you want to become a rider, we WANT you!! Go to
<http://NationalBicycleGreenway.com/Events/Mayors_Ride/getstarted.php>, to find out how!! btw2: We
have pictures from the various ride legs on line at
nationalbicyclegreenway.com2003MayorsOpen ↗ btw3: If you want to see who these
cyclists are, go to <http://www.nationalbicyclegreenway.com/Events/Mayors_Ride/bios>.
--
MARTIN KRIEG: "Awake Again" Author c/o BikeRoute.com 79 & 86 TransAms, nonprofit Nat. Bicycle
Greenway CEO
Ever wanted anything so bad U were willing to die for it? Really die? By moving thru clinical death
and reversing paralysis, *I saw God* when I answered that question.