WWR Day 40 Deer Springs Ranch to Kanab

WWR Day 40 Deer Springs Ranch to Kanab
Tues Sept  17, 2019

Distance 38.4
Start elevation 6270
End elevation 4931
High point probably 6520
Low point  4931
Climbing maybe 800'
Ride time 3:58
Total time about 4:30
Days bike camping: 29
Contiguous days riding : 11

And Now!, Back for an encore performance, from the high plateaus and rolling sage lands of Utah W-w-w-waassshhh b-b-b-board and the Head Winds , together once again, for your biking enjoyment!!!

Ok mostly cloudy, partly sunny again this morning, with gusty breezes out of the west. Some of the clouds are dark, and are teaming up as theountain lift them on their kourney. Glad I am heading down today.

I bustle through my morning rituals, guarding against the inquisitive Sheep and goats. The goats tried nibbling one of my stuff sacks (no food) and the sheep has a memory, always working to check out my worktable when I am not looking. No wandering away for me.


I start out heading into a stiff head wind and a steep but short climb of a couple hundred vertical, first of 3 similar vertical pushes, this being the steepest. It is pinon juniper country, rolling mostly down hill on Skutumpah Rd. I run across an emergency phone box, one of several. I suspect that road can get impassable when wet or in the winter.




After 12 miles, I reach Johnson Canyon and pavement. I turn south from my westerly heading, and the headwind turns too!  The canyon has an impressive entrance from the top, quickly riding into narrow towering petrified white dunes, eroded majestically.












The canyon slowly opens up as I peddle down. Side canyons reveals larger edifaces in the distance. The clouds shadows play with the cliffs and outcroppings, like an earth scale mobile. I slow to look back at the canyon, every little ways. Each glance reveals new persectives, previous visions fading into the distance, supplanted already. How much can the conscious mind hold, the landscapes I pass slip through as water through fingers, but I know they weave a fiber of my unconscious whole.

I enter the wider plains of Johnson Canyon, now ranches appear with their irrigated fields, barns, and  horses; and the redrock cliffs now merely guard the horizons.



After 16 miles, Johnson Canyon ends, and I join busy hwy 89, and then follow parallel side roads the last 9 miles to Kanab, empty lands being developed for homed and business, while waves a giant red sentinels ever stand guard to the north. They might think, this too shall pass, like water through fingers.









Comments

  1. Taking some time off in Kanab
    ot consider options. Been thinking of going to Jacob Lake and then short cutting to STD route. Kaibab is suppose to be more technically challenging, with some logistics issues .
    as well. I don't have elevation profile information either.
    The standard route turns out to be severely challenging for water and camping options across reservation and NP lands. Need to research more

    ReplyDelete
  2. That emergency phone looks like the Bat Phone.
    I wonder if Alfred would answer it?

    ReplyDelete

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