Friday started off great, the predicted rain and snow turned out to be just some cold rain on Thursday, tapering off into showers Friday morning. I ran down to the BLM office here in Kanab to get one of the most sought-after backcountry permits in the country: The Wave in Coyote Buttes. No overnights are allowed in this area and only 10 day-hikers per day are allowed in. A lottery is run at the BLM office where permits are issued for the next day. Apparently last weekend over 100 people showed up to try to score permits, I walked in on Friday and (probably due due the tail end of the crummy weather) only about a dozen people were there so I managed to score a permit for the weekend.

Getting to The Wave involves driving down another backcountry “road”, not that dissimilar to the Hole in the Rock Road down to Coyote Gulch from a few days ago. There is an important difference though: geology. The landscape out here is so wild because it’s made up of different sedimentary layers with different properties, some are different colors, some erode faster than others, and some turn into sticky goop when wet. You will be driving or hiking on these various layers depending on where you are and what elevation you are at.

I hit the road at around 4:30pm on Friday, planning to get to the trailhead and camp there for an early Saturday start. About 30 miles east of Kanab a turn-off from the main (paved) road leads on to the dirt road out to the trailhead. About 3 miles in the road crosses under some high-tension power lines and descends a small hill directly into the “sticky goop when wet” layer, and due to the previous day’s rain it was very wet. After an hour of slogging through muck, more pushing the bike with my feet than actually riding it, and only a half mile of progress I decided to throw in the towel and retreat until it was less wet. Retreating of course required turning around and plowing back through the muck to get out the way I came in. Back to the base of the hill the muck started to firm back up, everything seemed to be going great, I didn’t have to paddle with my feet anymore, and then the front wheel stopped turning while the bike continued moving. Fortunately I was chugging along at a dead idle in 1st gear but still, when the front wheel stops turning the weird physics that make 2 wheeled vehicles stay upright simply stop working and the bike inevitably ends up on its side.

A quick post-mortem examination revealed that the muck had been building up under the lower front fender (which is only millimeters from the tire) and had finally gotten to some critical point where it had clamped onto the wheel as tight as if the front brake had been locked up (Once the bike was back on pavement I tried rolling it and the wheel wouldn’t budge until the muck had been removed). I have deemed this lower fender a hazard to off-road travel and it has now been removed, its duties being transferred to the upper fender (why did BMW put 2 fenders on? I don’t know). The damage assessment also revealed that, unlike in previous drops, the heavily armored side case that had been preventing the side of the bike from making contact with the ground had come off resulting in the clutch lever taking a direct hit, snapping it off at the base. The side case was easy enough to clamp back on, the clutch lever: not so much. After a few failed attempts at splinting the clutch lever with tire irons and duct tape, and a quick check that revealed no cell phone service, I realized I was spending the night right where I was (The best thing about traveling with backpacking gear: You’re always prepared to get stranded somewhere). No worries though: the BLM ranger who would probably be coming down in the morning to check permits would certainly stop to admonish me for parking my motorcycle to set up a tent on the side of the road and even if no ranger came all of those other people who had been at the office getting permits would be coming down the road in the morning. I could catch a ride back into town, have a new clutch lever overnighted, and hopefully convince one of the BLM rangers to bring me back out on his next round so I could install it and get back underway. I set an alarm for 7am and, listening to the annoying hum of the power lines overhead, settled into my sleeping bag for the night; or at least until I woke up for a midnight pee, unzipped the tent door, and realized that everything was covered in snow. Snow complicates matters: The road, even more impassable than before; the BLM ranger I expected, probably not coming; the other hikers, definitely not coming. I rolled back into bed figuring that in the morning I would just have to load up my backpack and hike the 3 miles back out to the main road, really not that big of a deal if you’re prepared for it, and get a flatbed to pull the bike out if the road didn’t dry by the time I got the new parts.

Morning came soon enough and brought more snow with it. The wind picked up around 6:30 and the snow really started coming down, quickly dropping a few inches on top of what the midnight flurries had done. Only about a minute before my alarm went off I heard a car go by, so there was hope for avoiding the long walk after all. I barely had time to get out of my tent and they had already turned around (must have found the “sticky goop when wet” layer). It turned out to be 2 local hunters who were about to head up near the power lines. They offered me a ride out to the main road but now that somebody could eventually send help I realized that if I had to be stuck somewhere I was better off next to my bike with my tent, sleeping bag, warm clothes, food, water, and stove than I would be 3 miles away on the side of a road standing in the cold. They agreed and told me they would send one of their friends at the towing company in Kanab with a trailer when they got phone service. I settled back down in the tent knowing it was just a matter of time.

I had just crawled back into my nice warm sleeping back when I heard another truck go down the road, quickly turn around to come back, and stop to shout at my tent. It turned out to be a couple from Tucson who happen to have rented a truck in order to go pick up a motorcycle and for some reason decided to drive down a dirt road in the snow looking for a place to hike on the way (until they found the “sticky goop” layer of course). Well, I felt kind of bad that the hunters’ towing friend would be driving down the road looking for a stranded motorcyclist that was no longer there but when you have a broken bike and a truck ready to haul a motorcycle shows up in the snowy road in front of your tent you just don’t say “no” to that. After learning how to load a 400+ pound motorcycle in the back of a pickup without ramps (actually easier than I ever thought it would be, which isn’t saying much because I figured it would be next to impossible) we were off through the snow back to Kanab. My conscience is clear as well: just as we made it back to the main road the tow truck driver that the hunters sent turned in and we flagged him down so he wouldn’t go looking for me. It turns out that another truck had gone off the main road back to Kanab at around this time and rolled over (4 times!) so the wrecker wasn’t dispatched in vain either. That driver certainly needed him more than I did. We dropped off the bike at the local NAPA who took a look and the clutch lever and decided that welding it back together was not an option so I’ve got a new clutch lever on its way, overnighted from Max BMW.

The nice thing about the little towns out here is that they’re so compact so you can get around without a vehicle. I walked from the NAPA (pretty much in the center of town) out to the BLM office (on the far eastern end of town) to inquire about a rain (snow?) check on my permit, stopping by the local outdoor gear/coffee shop on the way for a Chai, then back clear across town to the motel, stopping again at the outdoor gear/coffee shop for some swanky gel insoles for my motorcycle boots (which I still seem to be walking around in more than I ever expected); total distance: less than 2.5 miles. So here I am, back in Kanab, at the motel I was working from before this all started. Despite the overnight shipping I know Fed-Ex isn’t going to deliver in this town on a Sunday so I guess I’ll have to find something to do around town tomorrow, which could be interesting (and by interesting I mean boring).

Based on where things started off this morning (in a tent, next to a broken bike, 30 miles from the nearest town, and 3 miles down a snow-covered muddy road-to-nowhere) and where they ended up (in town, bike secured, without paying for an epic tow, 48 hours and I’ll be back on my way) I think it’s fair to say that everything went better than expected. It’s all part of the adventure, and besides: with this storm The Wave would have been covered in snow and I think this “impassable road” rain-check means I get to skip the lottery the next time I want a permit. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of these events because it was dark when it all started and from the time the sun came up, my alarm went off, and the hunters drove by my tent (which were all nearly simultaneous) I’ve been going nearly non-stop. When the Tucson couple showed up it was a mad dash to load the bike and tear down my camp so they wouldn’t get stuck in the snow as well, and back in town it was a frantic series of phone calls to BMW motorcycle dealers around the country to locate an in-stock clutch lever and get it shipped before the end of the day (I’m still a bit shocked I actually found one, but it’s not like that was the first happenstance today).

A note about backcountry safety: At no point during this ordeal did I have an “oh crap I’m going to die out here” moment (although I will admit to a “am I really going to have to pay to get this thing towed the 30 miles back to Kanab?” moment). When traveling solo I carry a SPOT satellite beacon that I can use to send a “Help” message even when I’m out of cell-phone range but I could have hunkered down on the side of that road curled up in my tent with hot meals waiting for someone to drive by for a week in relative comfort, or packed up what I needed and made the trek out to the main road on foot (even a multi-day trek if necessary, in the snow, uphill both ways). Too many people (like this guy) don’t take things seriously, aren’t prepared, and figure that a phone call will instantly get them out of trouble. I’m perfectly aware that even if somebody knew where I was it could have been days before help could get to me depending on the weather and road conditions. When traveling in remote and rugged terrain one should always be prepared to “shelter-in-place” and “self-rescue” if things go wrong, “making the call” and “pushing the button” are only for when the first two are no longer feasible. If I had sat on the side of that road for a few days without anyone driving by and somehow managed to break a leg trying to walk out then I would have pushed the button, not before.

While I am prepared to take care of myself during a breakdown the one area that I’ve realized that I’m under-prepared in is the spare parts and tools department. I added a tire patch kit, tire spoons, and a small air compressor to the bike back in Moab but I know that clutch and brake levers tend to break during drops and I should have brought spares on a trip of this magnitude (I’ve been relying too much on my luggage boxes to shield the rest of the bike), a few extra chain links wouldn’t be a bad idea either, and I just added spare headlight, brake/tail, and signal lamp bulbs to my pile of parts. The toolkit that came with the bike was also lacking: many of the bolts on the bike (including the ones that held the now-removed formerly mud-jammed lower fender on) require allen bits, which the toolkit has none of. I’ve now added a full set of allen keys but I’ll have to take a harder look at what else should be in there.

Well, I’m exhausted (I can’t imagine why) so it’s off to bed for me. I’ve got a work gig in NYC on Wednesday so as soon as I get the clutch lever in I’ll be high-tailing it to Las Vegas to catch a flight and I will pick back up from there when I’m done. Death Valley isn’t too far from Vegas…

Tags: Red Roamer, Colorado Plateau