A few weeks ago I shipped my motorcycle out to Salt Lake City and I arrived yesterday. I’m not entirely sure how long I will be out here: rather than taking a solid block of vacation time off I’m going to be checking in to civilization every week to put in at least a few days of work and doing a few days of riding or backpacking in-between. If all goes well it may be January before I end up back home.

I don’t have any set plan but I do have a pile of backpacking gear strapped on the back of the bike and I’m looking to avoid hotels in favor of camping. It can get a bit chilly in the SLC area this time of year so I think the first order of business is to get south to avoid getting trapped in snow and ice. I would like to head to the Moab area first but it’s supposed to snow in the higher elevations tonight and there are some mountains in the way so I may head down the valleys to Zion instead and work my way back east to Moab later on. Of course going down the valleys involves lots of highway time which is not what I’m looking for.

As for longer term plans, it depends on how cold things get. I can head west through Las Vegas to the Mojave Desert and Death Valley; on the other hand it should be much warmer to the south in Phoenix and the Sonoran Desert.

If the snow gets too bad to escape SLC this weekend skiing is always an option: Snowbird and Alta opened today. We will see what tomorrow brings.

Tags: Red Roamer, Rocky Mountains