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Driving 2 St. George
Blech. What a day.
Punted out of Durango first thing, when after getting up and checking forecast the weather there was going to be dropping into more and more cold white stuff.
No road issues projected (har), so it was jump-in-the-car-and-go time.
Topped off the car and then cruised down 500 to Farmington. This wasn't bad as expected, and the pass in that direction is fairly low (under 8k) and snow had not been falling long, so it all worked out.
Once I got west of Farmington the weather improved rapidly. With my route skirting the north edge of NM into AZ, and then back into UT, I was hoping to miss most of the bad weather patterns for my drive. Over all, this worked out pretty well.
I still got a good lesson on how quickly weather can go bad out here though.
The good weather held, with me hitting intermittent flurries but nothing serious, until I got near Kanab that is. As I was rolling south westerly on 89 the storm system was moving north easterly.
Add this to one wrong turn (hey, I was tired already) where I should have zig'd when I zag'd, and the next thing I know I'm ascending up into the back side of Zion National Park which is not only a pay-to-cross area that I'd rather not pay for, but also was heading straight into blizzard conditions. Basically, as soon as I hit about 6k altitude the snow line hit and hit hard. I realized at that point that something was amiss, got turned about, and once back down at the bottom of the hill back in the rain-only area I stopped and checked my maps.
Ok, so 14 miles off track. Not bad for the only error so far, but still frustrating. So backtrack I go, then onto the correct route.
Sadly, the storms were moving fast and my backtrack also hit some pretty serious snow and near white-out conditions, and at this point it was also after nightfall so temps were falling fast. By the time I got back to Kanab the outside ambient temp was only 35 or so (it was 40+ when I had passed through an hour earlier).
I boogied on down the road (as much as you can boogy with a trailer in tow, rain falling, and darkness and fatigue starting to stack up), got some coffee, and kept on rolling.
Unfortunately, by the time I was crossing through the Indian Reservation on Hwy 59 the road had 2-4" of white crud and slush on it, and visibility was b.a.d. I think I averaged 30 mph for like two hours getting safely through the hills and over to Hurricane.
Thankfully, once I got down to Hurricane, all was only rain, and things starting moving much better.
So, eventually, safely ensconced in my next RV campground, here I sit posting.
I'm concerned tomorrow's riding is going to be rained-out, but I'm going to check with the bike shops to see what's what and what can happen.
Durango just doesn't want me to leave.
But once west of Farmington things were looking up.
Beyond Shiprock
Wet slickrock? Let me on it!!!
T@B is the star of the show, now, for sure.
This rock fist just stood strong on it's own, so I had to have one of it solo.
Arizona rock formations
Rock boobie(s)?
Hmm, something doesn't look good here...
... and it's not getting better.
So tomorrow we shall see what we shall see. Hopefully there will be riding here in town, if not maybe I'll put out to Boulder City and check out Bootleg Canyon, doesn't look like they've gotten much precip of late.
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