Tuesday 3rd November

Castle Dale, UT to Gunnison, UT

We both had a brilliant nights sleep, and after treating ourselves to a sleep-in we loaded up the bikes and rode in to town. As Ed had to finish the welding in the dark, he checked to make sure he’d got it all in the morning and noticed that he’d missed a bit. We managed to find a garage that could do it in an hours time and for $20, so headed off to the hardware store to get some nuts and split pins for my wheels. An hour later and we were welded up, the wheels were secure, and we were back on the trail shortly after 12pm.

We decided to miss the detour this time as we’d already seen it on the bikes and in Justus’s truck, so continued on the gravel road that took us round the towns reservoir, which was the most beautiful turquoise colour.

 

 

The trail then took us up in to the forest, where the terrain was fairly easy but rocky in places.

 

 

It opened out at one point and Ed found a deer leg, and so ensued the jokes about being legless and footloose and fancy free.

 

 

We went back in to the woods then popped out again at the top, which was around 3000 metres and only 3C.

 

 

There were some lovely views but my hands were freezing and my body was chilled, and the snow didn’t help in making me feel any warmer.

 

 

Thankfully we soon started making our way down on an easy graded gravel road with occasional tit jiggling corrugations, but there was ice and snow in a few places and on a couple of corners.

 

 

Although I had fantastic traction I still took it easy round those corners, aware that I’d probably panic if I lost control and slid out. I should have let Ed ride the snowy corners really, I knew he’d be wishing he was on the trike so he could drift round them sideways!

We wound our way down to the lovely little town of Ephraim, where we picked up some things from the post office and met a guy who was apparently a relative of King William the 4th. Yes it’s as random as it sounds. The guy in the post office was really friendly and quite a character, and we enjoyed chatting to him for a while before we went and fuelled up and headed out of town.

 

 

I loved the scenery out of Ephraim, it was nothing special per say but I loved the colours, they were really soft and easy on the eye. There were huge expanses of grassland with mountains all around, and the paved road soon turned to gravel and took us up in to the hills.

 

 

It was fairly easy terrain with the odd rock here and there to avoid, and there were some absolutely beautiful views out over the valley as we climbed higher.

 

 

It was quite chilly but it wasn’t long before we were making our descent down a tree lined dirt trail, which really reminded me of England in winter. I like stuff that reminds me of home.

 

 

As we made our way down the easy terrain continued, and the trail eventually opened up with more beautiful views.

 

 

There was some gravelly, sandy single track after that with bushes along the edges and our first gate to open, and then we suddenly found ourselves in what looked to Ed like Mongolia.

 

 

Gentle rolling hills were in every direction, and they were the softest pale green; I loved it.

 

 

I haven’t been to Mongolia myself but Ed ran a tour from there in 2013, and said that that last section to Gunnison was the closest thing to Mongolia that he’d ever seen. Needless to say that I want to go to Mongolia now.

 

 

The trail actually took us past Fayette but as there wasn’t a motel there we took a small diversion to the town of Gunnison, six miles south. There we got a cheap motel room for $45, a bargain set menu at the local Chinese restaurant, then spent the rest of the evening watching Kill Bill Vol 1 and 2 as it was on TV. Four hours of entertainment and violence later and it was time for some beauty sleep, ready for another day on the trail.