I'm alive!

Holy moley exciting day.

First I had a 3,000' climb to 9,600'. For two hours of that climb it rained. It was pretty light so no big deal. I was worried about the descent because I didn't want to do it wet.

Fortunately it looked to be clearing up when I got to the top and I had a nice downhill ahead of me. About 5 miles into the downhill: clouds move in out of nowhere! It started to rain pretty heavily. I think it was very small hail too because it really stung my face and my waitress mentioned it later on in the day (I didn't try stopping at 35 mph to find out for sure).

I eventually got way ahead of the clouds and got into Boulder with the sun shining: 26 miles to destination. There I decided to keep going to Escalante and try to beat the storms.

I didn't beat the storms... at all. In fact, the clouds descended upon me just as I entered The Hogback: a 3 mile stretch of road on a ridge that drops off to either side and features intermittent 14% grades. It started raining lightly, lightning started flashing almost constantly, and gusts of wind led the storm.

So there I am, bombing down 14% grades with cliffs on both sides, huge gusts of wind, and lightning everywhere. It was becoming difficult to control the bike and I needed to get off.

I was able to make it the 3 miles when the road entered a canyon. At this point I should have immediately gotten off the bike and next to a canyon wall, but I kept looking for a good spot with shelter from the rain. Then the sky lit up and I immediately heard an incredibly loud clasp of thunder. Ohhhh boy. It was right on top of me.

I stopped the bike immediately, put it up against a mile marker and moved as quickly as I could to a canyon wall. I lucked out with the winds and when the sky really opened up and started to pour only half of me got soaked. I stood there for about 45 minutes before I decided I needed to move on. It was only raining lightly at that point and the thunder was in the distance and I couldn't see lightning. Plus I was getting extremely cold and needed to warm up. There was a climb two miles down the road which sufficed nicely (you get really hot during steep uphills even in the rain).

Anywho, that was my day. The rest was an uneventful ride to Escalante: 65 miles total. I looked for Slim Jims at the gas station in town to add a little more excitement, but sadly couldn't find any.

I saw 3 eastbounders right before the big storm and they all stopped to talk: the last one especially because I was the first guy he saw the whole trip. I was a little anxious to be off because we both could see the storms coming.

Saw some cows walking along the side if the road. Utah has lots of open ranges. This means there're lots of cattle guards across the road which are horribly bumpy if you don't hit the 2 inch strip of metal that parallels the road.

The Hogback had the best views of the entire trip so far. I didn't get much for pictures considering the circumstances :(

I've got 125 miles to Cedar City with some very tough terrain. I think I'll split it into 3 short days.

I'm pretty sure Utah is a fair bit harder going east from looking at both the maps and from experience.