Hltoppr
El Gringo Spectacular!
Just a quick little report on a long day trip a buddy and I took late last month...with a 7 week old, I've found that my opportunities to get away are a bit shorter these days, so I've been looking for nice out of the way places closer to home....
Hearing rumors of a fantastic set of Anasazi ruins outside of Bluff, UT, my Mexico motorcycle friend David and I set off early one late September morning...David usually rides a sweet 2002 Triumph Tiger, but it had met a juniper tree earlier in the month, and was down for some cosmetic front end replacement....so he's on his 1978 BMW R100S and I'm on my 2003 BMW R1150GS Adventure.
We cross the Navajo reservation of Northern Arizona, stopping in Kayenta in search of a good mutton sandwich...got Mutton? Well, we didn't find any, but did have a good lunch at a nice local cafe!
Full of fried chicken and beef, we hit the dirt South of Bluff, Utah. Nice roads! You can go entirely too fast on a bike...we keep up under 40-45mph.
The ruins are part of Comb Ridge, which extends several hundred miles...an ancient anticline which has eroded over the millenia, and provides an excellent place for the Anasazi to build complex, secure living quarters!
Monument Valley can be seen in the distance.
We park the bikes, chain 'em together, and find a footpath down into the Chinle Creek valley.
As we round the corner of an overhang....we get our first view of the site. :yikes:
Remembering to treat each site with the utmost respect; staying off walls and not removing or moving any items, we carefully explore the ruins. Corn cobs and the remnants of thatched rooflines abound, and the view of the valley below is awe inspiring.
The 1000+ vertical feet hike out burns our quads...but the views, and exploration was all worth a nice day trip!
Cheers!
-H-
Hearing rumors of a fantastic set of Anasazi ruins outside of Bluff, UT, my Mexico motorcycle friend David and I set off early one late September morning...David usually rides a sweet 2002 Triumph Tiger, but it had met a juniper tree earlier in the month, and was down for some cosmetic front end replacement....so he's on his 1978 BMW R100S and I'm on my 2003 BMW R1150GS Adventure.
We cross the Navajo reservation of Northern Arizona, stopping in Kayenta in search of a good mutton sandwich...got Mutton? Well, we didn't find any, but did have a good lunch at a nice local cafe!
Full of fried chicken and beef, we hit the dirt South of Bluff, Utah. Nice roads! You can go entirely too fast on a bike...we keep up under 40-45mph.
The ruins are part of Comb Ridge, which extends several hundred miles...an ancient anticline which has eroded over the millenia, and provides an excellent place for the Anasazi to build complex, secure living quarters!
Monument Valley can be seen in the distance.
We park the bikes, chain 'em together, and find a footpath down into the Chinle Creek valley.
As we round the corner of an overhang....we get our first view of the site. :yikes:
Remembering to treat each site with the utmost respect; staying off walls and not removing or moving any items, we carefully explore the ruins. Corn cobs and the remnants of thatched rooflines abound, and the view of the valley below is awe inspiring.
The 1000+ vertical feet hike out burns our quads...but the views, and exploration was all worth a nice day trip!
Cheers!
-H-
