hole in the rock road

due to the intrusion of lake powell, coyote gulch now marks the end of the escalante river.
i'll refrain from making any "political" remarks regarding the legitimacy of said lake.
coyote gulch and crack in the rock would be our river take out, and the beginning of our hardest day yet.

we'd been making alot of jokes about "rest days" during the trip, mostly due to the fact that before we started, i told jon that we'd have some down time, and maybe even a "rest day" if things were going according to the rough schedule i had set out.
needless to say we hadn't been doing much resting.
i knew that the exit from the escalante river was going to be pretty hard but the day we happened to be there just happened to be a wind, dust, rain, and snow storm of monumental proportions. definitely not a rest day!

our day started with 4hours of boating, and breaking down our boating gear.
then trudging up a 1000 high sand dune with bikes strapped to our grossly over loaded packs, after that we would need to rope our gear over crack in the rock. honestly the easiest part of the day.
once on top of crack in the rock, the real fun began.
an overland trudge with a sand blasting (literally) wind that just got worse as the day progressed.
once we got to the 40mile bench trail head we dropped our bikes, only to have to do it all over again. back down to the river to get the rest of our gear, food, and, water, then back up into the wind which had somehow gotten worse.
once we had all our stuff at the trailhead we proceeded to hide behind the largest vehicle there in an attempt to put our bikes together in the blinding sand and dust storm.
it was getting late and riding bikes(even if into a heinous head wind) sounded like heaven on earth.
i think we peddled about 100yards before hitting the newly drifted sand on the road.
so we pushed our 80lb bikes for a few hours/ or about 1.5 miles......
when we were finally able to ride the sun was going down and we needed shelter badly.
the wind was ripping, it was about to rain, and there was nothing but wind and sand on the darkening horizon.
by some act of mercy the wind calmed( a little) and we found the only tree for many miles, and made camp in the dark.

the tree saved our asses but that doesnt mean that either of us slept much that night.
it rained and blew hard till dawn.
we woke to fresh snow down to within a few hundred vertical feet of our camp.
it does not snow here on may 23. but i t did and it was so crisp and beautiful!
we put on all the clothes we had and set off on hole in the rock road. lots of wash board.........
snow........

saw some wild horses
left hand collet canyon


gear repair
our last camp before descending into the lower reaches of the crotan road, and page AZ.


our last day of riding was totally on par with the rest of the trip.
about a 80 miles of dirt road, zero cars.....