Tuesday, May 13

White Rim Success


Friday night drive and bivy at Mineral Bottom, my status quo. 2 cars and 6 people and bikes arrived from Denver via food logs at the Glenwood Qdoba. The rain passed before we sacked out and no tents were pitched. We all caught glimpses of beautiful stars mixed with occasional wind and clouds. I was up with my 4:30 alarm to almost calm winds, sitting next to my 1/8" pad in my bivy and jacket, eating my granola. Everyone else filtered awake and we rolled at 6am with the dawn. Erik forgot his eye drops (important after a recent PRK) so I dashed back and got them while the other 5 continued. A strong chase saw me stripping layers when I caught up before the pave.

The day rolled according to plan. Dropping into the beauty of Shafer and the river below, tons of fun picture stops along the way, shared lunch on top of Murphy's and the full gang plus the late arrival of Fred rolling through Hardscrabble and right on to the finish. I cleaned all the sand and the Mineral switchbacks at 2:1 and beers, soda and pizza were greedily shared in Fred's vanagon. First century and offroad century for Bill and Brett. Kick ass! Shawn rode super strong all day. Erik and Dave got it done and I check another month off the list for WRIAD. 5 down, 7 to go. Eventually we packed up the E and Scuby and rolled into Moab for a quick milkshake stop at Wendy's. I also fear I saw Dave inhale TWO Baconators with his Frosty. Shawn and I bucked up for the drive home, arriving back in Denver at 4am fueled by coffee, Red Bull and conversation. We said our goodbyes to Shawn and Brett, dropped off Dave and Bill off at Bill's place, Erik headed home from mine and I crawled into bed with my lovely wife before the sun came up.

WRIAD, working man style. Done!

3 comments:

Dave said...

Nice! See ya soon.

Jeff Kerkove said...

Damn it, I'll do this route someday.

Carney said...

Nice!

I need to get back to the WR soon!