Passes & Canyons Blog

Recap: Steve and some buddies are coming from New Zealand in 2009 for some motorcycle touring in Colorado and Utah. This series of posts lays out their proposed routes, with my comments. Your comments are welcome as well.

Day 6

All right. Today the group is doing a day ride and returning to Torrey for a second night. Here’s the map; click to see it enlarged.

Leaving Torrey, the riders head south on UT 12 through Boulder and Escalante. The road turns west and they pass through Bryce Canyon National Park, eventually meeting US 89 a little north of Hatch. They take a right and head north on US 89 as far as Panguitch, where they pick up UT 143 heading southwest.

Just when they reach Cedar Breaks National Monument they pick up UT 148, which carries them through the Monument to UT 14. A left turn onto UT 14 takes them back through Hatch to the intersection with US 12 again, and the rest of the day’s ride is retracing the route that got them here.

I’d like to tell you more about this ride, and I know I’ve been on most of these roads, but it hasn’t been recently. That’s why I pretty much stick to Colorado on this website, it’s what I know really well. If you have information to share about this route please leave a comment. Thanks.

Update

It seems the spammers have latched onto this particular post so I’m going to need to turn comments off on this one temporarily. After they fail to do their dirty work they’ll move on and I can open up comments again. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Recap: Steve and some buddies are coming from New Zealand in 2009 for some motorcycle touring in Colorado and Utah. This series of posts lays out their proposed routes, with my comments. Your comments are welcome as well.

Day 5

Today our riders from down under are leaving Colorado for a couple days riding in Utah. Steve has been to Utah a couple times and knows some good roads so he’s going to be the tour guide here and I’ll just show you his plans.

The route today begins in Cortez and heads northwest into Utah. The destination is Torrey, but after checking in to their motel, the group will offload baggage and continue on a loop ride before returning to Torrey. Here’s the map. Click to see the larger map.

Steve and crew will head out of Cortez on US 491 through Lewis, Cahone, and Dove Creek and cross into Utah just east of Monticello. This is pretty much just high prairie. At Monticello they hit US 191 and head south through Blanding to where they meet UT 95. Here they turn west with a possible stop at Natural Bridges National Monument, and on through the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Continuing in this northwesterly direction, they reach Hanksville and UT 24.

Turning west on UT 24, they cross through Capitol Reef National Park and reach Torrey. Disemcumbered, they then continue west on UT 24 until they reach UT 25 southwest of Fish Lake and the Fishlake National Forest. On this road, they run up past Fish Lake and loop around Johnson Valley Reservoir, then hook up with UT 72 back to Loa. At Loa they return to UT 24 and backtrack to Torrey for the night.

Now, we’ve ridden all over Utah but I’ve never heard of this road, so I asked Steve how he found it and what it’s like. Here’s what he told me:

We did our first trip in 2004 and, since it’s a major expense for us, I did as much research as I could. The ABSOLUTE best thing I ever did was buy a book called Motorcycle Journeys Through The Southwest by Marty Berke. Without the guidance from this book (and with no websites like yours available) we would not have found some of these fantanstic roads.

The “loop” road up around Fish Lake and back down again is one of the BEST rides I have had anywhere (inc NZ). Only lasts about 25(ish) miles but both times we have been there it has been deserted, twisty, great surface and dry – fabulous. Normally, we check into a motel in Torrey and make that an afternoon ride without luggage.

In fact that was one of the best days on last year’s trip (we started from Kayenta in UT) and included 95/24 from Blanding to Torrey, another great section.

So there you have it. Take it from the guy who knows.