St. George to Oregon...to Alaska?

[pdedse]

A long time friend of mine loves BMW brand...and drops hints that I should buy one so we can ride "on the same footing". We've ridden to Central America together and were matched on KLR650s, turned out well. A few summers ago he was on his GS1200 and I on my CB1100 as we explored a bit of British Columbia. It worked, but there were times we might have explored other areas had I had a different bike.

So now we've planned a trip to Alaska for June-July. He's insisting that I take one of his GS1200s. Ok! To get it to Oregon, I did a fly and ride from St. George, Utah.

On Thursday of last week, I flew in to Vegas and my friend met me there and we shuttled over to St. George. His son is a ranger for the state parks and by afternoon we were riding the fringes of Zion so I could acclimate to the bike:


On Friday, I got away by 2pm and started heading to Oregon, taking hiway 18 N x NW to 56, over to hiway 93 and then north to Ely, Nevada.


I would dance with the desert rains during the whole trip--one cloud burst got me for about 30 minutes--but I never really felt wet as it was so dry the drops would evap in seconds.



Never had cruise control before which was nice. Heated grips, check. Easy to ride and got more comfortable with each curve.


Most of the route north I had rain storms on either side of me, always seemed I was about to get a good soaking and then the hiway would veer away.


It's a pretty relaxing ride. The windshield does a decent job, but the air flow still hit the top 2" of my helmet. Kind of noisy, but it didn't buffet me much.

Hiway 93 runs into 50 which then takes you to Ely, and somewhere after I was planning to find a camp spot.


After exploring a few dirt/rock roads into the hills, I found a spot I liked, about a mile away from the hiway 10 miles east of Ely.


I didn't realize I was at 7200' elevation, and yep, it was a cold night. But with multi-layers including all my mc gear, a decent sleeping bag and using my stove as a heater to combat the 37f degrees....it was bearable, barely.