Grand Staircase - Escalante Loop (aka the loop of doom): Day 1
My boyfriend, Patrick, and I and our buddy Ryan set out on the Grand Staircase - Escalante Loop (as found on bikepacking.com) on Labor Day weekend (August 31 - Sept 3). Yes, I know it was crazy of us to think that doing it in the late summer would be a fun time in the desert, though to our defense, when we originally planned the trip, we picked a weekend that was after the main monsoon season, but it was looking as if it would be high of 80’s and low of 60’s which we thought would be perfect. We are from Phoenix, AZ so high of mid-80’s sounded like pure bliss for a bike packing adventure! Unfortunately the balmy forecasted 80 degree weather turned into a heat wave and we were stuck riding in 100+ degree oven every day.
The original plan was to attempt the trip in 3 days. We knew these would be big days, but I don’t think any of us realized what we were getting ourselves into. All three of us are in decent riding shape, with long days in the saddle a norm for us. As I mentioned, we are also pretty acclimated to the heat as we live and ride in Phoenix, AZ. (Yes, we ride outside, even in the summer time). We had left an extra day just in case we needed it and needless to say, we needed it A LOT.
We woke up early after spending the night in a hotel in Page, AZ, which is about 20 minute drive from our starting point in Big Water. Lucky for us, the local Denny’s was in the same parking lot as our hotel, so we got a hot meal to go right before we left on our epic journey. I definitely saved part of my Moons over my Hammy for second breakfast on the route. Never underestimate the power of second breakfast, especially while on an adventure!
Patty and Ryan were riding their Pivot FS MTB’s (Patty was a trooper on his Switchblade, which is quite a bit more bike than needed for this trail, but it’s what he had), and Ryan was on his Trail 429. I chose to ride my trusty Salsas Woodsmoke, who is always up for a rowdy adventure. All of our bikes had 2.4 - 2.5” tires on which was beneficial in the copious amount of sand pits that we had to surf through. The guys enjoyed their FS on some of the ruckus descents and I enjoyed my HT on the climbs - at least the rideable ones, and I guess the hike-a-bike ones too since I didn’t have to push a heavy-ass FS up a steep hill.
Soon after we got started out of Big Water, each carrying about 8L of water each, plus all of our gear (See Gear section for more details on that), we were met with a 10 mile sandy detour around the main highway. I much rather would have taken the highway. It was early when we started riding, so there wasn’t much traffic anyway, so the highway would have been no sweat, but we heard that the detour wasn’t “that bad.” Liars! The detour, though fairly beautiful, meant a lot of surfing, cussing, and general energy suck until we popped out at the highway crossing to head up Cottonwood Creek Road. I’m not even sure how many extra hours it took us, but I would say the uninspiring sand trap route added on at least an hour of riding to our already long day in the saddle.
We stashed water a few miles below Cottonwood Creek, above the very low, very silty Paria River. Our goal was to get to to our first water stash for lunch and then keep going from there to our next water stash just up the road toward the top of the climb. Cottonwood Creek road was a mix of beautiful views, complete with Gnome rocks and mixed layers of geographical wonder that I know very little about. Needless to say, it was beautiful and the scenery, once we got into the hills, made the never-ending-climb somewhat worth it. Eventually we got to our lunch spot feeling very hungry and very tired. It was at this point that Patty realized he had a small puncture in his tire and had been losing air. He spent most of his lunch fixing said tire and we rested in the shade a bit before riding away from the cool reprieve with tired lunch legs.
A few miles later, we had stashed more water, but also discovered that the creek at around mile 20 of the day was running clearly. We took a moment to cool off, dip our head in the water and douse ourselves with cool water. We also filtered from the stream because the water was much cooler than the water we had stashed that had been sitting in 100 degree heat for 24 hours. Patty and I were testing out our new Steripen and we were actually quite glad we had it. We were much more able to dip a Nalgene bottle into the creek and sterilize with the pen than to use our gravity filter or even our small Sawyer bag filter. Great purchase! I would highly recommend!
We filled up as much as we could at this stash because we had a feeling that there would be no water at the cattle tanks right before Grosvenor’s Arch and the Reservoir where we camped had been rumored to be pretty questionable for use. I was carrying about 9L, and I think Ryan and Patty had 10L each. A very nice German couple offered us a top off on water on the climb up to Grosvenor’s Arch and then a different German couple even offered us a Coke, which we all lunged for probably looking like a few desperate vultures! There is nothing like an ice-cold coke at the end of a long day in the saddle.
We were correct about the cattle tank’s lack of water and the reservoir was filled with algae bloom and a lot of squirmy mud-dwelling creatures, so we didn’t try to filter any water. We set up camp at a small designated flat spot near the reservoir and had a bit of time to relax, enjoy the sunset over the mountains in the distance and ate our delicious dehydrated dinners. (Pad Thai, to be exact - one of my all-time favorites). We knew it would be a long day the next day, including the infamous Death Ridge section, so we went to bed as the rosy sun set in the distance and dreamt of having fast legs and strong push-a-bike-arms.
