I know, I know. You’re tired of hearing about us revisiting places I biked to in my deep past. Tough, because here comes another one. On one of my more memorable rides I woke up after wild camping on the rim at Dead Horse Point and watched the sun rise over Canyonlands; biked 30 miles down to Moab for breakfast; then biked another 30 miles south into a fierce headwind to the turnoff for Needles Overlook; and finally another 20 miles to the end of the pavement where I wild camped on the rim again and watched the sun set over Canyonlands.
Before leaving town In Moab I filled the larder, knowing that I wouldn’t see a store for the next hundred miles:
After breakfast I stock up for a long haul. The next services are in Monticello, a hundred miles away, including a planned forty-four mile detour to Needles Overlook. Provisions acquired include: a pound of peanut butter, a pound of longhorn cheddar, a package of dried apples, four bagels, a quart of grapefruit juice, a coke, a pint of milk, two pounds of gorp, two more rolls of film, and chapstick. My panniers are very full.
Looking over the Colorado from Dead Horse Point at dawn. Not a bad way to start the day.
Wild camping at Needles Overlook. Reflecting back now, these past two nights are probably the most dramatic back-to-back camping settings I've experienced.
Bruce LellmanBut the look is kind of beautiful - dates an era. On Instagram there are options you can choose that try to make your image look like a certain type of film from long ago but they kind of fail because they are too perfect in their digital imitations. Your images are the real thing. Reply to this comment 3 years ago
Logistics are a bit simpler today. Rachael fixes a pair of turkey sandwiches, we load the bikes in the car, and drive the thirty miles to the Needles Overlook turnoff. We’re up above 8,000’ here, and it’s still in the low 40’s when we start biking northeast, happy to have a respectable tailwind pushing us up the slope ahead.
I’ve wondered what this road would be like thirty years later. I’m happy to report that little has changed. It’s still virtually empty, though we do see a car perhaps every five minutes or so. And there is still no development along the road - no service station or souvenir shop at the turnoff, no snack stand at the lookout. It still seems wonderfully undiscovered, perhaps protected by its distance from Moab and the wealth of better known attractions nearer by.
Leaving the Raven behind, we layer up for the ride out to Needles Overlook.
Looking back behind us, we have fantastic views of the La Sal mountains. I keep stopping every few miles for another look, admiring them anew from a slightly different perspective.
There’s not much net elevation change on this rolling road. By the end, we’re only about 400’ higher than when we started. It’s enough to lift us up into the junipers though.
At the high point of the ride we get our first view down into the immense canyon. In the distance are the Henry Mountains, the range on this side of Capitol Reef.
There’s no more at the lookout now than there was thirty years ago: a small parking lot, a few picnic benches, some information panels, and his and her outhouses. There are three or four cars in the lot when we arrive, and a few families about. It’s not deserted now like it was then, but then it’s not sundown either. The nearest campground is a few miles back and there are signs stating camping is forbidden, but I’d feel as comfortable pitching a tent at the rim at sundown now as I did back then. Nice to see that some things don’t change that much if you get far enough out of the mainstream.
I look around trying to remember just where I camped, and feel certain I recognize it. When I compare photos though it doesn’t look exactly right - the rocks in the background don’t quite match. I should have thought to have taken that old photo with me, because I’m sure I could have found the exact spot, and probably the same junipers.
We enjoy our sandwiches sitting on a rock overlooking that immense chasm and then head back for the car, with the snowy La Sal range drawing us in the whole way.
Looking down into Canyonlands, and the vast chasm the Colorado has carved out of the plateau over millions of years. It’s hard to imagine how much rock and sand has eroded and washed downriver over all that time.
