Go West Young Man!

We returned to France in March after the Carratera Austral bikepacking trip to unpack and visit our daughter Sophie, working at Tignes ski station for the winter. Cedric and his roommate Matt flew over from New York City for few days of skiing and family reunion.

But soon we were headed back across the Atlantic for a long-planned camper trip with our North Carolina friends. The usual suspects included Cam and Lisa, Scott and Olga and Bruce and Catherine. Bruce and Catherine had just taken delivery of their new camper and with the upcoming sale of their house, it would become home for likely the remainder of the year (or more!)

Anne and I cleaned up our Ford F-350 beast which had been in storage since last November and mounted the Cirrus camper. Each couple departed at slightly different times with rendezvous points each night. Eight years ago, we did a similar trip and killed ourselves with three 13 hours days of driving to reach Utah. This time, we decided to enjoy the states in between.

Early up was a stop at the US Air Force museum outside Oklahoma City, OK.

Then at the border into New Mexico, we returned to a cool gas station from our last Go West camper trip which had this free classic car museum in the back!

After a few days outside Santa Fe, New Mexico hitting some local trail systems, we make our way to Gooseberry Mesa, Utah and scored a great wild camping spot looking at Zion National Park and limitless mountain biking right from the camper.

We changed campsite locations a few hours away and flundi a nice spot near Thunder Mountain trail, a great loop we rode a few years back with this group when we bikepacked the Aquarius Trail system.

Then another move outside Escalante, Utah to hike Spooky and Peek-a-Boo slot canyons. There are two vertical poles at the trail head that you need to squeeze through to determine if you will be able to fit in the canyon tight spots…

Then on to Good Water Rim, aka the Little Grand Canyon, after a 25 mile drive on BLM dirt roads. Camping right on the edge of the 1000’ cliff into the canyon and great mountain biking along the rim.

Next stop, Valley of the Gods, with its massive Earthmate formations and endless views.

And finally to Moab, Utah, the mountain bike mecca of the southwest. We hit three trail systems for day rides and left many more for future trips!

Afterwards, we made our way back to North Carolina over the next week, dicovering a few new trail systems in Cortez, Colorado and a few days in the famous Bentonville, Arkansas area, home of Wal-Mart. A month in the camper with great friends making unforgettable memories together!

PS - to finish the trip, we returned to Brevard, North Carolina to race PMBAR, a famous mountain bike adventure race we’ve done 15 times but have missed the last 4 years. It requires teams of two persons and Anne teamed with her long-term partner Randall and chaperoned by Scott and Olga. Cedric flew in to partner with Kip, their first time back together since 2012 when he was 11 years old. And like that year, when we rode 16 hours through a tropical storm (and Cedric refused to ride a bike for the next three years afterwards), this year proved to be equally epic with a lot of hiking, mechanical problems, a cracked rib, torrential rain at night and the general suffering that makes PMBAR so fun!