Day #1 - Monday June 23, 2008

Panguitch, UT. Monday morning - Day #1 of our 'quad only' ride with the Wilcoxes.Here we are out in front of the towns ATV shop - getting directions and advice ~ which they had none and only knew which road to take to get on the trail, the man there had never been on the ride ... (we should of known it wasn't going to be easy ... since none of them knew much about it!)

Within the first few miles we turned off of a gravel road onto 'Five Mile Ridge' road -- and the adventure began. The road was often steep, narrow and difficult ... but we took it slow and easy and all made it, with a little complaining!!

Parts of the trail were absolutely breath-taking as we were climbing high and riding through the pines and cedars.

Here is the view from top of a ridge looking down onto Yankee Reservoir. We could see that the road down to it was definitely steep - and slow going.

In order to keep the wider 'side by side' ATV's off of the trails that are narrow and steep, they put these posts up which are exactly 50" across. This was the first set of posts we had to go through. It didn't take me long to learn that whenever we went through some of these we were heading for a more difficult trail. Pretty - but TECHNICAL ... which became a word we used often.
Here is Linnae with Ted behind her - coming down some of the loose shale trail.

WATER ... WATER ... WATER ~ We found several places where we had to cross rather wide streams ... (Dennis LOVED it, by the way). Here are Dennis and I forging the stream.

Yankee Reservoir - now seen from ground level --- we made it down the steep trail. There were actually people in here fishing and enjoying the day. They could drive in on a state road.

Up we went again - this time we are looking at Parowan, UT ~ a small town north of Cedar City along I15. From here we could look in binoculars and actually see cars and truck driving on the freeway. Parowan is to the right in the valley below.

Along the trail. We stopped to check the machines. (Notice the little patch of snow ahead - we had passed several nice snow drifts) My machine was cutting out in the 10,000'+ altitude - so Dennis was making sure it was OK. We saw some beautiful country - but NO PEOPLE on the trails - just us four!!

As the day went on - we could see that it was going to be a LONG one ... and didn't want to make any mistakes. (We made one earlier and ended up on a trail where we had to turn around ... HUGE trees were across the trail ... so we assumed we had made a mistake. When we back-tracked we found a sign that was hidden by a tree and got on the right road again) Here - we made another mistake (due to poor sign age). Look at that sign ... it is pointing both directions for everything. (NO HELP HERE) We went straight ahead for over 5 miles and Dennis felt it was wrong ... so we talked about it, returned to this point and took more GPS readings. We did a course correction and headed for Duck Creek once again. (By this time it is getting late in the p.m. - we were wondering if we were going to be spending the night on the trail)

OH NO - LAVA FLOW!!!! This was the worst ... in my mind. We came to a huge Lava Flow - about 50 yards wide. The only thing to do was to put the machines in Low gear and slowly cross the nasty, jagged rocks. Here is Dennis coming across. I learned that our quads can do about anything we ask them to - and was grateful for their ability to perform!! (This was a bit scary!)

FINALLY - Duck Creek, UT. Here is a picture of the inside of the little cabin we were able to rent. The lady Dennis contacted for rooms was NOT THERE ... and no where to be found!!! We found some very helpful people from the town who helped us out and talked the lady who owned this into renting it, even though she had her NO VACANCY sign out. We were grateful!!

Day #1 ~ 82 miles and 10 hours of riding.