Wakey wakey. Kind of nice when you don’t have to climb out of a tent. Just sit up.
What a glorious camp spot to watch the morning come alive.
When we were in Cuba NM a couple days prior, we got some extra sopapillas. Bmullex and I saved some ribeye chunks from the night before. Heated them up, added some honey packs we snagged, bam, first class moto breakfast. Yeppers, not a bad start.
We were real slow rolling. Nice to enjoy the morning but later we also had a bike that wouldn’t start due to a slow drain overnight from one of those led voltage readouts. We tried push starting off a hill, too sandy. Tried dragging it through sand and whoops, didn’t work too great. After a wipe out, we ended up pulling my battery out and turning it upside down next to the offending battery in Grape’s bike and just held the contacts together and fired it up. We will prevail.
Finally moving. We climbed out of the river bottom and got on a ridge for a bit.
Then slid back down into another trail section, Dead Cow.
This kind of trail is nirvana for me. Flowy, little technical, scenic, water features……lively. What we rode yesterday and were riding this morning, it is all on the chopping block to be closed per the new BLM ruling closing down a third of the trails in the Moab area. Lot of folks not happy. I think right now we are in a grace period of appeal. But it was probably the last time the majority of people will see this cool stuff
But not everyone was loving it all the time. Some of the technical moves were increasing some stress/fatigue levels. And there is always sand mixed in here and there.
No problem, give a helping hand if needed and/or get some bikes up or down the tricky spots. We got this.
We pushed on but you could tell there was some folks getting tired and we had a long way to go.
We took breaks as needed and would then rally on.
We were at the end of the wash, last obstacle field to rock crawl out of the canyon. There was a 18” blip at the bottom, an area to regroup, then you moved to the crux at the top. At the top, I picked what I thought was a good line in a crevice, bobbled it, denied. Regrouped and hit the steeper section and got up it pretty cleanly.
But it was a steep muther. We decided to take a third line for the group’s exit, longer climb but less angle. We were taking turns riding some bikes for folks that weren’t comfortable with the line.
We had a good plan. I was regrouping and about to walk back down again and see what else was needed, advice, a hand or ride a bike out. When I heard a bike rev, a holler, then a bad painful yell down at the start/bottom at the smaller ledge. It was the kind of sound you were pretty sure there was a serious injury and riding out for that person probably wasn’t happening. Mind starts racing. The below pic was right after that commotion.
We descended on John “Licketysplit” to assess. He was in serious pain, would not let us move him or pull off his helmet. We talked through the pain location with him, thigh/knee area, we gently felt around for bones extruding, didn’t feel anything. Discussed with John if he felt any blood or wetness, none, and we couldn’t see any as well.
Ok, brief discussion whether he wanted a helo, he immediately said “get it in the air”. Gary and I discussed getting him some shade, moving/using his bike up higher on the wall. Gary and Crew were on it.
Now, to SPOT or not to SPOT? Where is his? He wasn’t exactly chatty about where his was located, so we were about to hit one of ours but I remembered hearing my phone chirp from a probable text a couple ridges back. I said I will handle it one way or the other. Quickly climbed out of the hole we were in and tried to get service first on my cell, got some bars. Made the call, typical exchange of the pertinent facts and heard the sweet sound “I have my people in route to you”. I’m like who, he said helicopter/medics. I asked where from, when can I expect them? Moab, they are already in the air. Relief. I went back down into the hole to check on John. Still conscious, hasn’t thrown up, drinking water, shade deployed and crew monitoring his overall condition. All things considered, I felt good about where we were at in the recovery effort given the scenario.
Enough minutes went by, I wanted to be on top of the hill where the helo folks could call me if needed, so I got back up there and in coverage. I walked around a bit and decided on the spot I figured they would land. Got my bike well out of the way and waited. Few minutes later I could see a speck on the horizon, making a beeline to my position. They circled the scene, pilot door open and looking down, surveying John’s obvious spot as well as surrounding terrain. Couple minutes went by circling and then he landed at my presumed spot. Two medics were struggling to carry their stuff but they wouldn’t let me approach till the blades completely stopped. Once stopped, I helped them carry gear down into John’s location.
They went to work. But we were all given jobs. Grape was taking/cutting moto gear off, Gary was the gopher hopping all around, I was writing down all the data the hot female medic told me to. I liked her bossing me around, just saying. Alan and Ross were at the ready handing things, moving things etc. The medics start moving him around checking him out, serious pain. I’ve never been around anything like that. Keep it together. I do “my job” writing down 15mg of ketamine administered, 10 minutes later 50mg of fentanyl, 10 minutes later 15mg of ketamine again. He is still in some serious pain but they are moving him as needed to care for him throughout. Eventually get him out of his helmet, in a compression cast and on a primitive stretcher for offroad trecking.
We get a bunch of us on each side while the paramedics carry the IV stuff and ekg stuff and start scurrying up obstacles that were hard on the bikes. I was struggling to keep up my end after a couple climbs, we did some trade outs as needed and a sheriff had a rope on the stretcher to help pull up the slopes. No pics of the harder stuff, it was all hands on deck, managed this pic at the top as we had him close to the helo.
I helped the pilot pack the chopper back up. Gary was talking with John in the chopper. Hot medic was hitting John with more pain medicine.
And away he goes. Relief. Sort of. Still worried about John as well as juggling our situation. We are all kind of frazzled and dehydrated, really low on water and in the middle of nowhere. Plus we have an enduro and all his gear to get over a 100 miles away back to Monticello where the trucks are located.
We deliberated earlier before the chopper was on the scene, about getting the bike to the closet OHV RV hangout, use some SxSs to possibly help us. Well two showed up on the scene and were willing to do anything we needed jockeying us around. But while the paramedics were working on John, I noticed a sheriff walk up, then a Park Ranger. I was like….how’d you get here. “I drove”. Drove what? F150. Ohhhh Really….. what are the odds of you hauling our buddy’s bike out of here? Where you want me to take it? That took me back, I was like where are you based? He said Moab. That would be huge, wow, what a relief. Then he asks where are we based out of, I said Monticello. He said I can do that, where you staying? Told him I had an enclosed trailer at a motel there, he said “you want me to put it in your trailer for you?” I could have hugged him, I was already feeling really emotional but you could tell that wasn’t his style. I went back down and drove Licketsplat’s bike up the obstacle and the SxS people brought his gear up (these SxS folks were very sweet and helpful). We loaded the bike in the Ranger’s truck and he topped off all of our water bladders. What a positive experience with all of these Utah folks! And notice the Ranger has a park service KTM 300 Six Days! Legit.
Well the hard stuff of the morning was over, not just the unfortunate accident but the trail is just sand issues at this point.
We were supposed to ride out several more miles of sand/wash but the group needed an easy button. I could see some RVs on the skyline and waited to see which way the empty Sheriff’s F150 went….sure enough, easy street was close. Well easy dirt anyway.
We had planned to get quite a bit further that day, but between the late start and the accident, we voted to hole up in Green River and get a room. With a reset at Ray’s Tavern. This also gave us time to consider the next moves of the trip, the who is doing what, when will John be released, how should we proceed?
We sat around in the parking lot licking our wounds and drinking some cold ones. Some after accident thoughts? I don’t think it was one thing, probably a couple. Probably some fatigue, a bad line, some bad luck. Lessons for me, what would I change? Water was number one on my mind. I had enough to ride through at my typical pace and I carry a Sawyer filter. But I did not have enough on my person to ride slower, taking more breaks/time, helping with obstacles taking more time, hiking back and forth to accomplish it. Maybe I had enough for all that....but certainly didn’t have enough for a two hour accident retrieval incident that took a lot out of me in the heat. I still won’t carry gallons the way I typically run light, but I’m going to add one more quart and will add more for a remote run like this with mixed company of this size. I also liked Gary’s emergency tarp. I had my emergency bivy, I could have cut it in half and got it done but may add that little tarp to my bundle, it packs really small. And I think I naturally took on the burden/thoughts of worrying this was my fault for leading these guys into the breach. But there are so many factors, bike setup, gear weight, rider skill, rider attitude, rider fitness etc. And not like there was a draft, this was a volunteer army
. Not sure how I will approach a ride like this in the future, but it will be cautiously. Alright, enough of that. John is doing well and there is a lot more fun/positive stuff to share about this trip and the ride days that follow! More to come!!
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