Bicycling Utah, Arizona, Nevada
May - 2009
Saturday May 2, 2009
Cedar City to Panguitch UT
Distance 32.7 Miles
Last night we called a man who runs a shuttle service and made arrangements for him to haul us to the top of a 10,000 foot pass since the weather was supposed to be bad (it was supposed to snow on the top of the pass) and we had very tired legs after yesterdays bicycle ride. At 10:00 AM he arrived and we loaded the bicycles, one went into the van and one went on a bike rack on the back of the van. We had planned to ride our bicycles on Hwy 148 between Hwy 14 and Hwy 143 but Hwy 148 had not been plowed yet this year and was still under several feet of snow.
Here is the Road we WERE Planning on Riding
We arrived at the top of Brian Head summit, in the van, unloaded our bicycles in weather that was so cold that we all four put on all the clothing we could find.
The 4 of Us Bundled up Ready to Ride
There was light snow or sleet as started traveling down the mountain. It was very cold but we did not have any major problems until we reached Panguitch Lake. We looked at the sky and there was a rain storm coming our way. We tried to outrun the storm but we got caught and got major rained on. The main problem was that it was very cold and being wet made it even colder. Both of us thought that our fingers would never get warm again. At one time it felt like our faces would freeze, in addition the rain made seeing very difficult because it covered our glasses and our glasses fogged up.
We finally made it to Panguitch, found the motel, took hot showers and put on dry clothes. We still were not warm but the sun was now out and we had every thing wet drying on the bicycle. We ate a late lunch and then met Scott and Barbara as they arrived at the motel, missing most of the heavy rain. Next we walked to a laundry and washed all of the dirty and wet clothing, walked to a good supper and prepared the room so we could sleep.
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