The White Rim - Past Trips

I'm still editing some of the 300 pictures Donnie and I took from the 2007 White Rim trip so I thought I might keep the blog going by resurrecting past White Rim adventures. Last year's trip with Jo was just hang gliding due to my knee injury and can be seen in my 29 pictures in 29 days posts in my blog archives from November and December 2006. Here's the story of the 2005 trip which was the first of a tradition of late year biking and hang gliding Moab trips.

Back in 2005 Ramine and I were invited to ride the 103 mile White Rim Trail in one day with some "old balls" mountaineers including Into Thin Air author Jon Krakauer, main character Neal Beidleman, and crew. It turned out the day they picked to ride was one of the coldest days of the year and they all bailed! I guess all those cold high altitude nights on Mt. Everest had thinned their blood, so it would just be Ramine and I for the ride.

Ramine, Donnie, Dave, and I left Boulder Friday and picked up a French climber named Niko under a bouldering rock in Big Bend. After the ride, we planned to meet up with Jeff (OB) and Adam (Batman) from the Salt Lake area. Saturday, Ramine and I froze our asses off riding the White Rim trail while Donnie, Dave, and Niko climbed Fisher Tower. They managed to get a rope stuck on the way down the last pitch. Meanwhile, after about 9 hours and 90 miles of riding on the coldest day of the year I suffered one of the most colossal bonks (= dearth of energy) of my cycling career. It was cold, I was out of food and everything hurt. Luckily, I happened to run into Jeff and Adam on Mineral Bottom Road. Adam came to the rescue with some homemade Chocolate Cake - Priceless!!

The next day Jeff, Adam, and I truck towed hang gliders and filmed the last segment of the Horse Thief Canyon movie which featured aerial footage of my solo launch off the 1000' foot cliff. After spectacular sunset flights we had the last of the cake and parted ways East and West.

Niko and Dave had gone back to Fisher Tower to rescue the rope. I mentioned that I could go home that way if they wanted to hang out a climb some more after Ramine and Donnie left, but we never finalized details or a time. After a successful rope rescue mission they climbed for a little while and then spent 8 hours standing on the side of Rt. 128 waiting for me. Can you imagine the uncertainty, anguish, and turmoil of waiting 8 hours on the side of a 2 lane road in the middle of the desert wondering if your pseudo ride is ever going to come or worse yet already came. If that wasn't enough, about 4 of those hours were in engulfed in the ink black blanked of the desert night. When I finally came over the hill to Fisher Tower Road at 10:00pm I saw two people in the middle of the road frantically trying to flag me down. They were delirious and emaciated. Niko's joy filled melody of broken English was hilarious. Dave told me it got so cold they took turns sprinting in the dark to fend off hypothermia. It was an epic end to an epic trip.