Day 11: Canyons and Good People

After waking up in Henrisville we set out with ambitions of making it to Torrey Utah.  The morning was filled with a few steep but short climbs and then we headed down through this beautiful valley filled with farmland and amazing rock faces, and winding canyons.  We made it to Escalante by lunch where we refueled at subway as well as restocked our food supplies at the local grocery store.  We climbed out of Escalante into some of the coolest scenery we had seen yet, we wound down through some more canyons and followed the river through the gorge, here we were faced with some very large and steep hills that tested our will to continue but we were always rewarded with breathtaking views.  After a long day we rode coasted into Boulder feeling defeated knowing that there was no way we could climb Boulder Mountain and make it to Torrey before dark.  We decided instead to find a place to eat, and immediatly found the Hells Backbone Grill.  We should have been able to tell this was too high class a place from the start when she asked if we would like to see the wine list, but we froze and later had to politely backout after seeing the thirty dollar menu prices.  Upon leaving we found another place that offered reasonably priced burgers and after making some conversation found ourselves invited to this concert/town party down at the big red barn.  This was one of the best experiences so far of the trip as we got to be immersed in the local culture scene that featured everything from farmers to hippies.  Pat Briggs and the T-birds gave an amazing performance and afterwards Steve bought there CD.  Later while sitting around the fire we met some fellow outsiders Dan, Jamie, and Stu who had come down from Torrey to see there old friend perform at the party.  Stu offered to take us over the mountain that night and we gladly accepted the lift.  After the party was over we piled everthing into his pickup and enjoyed their conversation about deer hunting and firefighting.  We saw so many deer that night on our way to Torrey.  Dan offered to let us sleep on the floor of his living room \where we crashed for the night but not before making plans to reunite with the crew for breakfast tomorrow morning. Like one Pat Briggs songs Boulder to Grover was one of the best experiences of our trip so far.

68 miles plus around 30 mile lift over the mountain, multiple flats, warm and sunny