Today we awoke to an amazing sunrise … Wait, Back Up. Not really … we were woken up around 3am to a torrential downpour, wind, hail and general mayhem. Luckily we had put the rain fly on the tent for no other reason than Joel didn’t want the “moonshine” waking him up. Weird, but fortunate.

Anyways, even with the fly on, I was on the side that was getting pummeled by the rain and a lot of my stuff got wet. Others in camp weren’t so lucky. Tristan decided not to put up a tent but slept under the van. Unfortunately no one thought it was going to rain and no one looked at the ground or noticed where the water obviously ran during these downpours. It ran right under the van and a soaking sleeping bag and pillow were Tristan’s prizes. I had not paid attention either and laid my bike down right in the middle of the same drainage and I got to listen to the sand grinding in the gears and brakes all day!

OK, we really did have an amazing sunrise with more water and reflections in the pools with the La Sal mountains in the background once we finished wringing everything out!

We broke camp and continued on the White Rim Road with a stop/side trip to White Crack about nine miles down the road.

Our next camp at Candlestick was about 20 miles down the road but first we had to tackle the first big ascent of the trip – Murphy’s Hogsback. Rachel and Luke powered up the hill but the rest of us took turns walking our bikes up the steep grade. Not too technical but requiring a bit more strength/fitness than we had! Joel made a valiant effort but in the end had to hop off.

Once we had lunch, we powered down the other side of the pass and through the Soda Springs Basin to Candlestick Camp.