Bike Overnight: Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge

As someone who suffers from seasonal affective disorder (aka short dark winter days can really affect my mental health), I try to get out of town and somewhere warm in late February or early March when it's not quite spring yet and it seems like winter will never end. And also, before Spring Break. This year, I decided to head to southern Arizona (and Utah... seriously, southern Utah has my heart and so if I decide to quit life again, you can find me in Escalante and Boulder, Utah) to poke the cacti and bask in the sun.

Typically, I don't do the road trip thang for bikes, except to drive somewhere, park the car, then do a long ass bike tour for X number of days, and then drive back. Since this was a solo sojourn, I decided to do a lot of driving, camping, biking to places from camp, and the moving on. I had tried to design half a dozen shorter bike tours while giving me the flexibility to see more, but had been so busy my brain juices just didn't have it in me. So I cobbled together this sub-24 bike overnight from some intel from Dirty Freehub, but made it a nearly 100% gravel route instead. While the folks from Dirty Freehub also hail from Bend, Oregon, they spent several months exploring Arizona this winter and I was thankful for the fruits of their labor!

This was really a lovely isolated route and I did not see a single soul on my ride except for a single Red Cross support van. As a queer woman of color, I felt a little nervous about riding so close to the border, but had no encounters with Border Patrol agents. The highlights included seeing a herd of mule deer, a pair of pronghorns, a gajillion birds, and a playful pair of coatimundi! 

I did a fair amount of research in advance, and while it would be easy to load up on water and dry camp most anywhere, I decided to stay at La Siesta Campground in Arivaca for ease and because of the awesome reviews. I was so glad I did! Steve, the warm and welcoming owner, made sure I was taken care of. Since I had made a reservation in advance, he was expecting me... and he seemed joyful to see me and without hesitation ushered me into a pop up trailer to stay instead of the tent camping I had planned. See, I had been biking in 30 mph winds all day and it was just getting worse, so he didn't want me to have a hassle with my tent. With showers, shelters, two little ponds with a pair of hilarious ducks, and half a dozen cute cats and kittens, I settled in with a beer I had picked up in town for a relaxing evening. 

Some of this route has smooth happy dirt roads.

Some of it is chunkier and lots o' loose gravel.

Stupid traffic out here.

Signs of welcoming in this tiny town.

My luxury digs for the night at La Siesta.

Serious luxury.

Happy hour.

Sunrise and my favorite hilarious most spoiled duck duo.

Downhill for days!

A few notes for bike tourists:

• There is no overnight parking at the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge headquarters/visitor center... you just need to park in a dispersed camping spot. Spots 75 and 76 are super close to the visitors center and made for an easy starting and ending point.
• While I know many folks play it by ear, making reservations in advance for La Siesta Campground (https://lasiestacampgrounds.com/) will let the owner Steve know to expect you! I truly recommend this spot for some R&R... especially if you want to bikepack glamp it a bit!
• The Mercantile in Arivaca is pleasantly stocked with more than the essentials. Like, vegans rejoice (even though I am not vegan), they had all the meat alternative you could want.
• Arivaca also feels safe for QTBIPOC folks with plenty of signage and messaging in town in support of Black lives and LGBTQ+ lives. I felt incredibly welcomed here, from the cashier at the Mercantile to the owner of La Siesta.

Days 9 + 10: Sunglow Campground to Koosharem to Snowville to Bend, Oregon

When the days are relatively short, you learn to just wake with the first light. Second coffee seemed to be a habit when we had towns nearby, so there was no reason not to take advantage again. Except that this time, the lovely employees at the Sunglow Cafe gave us our coffees on the house! Aaaaaaahh, seriously, bike touring sometimes, just a simple gesture can make a whole day feel that much better.

We love you Sunglow Cafe!

On the way out of town, we saw the Curry Pizza, which was featured on The Food Network... we were bummed that we didn't know about it, but vowed to look it up later (which clearly, I did). Today's riding was probably the worst of the whole tour... decent shoulder but a fair amount of high speed traffic and lots of climbing. We ground out the climb into a brisk headwind and made it back to the car in good time. 

So excited to have fought our way to the summit for the day.

Brand new pavement... zooming downhill back to Koosharem.

One last climb back to the car.

We pulled up to where we had parked the car and there were a few guys hanging out in their RV next to it. They made some friendly comments about watching after my car... they had seen us leave over a week ago and were shocked we hadn't come back yet. We packed up, hit up a grocery store for provisions for the long drive home, and found ourselves at the Earp and James campground in Snowville on the border with Idaho. For $5 a person, we had a grassy spot to pitch a tent, a heated bathroom with shower, and some adorable camp cats. It was great because the RV spots had electricity so we weren't bothered by generators or the like. 

Adorable kittens... who like to climb tents.

Dinner!

The bathhouse.

It was a perfect stopover and we found ourselves back in Bend in no time at all wishing that we had just a few more days... which is exactly how a bike tour should end. Having had a grand adventure, but wanting to bike just a little more. Ani and I both agreed that this bike tour just made us want to come back and explore more corners of Utah. Daaaaaang Utah.

Day 8: Cedar Mesa Campground to Sunglow Campground via Capitol Reef

Dave's doggo Charlie came over to greet us on the morning and tromp over all our breakfast things. Despite the intrusion, I successfully made us blueberry pancakes with maple syrup to fuel our day. The first five miles were brutal, sandy, and rutted.

Sand, sand, and more sand. But at least not for too long.

The sand gave way to pavement and the landscape mellowed out to sandy desert views. As we approached the main part of Capitol Reef National park, vibrant red cliffs towered over us. We worked our way quickly to the "highway" and did a short side hike down a wash into a slot canyon.

One more park!

Not our favorite pavement, but pretty!

Canyon hiking!

As it the day wore on, the sun was hot and overbearing despite the relatively cool temperatures of mid-October. But the climbing and relatively large number of cars felt worth it for the amazing scenery. We had a hard fought bike into the adorable town of Torrey, where we picked up some water from a spigot next to the mercantile and a few limes to garnish our Jim Beam. On our way out of town, a mountain bike outfitter and their guide cheered us on.

Red layers on layers.

Views looking back on Capitol Reef, one of the most underrated national parks.

Then we had one last push into a headwind and the sun with fast moving traffic before we decided to check out aptly named Sunglow campground... which was set against brilliantly orangey lit up rocks as the sun set. Our research had told us this campground was closed to reservations, so we figured we would either find some dispersed camping nearby or just poach the campground. It turned out that there was still one site left which we nabbed 20 seconds before someone else tried to roll in.

Glowy sun as we set up camp.

First dinner with the hot air balloon.

The lovely family from Utah who gave us first dinner.

Sunglow is a gem of a campsite and apparently a favorite of Utah locals. At least, so said the lovely family who invited us for dinner. It turns out that the family is friends with a hot air ballooner and they were all just biding their time until the weather was right for hot air ballooning. This campground also had a great little hiking trail that wound along a mossy stream into a red canyon. We accepted the invitation for dinner and thought of it more as a first dinner, and then prepared our planned meal for our second dinner. Heh.

Day 7: Boulder to Cedar Mesa Campground

Cowboy camping is a thing of beauty when bike touring or bikepacking... there is something primal that connects your soul to the universe sleeping under the stars. I woke up halfway through the night and couldn't get back to sleep so I just watched the shooting stars. 

The Burr Trail is like riding through 200 postcards, each unique and beautiful in its own way. You do not want to rush it. Build in time to stand in awe of the scenery. Take all the pictures. This is the Utah people dream of. Words cannot describe the different rock layers and formations. 

Morning light and empty roads.

Looking down into another postcard.

Ever changing landscapes.

From pavement to dirt.

Just another view.

The infamous switchbacks...12% grade downhill.

That tiny speck is Ani!

We wanted to do a side hike, but it was hot and the trailhead was 3 miles down a sandy doubletrack. It was a good thing we bailed on the hike because after the infamous switchbacks, the good dirt turned into sand and ruts straight into headwinds. What was supposed to be an easy 11-mile roll into camp took us twice as long as expected. The Cedar Mesa Campground was a primitive campsite with just 5 site managed by the Capital Reef National Park, and we did not have the energy to go any further. Even though all 5 sites were taken, as people on bikes, we can sometime squeeze into someone else's site. We got lucky, and got a small area next to the nicest guy named Dave his his dog Charlie (ages 71 and 12 respectively).

Sandy road into camp.

Our home for the night.

After a walk up a trail that started at the end of the campground, we joined Dave for some conversation at his campfire... we got deep as we talked about the deep bond between humans and doggos as the stars came out one by one.

Day 6: Escalante to Boulder

We set alarms for o' dark hundred... today promised nearly 6000 feet of climbing on dirt over 45 miles to get to the promise land of farm-to-table food stuffs. Challenge accepted. And we crushed it. I had braced myself for a sufferfest and while it was hard, it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. The climb was well graded in a pleasant forest which gave way to the showstopper of Hells Backbone Bridge. 

Pictures never do it justice.

But the joy is palpable.

And the golden explosion was more golden than golden.

We left with full bellies, slightly buzzed, and happy for short 2 mile spin downhill to get to dispersed camping on the Burr Trail.

Pondering the two wines we chose.

Pure joy.

Braised beef.

We made it to the legal dispersed camping area!

There are moments in bike touring that are perfect. Those in the know, know. Take a long, hard, beautiful biking day... and then add just enough booze to get fuzzy, and then add the best of humans and good food, and then more bikes. And then add the perfect dispersed campsite. And that's where we found ourselves as we decided to cowboy camp off the Burr Trail, with just enough light to scramble up to a view of the most amazing sunset. 

A short scramble from our camp spot gave us 360 views of the sunset.

Cowboy camping cuz it was so dang warm.

Day 5: Bryce Canyon to Escalante

We woke up before the first light and packed up as much as we could, then bundled up and headed to the canyon rim to watch the sun rise. While the first rays of sun on the rocks is what most folks wait for, but we loved the pre-dawn more. Our only motivation to make the cold ride into town was that we had promised ourselves a second coffee to warm up.

Ani making first coffee at pre-dawn.

First warm rays of sun.

And into town we go...

We had to backtrack a little from whence we came, but soon enough we found ourselves on a glorious gravel road towards Escalante up and over a plateau... with a gorgeous 4000 foot descent on the backside. Anytime we had the option to take the road less traveled, we did. And we were always happier for it, even when the grades got as gnarly as 10.6%! And boy was that descent magical with perfectly smooth dirt and gravel, sparkling golden autumn colors, wind in our hair, and huge grins all around. 

Climbing and more climbing.

Finally, the summit!

Happiest, joyful-est, golden-est descent.

We had to rejoin Highway 20 for a bit, but even that wasn't too bad. We took a short detour to the Escalante Petrified Forest state park... but by that time it was too hot to do anything but check out the lake, the wildlife, and a few informational signs. Also, I would not recommend camping at this park, it was mostly RVs and RV-types of spots.

Oooooh. Lake.

My favorite part of the informational signs.

We rolled into Escalante with plenty of daylight and decided to check out Escalante Outfitters, which was highly recommended by another bike tourist from another blog. After checking out some Yelp reviews which noted that they had a really strict mask policy, which sold us. And lo and behold it was an oasis of beer, wine, liquor, gear, pizza, camping, warm showers, and cabins! Also, other bike fanatics who wanted to wax philosophic about our bikes, gear, and route. Seriously, you will not regret a stop off here. Also... $5 per person camping with hot showers. Did I mention that!?

We were the only campers taking advantage of the lovely raised tent pads.

A humble storefront, but so much awesomeness inside.

Eat the pizza. Yaaaas. Pizza.