Capitol Reef National Park, UT to Escalante, UT — 68 mi, 6031 ft
A common enough question I get asked by either Tatiana or Aarushi is: what do you think about on your rides? Half the time I don’t know what to say, I’m just dissociating up the climbs. Otherwise, I’m trying to lock in and listen to my audiobook. But mostly, I’m thinking about thinking. Thinking about what I have said, what I will say, what I have not said, and what I will not say. Why I feel a certain why, why I want something, or why I’m annoyed with something else. A lot of metacognitive thoughts that probably aren’t very interesting to anyone else but me. And so, given this opportunity to write about whatever I want and have my friends and family read it, I’ll share some of them.
As soon as my eyes opened, I was immediately reminded by Nunu that this was the last morning we’d ever wake up at a campsite. So I took a couple of seriously bad photos through the screen of my tent to commemorate the moment. How we ignore all our alarms and then get up in sequence some minutes after, with Nunu always first and Drew always managing to get an extra half hour of sleep. The last day of this routine, of those steps we decided at our first campsite, and others that naturally occur but nonetheless become ingrained in our group psyche. It’s like a living thing, each of our own seven habits contributed to it, creating patterns of interactions that only those who lived it can predict. And maybe part of it dies the moment we put the last suitcase in the car, but the rest has the chance to survive for the next 20 days.
With the tents packed away we scavenged for breakfast like foods of granola, dried mango, until Tatiana and Noah rescued us all and brought three breakfast burritos from their hotel. We shared them and our saliva as usual.
Moments away from leaving, a British guy carrying a bike comes up to us and asks if we can help fix his deflated tire. This is now the third or fourth guy that has asked us for either bike help or for tools within the past 48 hours. It’s almost as if our seven matching bikes chained up to the park grill send out a bat signal to all the tool-less husbands at the Capitol Reef campsite. We tried to fix his bike, discovered the seller had folded up a leaky tube too large for the tire, and attempted to patch it, but in the end it still was flat. Even with all seven MIT brains put together, the poor guy ended up in the same position as he started.
I had been mentally preparing for this day: 6,000 feet of elevation, the highest I will have biked. I was honestly quite excited. The triumphant satisfaction of tackling each hill would in theory replace most of the dread I felt. It did at least for the first section.
We had driven up and down this highway leading out of Capitol Reef multiple times by now, and so I had a decent picture of what the climb would look like. It was like any other kinda uncomfortable climb, gradual uphill for a few miles, then some steeper sections and some fast downhills. The most notable part was the beautiful red rocks I got to bike by. My favorites are these vertical pillars and mounds at the base of this mountain that manage to look like rows of sphinxes.
I also got to see some cute deer in the fruit orchards on the road out from the campsite.
Earlier we had planned to stop 7 miles in at the national park sign to finally take some pictures for Olga with the NASA hats. Nunu staged us very artistically on the hill behind the sign and in a line to show off our side profiles.
Noah had been driving along for this first section, and would park up ahead every few miles to cheer us on during the climbs. What an amazing man. Tatiana really bagged a good one.
As I passed through half of Torrey, the small town I had spent the previous day exploring, it felt as if I was traveling through all of those memories which already felt so large. The Subway which we devoured after the hard century day into Capitol Reef, the mexican restaurant we ate at while jokingly discussing if we should dip and take a day trip to Salt Lake City, Tatiana’s hotel which we crashed at for hours, the random antique and grocery stores we roamed through, the bulletin board where we found the flyer for the BIFF film festival, the farmer’s market that gave us the people watching show of a lifetime; all trapped along this few mile stretch of highway 24.
When I look back, I’m always amazed at how I was able to have so many full experiences within such a short amount of time. How have I managed to instill each moment with meaning? That is precisely what I feared I wouldn’t be able to do. And so this, to me, is a huge relief, but still a high goal to continually reach day after day, this desire to avoid monotony. Despite this nagging reminder droning on in the back of my head, it has naturally become the norm.
Why is it natural? Our rest days are not structured like our biking days, and don’t provide us instructions on when and where to meet people, or how to peer into other’s communities.
I’m going to say that for most, it’s due to an intrinsic curiosity in people. For me at least, I think it’s from this same desire to avoid monotony by chasing a certain feeling of warmth, of affection. An affection I only find when I either see or get to play a meaningful moment in someone’s life.
So maybe each day is a new race to acquire these moments of affection. And the shops in Torrey are where all of those moments from the past 24 hours live.
I was met with four types of pie and two types of ice cream at the first rest stop. In my immense greed I still checked out the coffee selection and ordered an horchata latte. It was delicious, and so were the pies. Especially the strawberry rhubarb one recommended by all three workers at the farm store.
The next segment was relatively calm. We left the red rocks of the park behind in a very sharp transition that turned into flat grasslands. I was following Caroline for most of the ride until we started up a gravel climb, and were assaulted by 15 mph winds coming from the east. I tried to fight it as long as I could, but it was just too strong, and we both had to get off our bikes. We hadn’t had enough fun yet because then rain started pelting down at a steep angle in addition to the wind. As Caroline and I were hunched over on the side of the road, the rain started to sting our faces. It must have turned into hail as it felt like being pelted with tiny rocks everywhere it landed on my skin.
With nothing else to do I started to laugh. In times like these, in situations as ridiculous as this, where we couldn’t even stand up straight, couldn’t bike, couldn’t do anything but exist and wait out this uncomfortable weather, I just laugh at the absurdity of it all. I tend to do this, laugh during ridiculously hard and trying times, or at idiotic mistakes, anything that is inevitable and uncomfortable. Because what is the other option? To cry? Sometimes I fear this can be mistranslated as me laughing at someone, or at inappropriate times. Maybe that’s what it looks like, but it’s not where it comes from.
When it eventually died down enough to finish the climb, we continued on until the next rest stop. As Mr. K came into view, I saw what looked like a tent? Nunu’s genius had made itself known for a second time today. We found Nunu, Nate, and Drew already inside devouring the most amazing snack haul I had ever seen. Nunu got those pink and white circus animal crackers that are just so nostalgic in all the right ways. When we first saw them Drew, Caroline, and I gasped, yelled, and dove for them like the greedy pigs we are. Look how happy Drew was.
The wind wasn’t going away any time soon, and so we decided to wait it out for an hour inside the tent. An hour and a half later, we still hadn’t moved, and the wind was still slapping the rain cover on the outside of the tent. The largest climb of the day was also still ahead of us: 1,000 ft in 10 miles straight up gravel. So Drew and I chose to ignore the wind. It had died down some, even if it sounded like we’re being tumbled around in a washing machine.
What I’ve recently learned is that we’re all sheep. If one person starts moving, everyone else (usually) follows. It’s such a great hack; the few times I’ve used it I’ve felt so powerful. Like a shepherd leading their blind sheep off a cliff. So the rest of the team woke up and put on their helmets too.
The next stretch was the most climbing we’d do all day. And I didn’t even mind, not one bit. The landscape was so incredibly beautiful that it apologized for all the uphill. It was out of some story book. As I biked up the road, there were sprawling green fields on either side, and multicolored mountains looming in the background. The road curved downward, and so from my view I was biking between a small gap in a fence and into the infinite blue sky.
It was at this point I took out my headphones and just listened to the wind, the brush of the bushes, gravel crunching under my tires. It was so incredibly peaceful.
A half mile more and the climb for the next 5 miles came into view. The road curved up the mountains in front of me. It was vulnerable in a way. These hills were not obscuring anything, they were presenting the challenge for me to judge. And I couldn’t be mad at its honesty or its beauty. Mountains simply have climbs and descents, and we are the ones who choose to bike across them.
From the base of this climb, I could see about four trees, all standing alone, scattered throughout the hill side. My camera did not do them justice. They just stood there, in the wide expanse of flatlands, only a couple feet tall, but providing dots of shade.
Along the drive from Phoenix to Prescott, there is a single tree a half a mile or so out from the road, surrounded by a similar landscape. I’ve always wanted to sit under that tree and look out at the quietness of the rolling hills.
On this ride, I should have done so when I had the chance. The chance was a small road that would probably have taken me to one of those trees, a mile or so off the main road. But I didn’t, and admittedly, kinda regret it. Next time?
For the last part of the climb, a cap of trees came into view. “The Dixie Forest”, the sign read. Within 20 miles, the land had changed so rapidly: red rocks, to flatlands, to forests.
We stopped just past the sign for lunch, and wrapped ourselves up in blankets to protect us from the cold that was at 9,500 ft of elevation. We ate our sandwiches huddled like penguins and some of us went swimming in the back of the car for rain jackets.
All the way back in Blacksburg I remember hearing from our host the philosophy on wearing rain jackets while biking. You get wet both ways, either from the rain itself or from your trapped sweat. So like the absolute units Caroline and I are, we went without them and chose to be cold instead, at least until we warmed up from biking.
As we rode off to finish the last climb, we kept passing these tiny circles of trees that lined the trail. Eventually they grew into more of a cohesive forest, and we started talking about how we would love to go and explore. It’s ironic really, because 0.1 miles later, the route curved into the forest and our wish came true.
We crossed several “experimental farms”, and were confronted with cows on either side of the road. They are apparently as stupid as deer, since when they heard us coming, they got startled and ran across the road, almost trampling us.
We finished the climbs, reached the highest point of elevation in our ride (10,049 ft), and then started on the incredibly steep gravel downhills. I may not be the fastest on the way up, but I did manage to bomb past Caroline on the way down, not that it was a race or anything.
When I pulled into the last rest stop, I saw three people in kayaks on the lake in front of me. To my surprise, one of them began to wave. My eyes are so incredibly bad that even with my contacts I couldn’t make out who they were, until one of them started paddling towards me. It was Drew and he was pointing to a dock with two more kayaks and paddles.
As I was pouring water out of the single kayak, Caroline arrived, and her and Drew decided to squish into one of the larger kayaks. To make room for the last two bikers, Nate and Nunu also squished.
The kayak I rode was more of a paddleboard. It sat on top of the water, which meant it felt far more unstable than the others. Drew knew this too, and so he started barreling towards me, threatening to splash me and overturn my boat. I remembered from the rafting trip that he had already done so, it’s just that at the time I was on his side. Now though, I was at risk of being drowned. So I said something along the lines of, “this is a peaceful trip! No fighting, let’s be very zen right now. Truce?” Caroline, for her part, explicitly said she did not support any violence. He must have agreed since my butt and feet stayed dry.
The lake was stunning. We saw a bald eagle sitting on top of a pine tree. Nate and Nunu got the privilege of seeing it dive for fish. We also saw a family of ducks, one mom with seven or so ducklings trailing behind. Someone mentioned the ugly duckling, someone else mentioned the Aarushi gap, and then somehow they got combined into one? Aarushi is the ugly duckling? As the self proclaimed (and communally agreed upon) daughter of Aphrodite, she is arguably the least qualified to be likened to a scruffy wet bird. But she is definitely qualified to be leading that gap behind the third duck. So while everyone was shouting about ugly ducks and runts and slow swimmers, I chose the most confusing moment to add, “I found Aarushi!” Everyone then starts looking around for her and Tatiana as they remembered they haven’t yet arrived, saying “Where, where is she?” I only meant that out of the cute little ducks, I found the one lagging behind a little, and then paddling its little feet to go faster.
Well at this point we all started to get worried, since it’s almost been an hour since we arrived, and we hadn’t yet seen Aarushi or Tatiana. Also it was about to get dark, and none of us wanted to finish these steep gravel descents with no light. Drew’s brakes had already stopped working from overuse on the first part of the downhill. None of us wanted to be in a position where we lost control at night. And so we sent Nunu out to go find the two missing ones of us, while Drew, Nate, Caroline, and I dragged the kayaks out of the mud and on top of the dock.
It’s a funny thing, repeatedly putting yourself in a situation where every few hours you get to worry for someone’s safety. It’s not a trivial worry either, what makes it even more stupid is that it’s completely valid. We have crashed into trees before on gravel descents, last year’s team slid out on gravel and seriously hurt themselves, some guy on the UT Austin team was blown off the side of a cliff and had to get airlifted out. All of these accidents have happened to people relatively close to us. So every time we wait for people to arrive in areas with no service, it’s always a guessing game of are they seriously injured, or just slow(er)?
While I get to ooh and awe at the beauty of the mountains and the pine trees and the algae running under the boat and the birds hunting for fish and the cicadas humming in the trees, I also get to hedge a ridiculous bet that my friends are still alive and not desperately trying to call for help with no service. What’s more is that we all get to do this multiple times a day, experience this dichotomy of feeling, these extreme highs and lows all at once. It keeps the trip interesting, that’s for sure.
Maybe I’m getting desensitized to these anxious thoughts. I did after all bet that they were just going slower. But what’s the other option, envisioning their death and destruction constantly?
As soon as Drew and Nate finished my emergency stash of Cheez-its and we were almost ready to finish the ride, Nunu pulled up with Tatiana and Aarushi in front. Alive. And each in one piece. Wonderful. They said it was just slow moving, all the climbs and the steep downhill had taken them forever. But they were also ready to just get the ride over with. So we all left together, me in front leading the way, the first and only time I got to do so.
We saw the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument on the way down.
I was biking with Drew and Nate for a bit until my chain fell off and I had to stop on the side of the road to put it back on. As I continued down the hill, I watched this black pickup truck pull out of a parking space and slowly drive down the road. Either it was incredibly slow or I was going fast, but I had to pass it on the left. That’s never happened to me before. I don’t know why, but I had the irrational thought that maybe, just maybe it was planning on following me? It was going slow enough and started trailing behind, keeping a couple hundred feet of distance between us. The longer I biked for, the longer it followed, and the more I became convinced that something was going to happen. This went on for a couple miles or so, as I biked as fast as I could. I took a right turn, and then a left, and it still never left. Half the time my eyes were in front of me and the other half was spent looking behind. Eventually, it took a left as I went straight, and I realized how well I had gotten into my own mind. Everything was fine. I was being crazy, but to be fair, crazier things have happened on this trip. I guess I’m not desensitized after all. Just attempting to tone these thoughts down and occasionally succeeding.
We all finished the ride into Escalante, met up with our hosts, pet their two adorable dogs Rocky and Mocha, had dinner, and began the debate about our next day’s ride. Should we take the highway or gravel side roads?
At dinner, our host Pastor Richards suggested we take this alternate gravel route north of highway 12. So Aarushi and I did our duty, and looked into this road. We took input from the team: Drew was a strong advocate for the gravel, Tatiana was leaning towards the highway even though she knew the gravel was more responsible, Nate was more aligned with taking the gravel, and Nunu and Caroline were fine with either. The issue is that we don’t have street view for some of the parts of the gravel section, and the ride with gps elevation graph isn’t always accurate. If we took that path, we’d be going into the ride blind. But if we take the highway, the risk we assume is getting run over by a semi. The gravel might be more scenic since it’s in the mountains, but the ride involves one large climb. The road tracks over two climbs (splits up the climbs), but the total elevation gained between each path is the same. And even though the gravel is the same in elevation, it will likely take longer simply because the ground isn’t smooth or easy to ride on. The paved route would have better rest stops, while the gravel route would just have stops on the side of the road. All of these considerations we thought through, while taking the team’s input, going back and forth on gravel or paved, gravel or paved. This went on for about an hour until Nate finally mentioned that if we took the highway, his parents could meet us at the rest stops. And so the decision was finally made. We would use the exact same route as last year with the exact same rest stops. No extra work required. No new route, no new rest stops, no effort needed to be put forth to make any changes. We got an hour less of sleep for the sole purpose of yapping in circles, our favorite pastime.
Thank you for reading my self indulgent, metacognitive yap. Hope you enjoyed a day of Spokes through my little brain’s view of itself.
– Carmen
MIT Spokes 2026 