Beautiful Utah! Detour after detour between Salt Lake City and Page

13 cycling days

1175 km

10539 m ascent

77 km cycled twice

Cycling out of Salt Lake City was way better than our last big city experience in Calgary. The first 40 km were almost entirely on cycling paths! We left quite late and it was dark when we finally made it to the spot, where we had planned to camp – a fairly big park with camp site amenities. Unfortunately though, it must have closed for the season in the last couple of days as everything was dark and fenced off (with a good fence). We didn’t want to continue cycling on the highway in the dark and wild camped right in front of it. The access road was a dead end and luckily nobody came to bother us. As we didn’t expect closed doors, we didn’t have a lot of water left and instead of our usual pasta dinner we only ate bread to save water.

We started the next day with little breakfast (no water = no porridge). It was a 30 km uphill to our next water supply, at least it wasn’t too hot! After around 20 km somebody must have put two bottles of water on the crash barrier for us – so nice! We never saw the person, but with the wind this strong the bottles couldn’t have stood there for a long time. At the rest area with water we finally had a proper breakfast and met Tristan and Martin, two other cyclists who had started their journey in Alaska and Canada respectively.

Sebi and I continued uphill and out of nowhere it started hailing and we heard the thunder the same second we saw the lightning. Scary! We made it to a gas station on top of the climb, soaked and freezing. The hail had turned into rain. With hot chocolate and tea we tried to warm up before brazing the descent. We put on more layers, as it was literally freezing cold, and departed into the rain. Another thunderstorm surprised us and the rain turned into hail. It cleared up for the last few kilometers of the descent and we rolled onto the first campground in the next town. Lucky for us, the showers were one of the best ones we had so far, hot AND decent water pressure! Of course we don’t have a single picture from that day…

The next day, the weather was way better and we made our way towards Green River. Martin and Tristan from the day before caught up with us and we had lunch together. It was a lot of downhill from there into Green River, which we enjoyed with tailwind and partly freshly paved roads. We turned onto a beautiful gravel road for the last stretch to avoid the Interstate. Everything looked really cool and the landscape was very desert-like. We had finally made it out of bear country and ate dinner IN THE TENT for the first time ever since we started in Alaska! What an experience.

We followed an old highway and beautiful gravel roads towards Arches National Park, almost entirely without traffic. We camped on public lands in close proximity to a back entrance into the park. The next morning we got to cycle into the park on that dirt road during sunrise and it was just so beautiful. We stopped at a campground to fill up our water.
The day before, we found some shorts of another cyclist we met earlier. We gave them to the camp host so he could pick them up when he would get to the campsite. It’s always good to be in contact with the cyclists that are roughly doing the same thing at the same time! Be it for route inspiration or small things like this.

Suddenly, the landscape around us was everything we had expected and more. Red sand, red rocks and lots of beautiful rock formations. The weather was incredible and the traffic on the paved road through the park was not too bad. We cycled through the park from North to South and added a few short detours to trailheads. We didn’t have the time for longer hikes, but we could always see something from the trailheads or after short walk. The Double Arch was really impressive and we spent some time taking pictures. We left the park and filled our water at the visitor center. One of the many times we were thankful for the restrooms and water fountain being accessible even though the center itself is closed! We continued to cycle for a bit on a wonderful bike path and pitched our tent on a small gravel parking next to the road as soon as it got dark.

We got up early the next day and headed over to the gas station for breakfast, as they had picnic tables and restrooms. After breakfast, we cycled towards the Utahraptor State Park and after a few very sandy kilometers we made it – we stood in front of real dinosaur tracks from about 165 million years ago! One of the view places where the tracks are super accessible and we could just walk next to them and take pictures as much as we wanted.

We didn’t have a lot of food left and the next supermarket was still two days away. At a small café we decided to buy some sandwiches for later. We left all snacks on the bike as we were out of bear country, but when we came back to our bikes, we noticed that we got robbed by ravens!
We continued towards Deadhorse Point State Park. Another (fairly big) detour with around 22 km one way. The whole Moab region in Utah is a very popular mountain bike area and we had never seen that many other cyclists on the road before! It was a long and steady uphill and it was afternoon, when we finally reached the viewpoint at Deadhorse Point. For us, it was a small compensation for the Grand Canyon, that we most likely won’t be able to see. The view point was beautiful indeed and we didn’t regret the detour at all. We backtracked our 22 km, which didn’t take to long as it was all downhill, and turned on a beautiful gravel road. The sun set after half an hour and yet again we pitched our tent somewhere next to the road.

The gravel road brought us back to Green River and we could finally restock our food supplies. Sebi had planned even more old highways and gravel roads from here on. We enjoyed the time off from busier roads and another night camping somewhere in the landscape on a barely-visible off-road track. The landscapes are wide and open and deserted and sometimes we could very well just have been on another planet, it was so cool!

The main reason why we did the loop back to Green River was the Goblin Valley State Park. A camp host back in Glacier National Park had recommended that one to us and it’s been “on our list” ever since. The park is full with funnily-shaped sandstone formations, called hoodoos. There are several connected valleys and we only explored parts of the first one. We were there in the full heat of midday and even our short walk was more exhausting than it should have been. The hoodoos are way bigger than they look and it would be an easy thing to get lost in the valleys! We bought a bottle of coke to fight the heat and tiredness and continued our day on the bikes. We took a shortcut out of the park, nine km on a sandy dirt road instead of 27 km on pavement… Except for a few short sections it was mostly rideable and definitely good training for our bike handling skills on sand! We were thankful for the paved downhill with tailwind into Hanksville, as it started getting dark and we were ready for some rest.

The next days south of Hanksville would be quite remote and we made sure to buy enough food. We left the village on a little-used “scenic byway” and a sign said “no services for the next 125 miles” – 200 km! The landscape was amazing, the rock formations were joined by smaller canyons here and there. We crossed the Lake Powell twice on quite cool bridges, although there was very little water where we were. In the evening we rolled onto a small gravel parking next to the road and were enthusiastically greeted by other campers. While Sebi prepared dinner, I talked to the others – a bigger group of eight people that spends some time canyoning here every year! A thunderstorm had been approaching and reached us in time for dinner. We hid in our tent, still appreciating that we could finally eat in our tent without having to worry about bears.

Thunder was rolling throughout the whole night and even in the morning. I didn’t really sleep well at all. It stopped eventually and we decided to continue cycling. We said good-bye to the other group and got some chocolate and peanut butter, so sweet! We hadn’t even cycled for two hours, when the first thunderstorm was approaching from the front and we decided that we had to find some shelter, fast. I spotted the perfect ledge and we got there just before it started raining. It was actually a super cozy spot, would have been perfect for wildcamping! Once the sky had cleared enough, we got back on the bikes. I asked two workers at a depot for some water and they were happy to help us out. That meant that we could skip the 14 km detour this afternoon, yes! We would have cycled seven km to a small park only to fill up on water as there was no other option.
Not even half an hour later the next thunderstorm announced itself and with no shelter anywhere close we had no other option than to cycle to the small park nevertheless… oh well. We got to the visitor center and who did we meet there? Tristan and Martin! The two cyclists we had met south of Salt Lake City. We all spent the rest of the day there, huddled up next to the restrooms, hiding from the elements. Three more thunderstorms rolled through and we were so happy that we made it here in time. We didn’t even have to pitch the tent, as we all just stayed in the restrooms. Heated and dry, every cyclists dream!

The weather was way better the next day and Sebi and I continued as planned. We said goodbye to Tristan and Martin, who continued in another direction. We got to an incredible view point at the edge of a cliff. It was stunning! A windy and narrow gravel road descends nearly 300 meter over four km. It’s called the Moki Dugway and undoubtedly one of the most beautiful roads we ever cycled. Needless to say we were quite happy to go downhill and not uphill… A big truck came the other way and we waved once we spotted the Swiss license plate. It stopped and we got to meet Manu and Thiago. We talked quite a while and got lots of food. They were so cool and as they were also heading for Baja California in Mexico, we said we’ll try to meet up there again. A bit later we passed the Forrest Gump Point and took a few pictures. Quite late, we made it to a campsite and stayed there for two nights, to catch up on bike maintenance, route planning and my journal.

We had two more days of cycling to get to Page. Heat and headwind made it quite tedious and by the time we reached the city, we were very happy that we had booked a motel for the night. Campsites were so expensive around here that the motel with 50 USD a night actually looked cheap! We spent a whole day in Page, continued to work on route planning and went to TacoBell for the first time.

_{Published on January 05, 2026
Experienced from 14.10. – 28.10.2025}