April 13, 2015

Day 25: North Rim (Grand Canyon)

The road from Marble Canyon to Jacobs Lake, the turn off for the North Rim, has little or no hard shoulder and is fairly narrow. Accordingly, I imagine that it is not much fun to ride on it during the height of the tourist season, especially with all those novice RV drivers on the road. Indeed, a Ranger at the Lee Ferry Rd Campground advised me not to ride on it at all as nearly every year a cyclist dies on it. Fortunately, at this time of the year the road is fairly lightly trafficked.

So there I was thinking to myself here I am riding on SR67 (closed until May 1st) and on into the North Rim of the Grand Canyon (Closed until May 1st) all on my own.

Anyway, there was I thinking to myself ..... when, out of the blue a cyclist can bikeling towards me! Well it turns out that he is a lunatic crazy kind of guy (partaking in the Arizona Trail Race): He left Flagstaff yesterday morning, arrived at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon whereupon he descended to the bottom of the canyon, arriving at midnight and then climbed up to the North Rim, whilst carrying his bike! On arrival at the North Rim, he then proceeded to cycle to the finish line at the Utah/Arizona border. When I met him he still had about 40 miles to go!