On Saturday (November 10th) I spent the whole day four-wheeling with Robert and his nephew Kirby. We went up on Canaan Mountain, over above Hilldale. This particular ride is pretty dangerous, so we didn’t take our wives or any other passengers – strictly drivers on the four-wheelers – the last two times Robert went on this drive one of the other riders tipped over and had to go to the hospital for broken bits. Also, there’s some controversy about whether or not it’s legal to drive motorized vehicles on Canaan Mountain. The environmentalists keep putting up signs telling people to keep off, but the four-wheelers keep taking them down. I understand that the whole issue is tied up in court, so in the meantime people are spending their weekends out there like crazy.
So anyway, dark and early we drove out to Caine Beds, on the Arizona strip between Colorado City and Fredonia, where we unloaded the four-wheelers. Given that this was a dangerous ride we even broke out the helmets and wore them religiously. The first bit wasn’t too tough – just sandy hilly roads through the junipers and sagebrush. We could see Zion Canyon off in the distance to the North. Gradually the terrain got to be rougher, rocky and hilly. At one point Robert stopped us, sent Kirby driving up the hill while we waited, and then Kirby came walking back down the hill with a nylon strap with a hook on the end and he held down the front of our four-wheelers while we fought our way up the vertical bumpy hill one at a time – we did that several times. A few places along the way Kirby took the direct route up the face of a hill and Robert led me around a more gentle, but longer route. I wasn’t sure if I should feel relieved or insulted that he thought so little of my four-wheeler skills – after all, I grew up driving a motorcycle since I was about 8 or 9. But then I found out that driving a four-wheeler is different than a motorcycle – with a motorcycle, if you start tipping one way or the other, you just put down your foot to steady yourself – but you can’t do that on a four-wheeler – the vehicle is too wide and you’re too high up off the ground. On one of Robert’s round about ways up the hill, I tried to jump up on a foot-tall lip, which was pretty common, but at this particular place I was also turning a sharp angle to the right, which put one wheel up and one wheel down and me flying through the air towards the ground. Things went into slow motion for a split second as soon as I knew I was going over: I jumped free of the four-wheeler, landed on my left shoulder and rolled across my back and then back up on my feet in time to catch the four-wheeler just as it completed its 360 degree roll and was back up on its wheels again. So, I got back on, restarted my machine, and when I aimed the front tires squarely at the lip I was able to jump up without any further mishaps.
The scenery was very pretty and I took a couple dozen photos, but we really needed a full-time photographer following us to properly document the excursion. There was a lot of red and white sand and red and white sandstone, there were hills and rock-cones and slickrock formations. Up on top of the mountain we went to several overlooks – the first two, to the South, were looking down towards Hilldale. At one of the overlooks there were the remnants of some wooden machinery that the pioneers had built to lower lumber off the red cliffs from the forests up where we were, down to the bottom where they could be hauled into St. George and used in constructing the temple and tabernacle. Then we went to a couple of overlooks on the far side of the hill, where we looked north, down on Zion Canyon, Springville, and Rockdale. At one of the overlooks there was a huge sharp sandstone arch in the cliffs. The weather was gorgeous all day long - probably in the mid 70's - with a calm clear sky. It couldn't have been prettier.
By then it was lunchtime, so I had my ½ turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread and can of V8. After lunch we drove over to the ruins of the old pioneer sawmill. That’s where we ran into a group of young men that looked like they were from Colorado City (they all look like cousins because they are) and they were. In fact, when Robert asked them where they were from (a rhetorical question) they responded with “We’re pligs from Short Creek.” (Short Creek is the old name for the twin cities of Hilldale and Colorado City, before they were in two separate states.) I wouldn't have used the word "plig" myself - short for polygamist - because I thought it had negative connotations, but apparently they didn't think so. We chatted for a few minutes, discussing the relative merits of motorcycles, four-wheelers, Jeeps, and the new class of off-road vehicles that are somewhere in between (we have one at work for surveying – it’s a John Deere “Gator.”) While we chatted, the plig boys broke out their Bud Lites and lit up their cigarettes – I guess the only thing that they still have from the old Mormon Church is polygamy – they’ve certainly abandoned the Word of Wisdom (which proscribes alcohol and tobacco, among other things.) Then we started working our way back down the mountain – at one point we passed about twenty jeeps in a row – they were on an expedition to clean up the trash off the mountain (probably all the beer cans tossed off by the plig boys) and thereby justify their being up on the mountain.
Going down the really steep bits we had Kirby hook on to the backs of our bikes and hold us down as we went over the cliffs face first. On one spot that was pretty vertical the sandstone ran down into the sand at nearly a 90 degree angle and I didn’t know enough to gun the motor just as I hit the bottom and so my machine came to an abrupt halt when it hit the sand and sent me sprawling over the handle bars on to my right shoulder. And since I had my right arm under me, my right elbow popped my broken ribs back apart. Before I could recover, the four-wheeler ran over my right leg, but rolled back off it in a jiffy. I lied and said I was OK and we took off again, but I was more careful after that because each bump knocked the wind out of me as my ribs twinged – I found that if I took the bumps standing up, my knees could absorb the shocks and save my ribs, but my knees were pretty sore by the end of the road. Shortly thereafter we were going down another steep hill and Robert was so spooked (having seen me fall twice and I’m sure flashing back to the guy getting life-flighted last trip) that he had me go a little too slow down the hill. I had been using the engine to slow my descent, but made the mistake of grabbing my brake, which raised up the rear of the bike and tossed me over the handlebars for a third time. This time the hill was so steep that I leapt off the bike, over the handlebars, and landed on my feet, but then fell to my hands and knees. Then I felt the bike roll up my left leg and up and onto my back – fortunately Robert dashed back up the hill and pulled it off me before it smashed me too badly. I hopped back up and on the machine, it never even died, and we took off again. But by then Robert was so badly spooked that he had Kirby help us off every bad hill we drove off, which was OK by me. However, I felt bad that Robert even had Kirby help us over the uphill bits that weren’t so bad – I zoomed up the hill past him a couple of times just to show that I wasn’t shaken. But to be perfectly honest, I’m thinking that my adventurous four-wheeler days may be behind me – I think Robert’s may be too (at least, that's what he said.) We’ll probably stick to four-wheeling on level ground in the future, where we can have our wives perched behind us. Back home I felt much better after a long hot shower and some strong aspirin and the application of my rib bandage (I’m still wearing it today.) And that’s the story of my big excursion up Canaan Mountain.
