Where the Trail Leads: Cliffhanger edition

by Felix Burke

The coast disappearing in the rear view mirror, we travelled inland for the final leg of our journey. This time it would be to the diverse landscape of Northern Arizona and Utah. We would use the final weeks of our trip to go through Sedona, Zion National Park and Moab before ending our adventure and heading due east to Mont-Tremblant, Que.

In order to save a day of exploring we drove through the night from San-Diego, arriving in Sedona under the morning light. We were tired, but nothing a good dose of caffeine and red cliffs couldn’t cure.

We cooked up some coffee in a local park to bring us back to life, sipping it down while watching an interesting video a friend sent us. Once refueled, it was time to explore the infamous trails of Sedona. The trails were full of rock ledges, tight turns and jeeps. Jeeps? A lot of the trails being multi-use, Sedona is a great example of a trail system everyone can enjoy. That means the off-roading crowd enjoys them too, bringing together a wide ranging group of people. It was inspiring to see how trails can bring people together. Everyone out there was loving life.

After catching a breathtaking sunset, we stumbled around in the dark for hours in search of a decent place to set up camp. A lot of the parks are closed this time of year and the ones that are open fill up quickly. Eventually the search paid off! We found a secluded camp-ground with a hot tub, the perfect place to kick back and relax after an action packed 24 hours.

After a couple days of exploring the area by foot and by bike it was time to pack the car again and go explore Zion national park. Sedona would be missed though, it was an amazing spot and one that I would like to come back to.

With every mile north we traveled the temperature dropped and by the time we got to our camp outside of Zion we were back to winter temps. We were freezing our asses off. We had to pour boiling water into our bottles and put them in our sleeping bags just to get warm enough to fall asleep. To us it was all part of the adventure though and we were loving it, especially with Zion waiting for us in the morning.

The California Condor is the biggest flying bird in North-America. It went extinct in 1987 but was reintroduced to southern Utah and Arizona. I spotted two at the top of Angels Landing, a perilous hike that takes tourists to the top of a cliff ban in Zion. To escape the tourists we had climbed to a lower ledge of the cliff and that is where I spotted two birds high in the sky. They circled above us for a few minutes before one branched out and slowly started losing elevation. Soon it was rapidly losing elevation, coming straight for us. It wasn’t long before I could make out the detail in its beak and talons, pointed straight at us…

Find out what happens in part 2…

Felix Burke is cross country racer from Mont-Tremblant, Que., training in Victoria, B.C. while studying at the University of Victoria. In 2018, Burke achieved his goal of winning the Canada Cup XCO series overall, racing for Rocky Mountain Bicycles. When returning to studies and training in September didn’t feel right, Burke decided to find answers on the trail. Where the Trail Leads is Burke’s story of the journey that follows. Chapter 1: New Season New Plan, Chapter 2: Planning, Chapter 3: Mt. Hood, Ore., Chapter 4: Dust and Burritos in Bend, Ore., Chapter 5: Bucketlist rides in Downieville, Cali, Chapter 6: Wrong turns in San Francisco, Chapter 7: Death Valley, Chapter 8: Santa-Claus. Felix will be contributing to Canadian Cycling Magazine in French. Read his first column en Francais ici.