Digital Journal: Sneaky Trespassing

For a long time now, I've been wanting to go to Antelope Island approaching from the southern causeway. Unfortunately, much of that land is privately owned by ranchers, and scary government people with the airport etc. There are roads out to the causeway, but several gates and fences lie in the way. However, with mountain bikes… this is no longer much of a problem. There remains slight risk elements in avoiding angry ranchers w/ shotguns. On Tuesday evening, I was needing to get out and try getting there. Trevor was up for the trip, so we got a shamefully late start, and didn't have much daylight. We took a wrong turn, and found many signs telling us we shouldn't be here. We went and did some exploring anyways, and headed back. On the way out, we tried to find our "correct" road, and found it. Trevor and I followed it until we met a cattle gate. By this time, it was too dark to see anymore, so we headed back.

Wednesday before my last class of the day, I got the confirmation from Trevor that he would be able to make it for our next Antelope Island attempt. Instead of leaving from where we did earlier… I figured we could shave off 1.6 miles off of our initial route by starting in the Salt Air region. We got to our starting location, and there was a van at the gate. *@! We continued onward, hoping to find another nearby entrance. Finding none, we returned. They were still there, so we approached them. It was some service van trying to gain access past the gate, but whoever was supposed to open the gate for them didn't show. After chatting a bit, we hinted our intent, and they didn't seem to care. We tossed our bikes over the gate, and we were off! The road grade was smooth, and easy to shift into high gear and fly. We made very short work with our northern stretch. Soon we were at the bridge which marked the point where we needed to head off NW. This road was obviously less maintained, and had some tricky spots here and there. But in due time, we hit the causeway! Soon, the road deteriorated until it was nothing but cat-head sized rocks. Then they turned into walrus-head sized rocks. At this point the causeway had a significant gap exposed, and water stopped our path. It looked at least 6 feet deep, and we didn't want to carry bikes over our heads in that water… so we went around. The lake basin was similar to biking on the shore of a beach. It was obviously more work to move, but it was faster than walking. There were some sludgy bits which caused our tires to sink, and make us say bad words, but we got around them. We tried the causeway after the two large "divots" in the road, but once again….cat-heads. Slow bumpy progress. Some areas were faster just to walk. Then I spotted Trevor to my left out on the lakebed. He seemed to be doing alright, so I joined him. After you got into a rhythm, it wasn't bad at all! We trudged along, and just kept at a slow and steady pace. We saw "something" in the distance, and it didn't look like anything we could recognize, but it seemed a ways far off. We decided that if we had time on the way back, we'd check it out. In time, after dodging some sloppy spots, we made it to the island.

It was nice! We were in the mountain's shade, and a flat packed road made riding a dream. However, since Trevor's camelback sprung a leak, we were down to just my little water bottle on my bike. It was more than half empty. I looked on my GPS, and found several springs located on our side of the island. We puttered along the road in search for water. One spring was simply a different shaded color of earth on the hillside, but the other turned out to be a cattle watering hole. Yucky stagnant muddy water. After exploring a bit of the cool jagged rock formations, we headed back. The causeway was in good condition for about a half mile or so, but we went back to the lakebed when the cat-heads emerged. Then, we saw the unidentifiable object in the distance with the sunset. We knew we'd run out of daylight… but what the heck. We went for it. The object seemed to remain motionless as we pedaled on and on. We were both thirsty, and I wanted to ration the remains of the water. Lo and behold, there was a sealed water bottle lying in the middle of the lakebed! Trevor dove right on in, and I took a swig. Seemed good to me! After what seemed like an eternity of pedaling, knowing that each mile in, was another mile back… the object still didn't look like anything we knew of. It wasn't until we had reached the object we found that it was some sort of wheeled crane. Large machinery covered in rust, lying on its side about 50 yards from the shoreline. I found a geocache on one part of the machine, but I pulled out my camera since daylight was fading fast with the sun already set. We both snapped some shots, and I pulled out my headlamp. On our return trip, I set a straight line course towards the beginning of the causeway, and we headed straight there. It was dark, and I had the headlamp helping us dodge stray bits of driftwood, tires, and even a water saturated basketball. We got to the causeway, and blazed along the road. I biffed when I hit a wheel-rut that had petrified with salt, but landed alright, and kept moving. After we hit the bridge, we flew like wind harps with a refreshing welcome tailwind. I turned my headlamp to a "sneaky" red, and we silently hopped a few fences and gates here and there. When we returned to my car…. It was still there, no tickets, and no angry patrol officer waiting for us! YES! We jetted out and guzzled fountain drinks at the nearest gas station.