GCBAR Day 4

Today we visit the main attractions of the North Rim. We leave Jacob Lake with Russ in the lead and my gopro accumulates enough dust that the video is compromised whenever our route is into the sun. The still shots from my camera are fine, though. We get into spectacular overlooks and end the day riding a 30 mile rugged 4WD road to Point Sublime, where we have a permit to camp.

Cape Royal:
First stop of the day...

We meet two groups of other riders, one BMW group from Washington and one group on Super Tenere's from Quebec. They all recognized our bikes from Jacob Lake. We end up following each other around most of the day until we take off on the rugged road to Point Sublime.

Angel's Window:

On top of Angel's Window:

Bright Angel Point:

Point Sublime:
The 30 mile road to Point Sublime starts out as a graded dirt road and leads into a meadow where the road is deep sand (caused me some trouble). From then on it is a rugged 4WD road through the forest that was fun in retrospect.


We reach at Point Sublime about 1.5 hours before sundown and find two couples already there and setup to camp at the point, a young couple in a Tacoma right at the point and an older couple with an off-road tent trailer pulled by a 4-Runner. A little way back from the point was a really nice camping spot on the rim so it doesn't concern us that someone was already there. I was thinking that the point was going to be windy anyway because the wind had picked up.

We spoke with the campers and mentioned that we had our permit to camp. The young couple then said they didn't know they needed a permit. They offered to let us camp in their prime location. We told them we liked the camp spot up the road and we would be fine. Not to worry. The older couple said we were nice to let them stay. We were thinking the other camp location was better. Out of the wind, had trees, and had a bathroom...and still had a view. We stayed at the point long enough to take some photos and watch the shadows creep across the canyon, then went back to our camp spot.

VIDEO of day 4