The Trip - Day 2:

Morning came fast but we all got a good night's sleep. Colin is up early and breaking down camp while Shane and I sleep for an extra few minutes. Once I actually unzip my bivy and look out side I can see that it's overcast. The day before, the ranger told us the forecast is for a 30% chance of snow, so we know it could be a cold day; but first things first, I make some coffee and eat breakfast before even getting out of my bag.
Once we are geared up and ready to ride the brief stretch of comments about being saddle sore begins. It's not long before we caught the guys who rode past our camp that morning. We stop to chat briefly and they offer for us to stay with them at Gooseberry camp that night if we decide not to ride all the way out of the park. As the day progresses we start to see people going the other way around the loop. One couple that is taking turns riding and driving the sag wagon has extra water - Colin and I fill up. We continue riding and grab lunch after we reach the Murphy Hogback camp site. Our packs are becoming light as we finish off more food/water but by this point in the trip we seldom notice the weight change - our legs and butts groan louder than the strain of the back.
On the trail again we enjoy some fast rolling downhill, suffer through a few sandy sections and after what turns out to be the last fall of the trip Colin calls out from under his bike - "I've figured out the technique (for falling with the bike/trailer/bad pedal combination)". Somewhere between helping him get untangled from the bike and catching our breath from laughing (there's a technique involved with having a trailer pull you over in the sand?) he elaborates. "It's best if you don't fight the bike, let the handlebars and your shoulder take most of the impact (it's on sand so that helps) and then worry about getting out of the pedal once you're on the ground."
As the miles roll on we all decide to plug-in and listen to some music as we ride. Initially we are all making better time but then the shuffle setting on my iPod brings up Enya and I slow to a turtles pace. We listen to the music all the way into Gooseberry camp where we have to decide if we are going to hike the 3m trail back up to the Island in the Sky road or push on for another 35 miles to get out of the park for the night.
The decision (primarily lead by my limited food and great bonk potential when hungry) is to to ride/hike out the trail and make it back to the car for the night. We all seem a little disappointed we didn't complete the full 100m we set out on the trail. What starts out as a rideable wash quickly becomes narrow, sandy and full of step ledges. Since my gear is all loaded into a good pack I don't really notice the difficultly in pushing the bikes, but after helping Shane and Colin hand all of the bikes up a few of the larger ledges I take my turn pushing the bike with a trailer. I push the bike until our next section of lifting/passing bikes over larger ledges and realize wow - this is going to be an even slower hike out than I'd realized.
After 5-6 different ledge sections we stop to take a break and evaluate how we are going to get the bikes, gear and trailer up the trail (each step gets steeper and what was once a trail is now more of a series of cairns). Colin decides to take the bag out of his trailer and wear it as a backpack (using the rubber hose coated handles as straps); Shane removes two of the three dry bags from his seat post frame and lashes them to his backpack. After much debate Shane and I convince Colin it would be better to strap the trailer to my backpack (which is actually meant to carry weight) than his dufflebag worn as a backpack.
We resume hiking and the trail becomes as steep as one could imagine for one listed on a national park map. As we get another 1/2m in the trail is covered in snow and there is no way we could successfully push/drag/manage the bike if it were still connected to the trailer. As it is there are several sections that two and sometimes even all three of us are handing the bikes up the trail. The uphill slog continues for approximately 2.5 hours, it's nearly dusk when we reach the top and it actually feels good to get back on the bike and ride instead of hike.
Reaching the top of the trail there is no time to rest if we are going to catch a ride back to our car, so as soon as the trail is rideable all three of us jump on our bikes and sprint for the road to try and catch the truck we hear. It turns out we are too slow and once we get to the intersection of the parking lot and main road through the park we sprawl out the gear and begin to reorganize for the 30m ride back to the car.
As we dig through our gear to find warm/dry socks we see another car pulling around the bend. We all jump up and I walk to the edge of the road trying to flag them down. The car stops, but it's about 50 yards from where we are and we can see the group of 4 people are all discussing what they should do. Eventually the car pulls further ahead and rolls down one window, slightly. I quickly ask them for a ride back to our car but soon realize it's a group of foreigners and they don't speak much English. Eventually they are able to figure out we'd like for one of us to ride with them and they rearrange to make space and turn around to go the direction I was pointing as Colin scrabbles to find dry clothes that won't stink. Colin jumps in the car.
Relieved, Shane and I find some dry clothes to put on and slowly organize and move our sprawling gear from the middle of the parking lot road.
5 min later, the car is returning. As they pull up along side us, Colin lets us know they will give us a ride but we pointed them in the wrong direction. Over the course of the next hour the daylight fades into darkness, Shane and I make something warm to drink and polish off the small amount of food we had left. When Colin pulls up we load our gear, snap a few final photos and head into Moab to return the trailer, find some food and a cold beer.