The moment I caught word of a massive chick dirtbiker meetup, I knew I had to do everything in my power to attend. Google maps had it at about a 700 mile long journey from Tucson, Arizona to Central Colorado, but unwilling to do anything the simplest way, Sean and I decided to extend the trip to Chickfest into a 9 day journey encompassing some of the best roads and National Parks in Arizona, Utah and Colorado.

He plotted our trip out and loaded the tracks into his gps, declaring he had found another 1000 miles between here and Colorado! Sounds awesome, let’s ride!

We unfortunately put off packing until the morning of departure and started our trip off all wrong, chaotically throwing things together and hoping we didn’t forget anything important. Finally we were ready to leave!

Sean on his loaded up KLR650

My DR-Zebra heaped with supplies

After turning back once for a few crucial forgotten items, we were actually ready to get out of town! At this point it was almost noon and -hot-. We had a long ride ahead of us to Alpine, where would camp for the night.

Filling up at the ‘last chance Circle K’ we saw other bikes out touring for the summer.

We stopped at an old abandon gas station to grab some Dairy Queen and tighten the bolt on my exhaust pipe (I swear this thing is the bane of my existence).

Finally we hit the good stuff!

Hwy 191 used to be Hwy 666, The Devil’s Highway, due to the many casualties on its killer turns through the mountains, until people decided that was too morbid and renamed it. It doesn’t stop people from careening off into the canyon however.

Sean rides the 191

The two of us

Yes, we have forests in Arizona!

The sun started going down, but we were booking it to Luna Lake for camping. The wildlife comes out when the sun goes down and Sean nearly hit a bear and a flock of wild turkey! Of course I didn’t catch either on film or video. :/

Luna Lake at last!

Our campsite