Do not, repeat, do not ride your bicycle into the Grand Canyon. Three men on an Alaska to South American bicycle tour cycled it last month and found themselves sentenced to 48 hours in jail.
The trio is on a pan-American off-road bicycle tour they call Riding the Spine. They started at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, last July and plan to ride to the tip of South America.
The mountain bikers picked up the Arizona Trail — an 800-mile trail that spans Arizona from the Utah to Mexico borders — and decided to ride their bikes into the Grand Canyon and camp on the North Kaibab Trail.
Bad idea
Bicycling is not allowed on any rim hiking trails or on any trail below the rim, according to the Grand Canyon National Park management plan. It's a misdemeanor.
The group thought it was such an awesome adventure, they posted a description and pictures of their canyon jaunt on their Riding the Spine blog. Now, their website has a carefully worded description of how they screwed up; the pictures and description have been removed.
The Arizona Daily Sun reports that Sean Monterastelli, 23, David Yost, 24, and Jacob Thompson, 24, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to illegally bike and camp inside the Grand Canyon, camping inside the Grand Canyon below the rim without a backcountry permit and illegally bicycling on the trails below the rim.
Sentenced
In addition to sentencing them to 48 hours in jail, a federal judge banned them from all national parks in the US for five years and ordered each to pay $500 to the Grand Canyon Search and Rescue Fund.
Thompson posted the mea culpa on the website (“Riding the Spine into a bit of Trouble”), which reads in part:
“The Riding the Spine team was also caught riding their bikes in the canyon, and camping without a permit (Class B Misdemeanors).Two undercover federal agents followed us to the 24 Hours in Old Pueblo race to serve us a summons.We are required to donate $500 dollars to Grand Canyon Search & Rescue Fund, spend 2 days in jail, we will have 5 years of unsupervised probation, and we will be banned from all National Parks for 5 years as well.
“During the 5 year probationary period we are not allowed to use any images or descriptions of biking/camping in the Grand Canyon on any internet site magazine, newspaper, or any other publication.We were required to withdraw all photographs, video footage and journal entries about riding our bikes/camping in the canyon.Furthermore, we have to publish this entry on our site describing the penalties that we incurred, as well as conveying the ethics and reasons why cycling in areas such as the Grand Canyon/wilderness areas is prohibited. The judge was also real keen on having us take a picture in front of the court and post it somewhere on the website.”
Thompson goes on to reprint a set of mountain biking guidelines from the Mountain Bike Trail Association.
How to cross
There are ways to get past the Grand Canyon by bicycle without actually riding into it. You can strap it to your back and hike through, after contacting a backcountry ranger's office for permission and directions; there's a trans-Canyon shuttle between the North and South Rims for a cost; and a 171-mile detour around the canyon.
In spite of their miscue, this is quite a bike tour. Although they started above the Arctic Circle, some of the most difficult cycling occurred over the winter while on the Continental Divide route.
Their tales of being chased by wolves and dealing with cold weather are told at their blog. Also the San Francisco Chronicle wrote about the team, as did Saturday Night Magazine.
Photo from my excellent adventure in the Grand Canyon — on foot — during my TransAmerica Bike Tour in 1984
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