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Click to close Image by: Attila Horvath Rufus and Chris at Bolam Pass, near the first day's hut. Click to close Image by: Attila Horvath RIDING HUT TO HUT Find pricing, route info and suggestions for shuttle providers at sanjuanhuts.com. If you plan on providing your own shuttle, call the Moab Information Center (800-635-6622). They may provide you with a free parking space for the week or give you other economical suggestions. On the Durango end, if you're     planning on starting your ride on the standard route from Durango, bikers need to contact the front desk at the Purgatory Village Hotel (970-385-2100) Those starting out on the alternate route at Molas Pass can park free just north of the pass on U.S. Hwy 550 at the Molas Lake trailhead parking lot. Wherever you park, leave no valuables in your vehicle and, of course, lock up! A long, fast descent starting at Bolam Pass, cutting through a rockside area. Click to close Image by: Attila Horvath MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS (A theory explaining human motivation) 1. Biological and Physiological needs air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc. 2. Safety needs protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc. 3. Belongingness and Love needs work group, family, affection, relationships, etc. 4. Esteem needs self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc. 5. Self-Actualization needs realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. Click to close Image by: Attila Horvath The pay phone in Bedrock, Colo., was our first access to modern communications (and ice cream) in five days. Click to close Image by: Attila Horvath Rufus rides on the the access road to Wedding Bell Hut, above the Dolores River near Wedding Bell Mountain.

I'm nauseous, my brain is aching for more oxygen that it can get, and I feel like half of my life energy has been sucked out of me.

I'm trying to ride my mountain bike along the Colorado Trail, but I can barely negotiate the obstacles that I normally roll over with ease. I know I'm not dehydrated, or bonking from lack of food either. But then I remember what I overheard a tourist asking a Forest Service worker at the trailhead parking lot this morning: "What are the symptoms of altitude sickness?"

Shit. I've been in Colorado a couple of days and I thought that would be enough to acclimate, but clearly not. So here I am, a couple hours into a week-long, 215-mile trip through the mountains, feeling bad and worse by the minute. Not only do I feel lousy, but the trail, which started out as a moderate spin through fields of blooming columbine and Indian paintbrush, gets hard to ride. The flowers remain incredible, but the trail is often a single, deep rut at a width seemingly designed to knock feet off pedals. Many of the climbs are so steep and technical that they're challenging to walk up, let alone ride. By about mile 15, I'm hardly able to ride, not only because of the difficulty of the trail, but because my head hurts so badly and I feel so weak. I have to stop every few minutes to muster more will and energy.

I'm riding with my friends Chris Lobas and Rufus Pichler. We signed up with San Juan Hut Systems (SJHS), a company that's brokered a deal with the U.S. Forest Service to place temporary huts by permit in the national forests we'll be riding through ? the San Juan, the Uncompahgre and the Manti-La Sal. We ride forest roads and singletrack from Durango, Colo., to Moab, Utah, through alpine forests, up mountain passes, past rocky canyons and into the desert. We are self-guided, riding from hut to hut. We haul our clothes, water, first aid kits, basic outdoor and bike repair gear and lunch in daypacks. We try to travel as lightly as possible. I, for example, have packed one pair of underwear for the week. But our packs feel too heavy anyway.

On day two, I'm riding a steep, three-mile climb in a steady, chilly rain, and the road has gotten soft. It looks to be tilled like a vegetable garden, and I soon encounter an enormous six-wheeled road-grading machine. The operator is out of the rig, and he says as I roll up to him, "You mountain bikers sure are gluttons for punishment." Thinking back on yesterday and surveying the present situation, I can't argue with him. Why do I do this? I could be at home, warm and dry with the woman I love. Instead, I'm in the middle of nowhere, wet and uncomfortable, talking with a construction worker. At least I seem to be over the altitude sickness. The driver gives me a soda from his cooler, and I ride to the hut. Rufus, who's the fastest in our group, is already there. Chris arrives about an hour later, complaining that the freshly graded road had gotten so muddy and viscous that it clogged up his bike, which he was forced to push since the wheels wouldn't turn.

We're indeed gluttons for punishment. This week we ride through hail, rain, desert heat, climb 20 miles at a time, endure altitude sickness and drink warm Mexican beer. But life is simple, and we're motivated. Riding is what we love, and this week it's just us, our bikes, the huts and the weather. If Maslow studied mountain bikers to develop his famous Hierarchy of Needs, explaining human motivation, he would've come up with the same list. First, the biological: food, water, shelter, warmth, sleep. The huts have us covered pretty well. They all have a different name, but they're all almost identical: 16'x16' wood frame structures built on trailer frames with eight bunks and sleeping bags, propane-powered lights and cook stove, and water from the dozens of 5-gallon jugs hauled in by SJHS. The pantry is stocked with canned foods, Power Bars, sometimes moldy bread, fruit and cans of unrefrigerated Tecate. Though the huts are ugly little things, we get used to our accommodations quickly and feel at home.

Maslow talks about safety needs. We do our part by wearing helmets, bringing warm clothes and rain gear for when the weather turns foul and not riding beyond our abilities. A big part of our safety relies on good maps and directions, because we're riding in remote country. Getting lost out here, especially in combination with other possibilities like being exhausted, out of water or being caught in extreme weather is a potentially deadly situation. At first, the SJHS directions just seem a little quirky. The route descriptions are adequate, though they don't inspire confidence. The cue sheets are full of grammatical and spelling errors, like they haven't been proofread, and I sometimes wonder if they're written by a non-native English speaker: "There's a smaller no smooth gravelly road across the road. DON'T TAKE IT." Some of the details in the directions are useful, pointing out landmarks that reassure us that we're going the right way, but others are superfluous, as well as grammatically incorrect: "Good ski in winter." But by midweek, we're getting seriously frustrated with our directions. We spend hours lost, looking for our night's hut. We repeatedly end up having conferences at forks in the road and having to send out scouts to report their findings. Poor directions and inadequate maps are always a pain, but particularly so when one is paying for the anguish. And it's not just our group that's having a hard time. Every hut has a notebook in it for riders to write in, and these journals are filled with comments about the half-assed directions, particularly for the alternate routes. The message is so loud and clear in the journals that I wonder if the people at SJHS ever read them: ". . . we were lost in the desert looking for signs . . .", ". . . we did alternate one and alternate three on day four - it was a heck of a lot of fun except for the directions at the end - we wandered around a bit in 100 degree heat . . .", "There are roads all over the place that your directions say nothing about.", "Did anyone else find the lack of directions disturbing?"

Some days, though, everything comes together. On our way to the Dry Creek Basin Hut, our elevation loss is more than 3,000 feet. We go fast, and we arrive warm, dry and happy. The directions are good enough, though Chris wasn't given a copy. He's always bringing up the rear, so Rufus and I construct directional arrows on the road out of rocks at every intersection for him to follow. We zoom first through a forest of blue spruce, then thick stands of aspen, through meadows dotted with scrub oak. Next, we ride with the smell of sage in the air and finally, through a sparse forest of juniper and desert pines. The ecological diversity is amazing, and the world feels bigger and more majestic than usual. All week, we find ourselves in special places. One day we're perched on the edge of a massive, rocky canyon. Another we're at a mountain pass overlooking a little pond framed by massive, bare peaks. Maslow talks about belongingness, and the natural splendor that surrounds us all week makes me feel very welcome.

After eating and relaxing at the Dry Creek Basin Hut I decide to watch the sun set. I walk the short, muddy path from the door to a little butte overlooking the basin. Watching the sun set is an underrated pleasure. Maybe because it happens everyday, people think it's nothing special. But it is. Every sunset is unique, and today's starts out with clouds that are pure violet, change to hot pink and then fade to dark gray. It's lovely, serene and lonely. I miss my sweetheart back home. Chris and Rufus are great, but, as Maslow might say, my love needs are not being met. Neither are theirs. Since our ride is so remote, we haven't had cell coverage or access to a phone of any sort. All three of us have lovers back home, and we haven't been able to stay in touch. Chris has been pining for his beloved so much that he's writing her letters and handing them to strangers, trusting them to mail his words to her.

On many of the days, we have choices for our route. There's always a standard route, and sometimes there are alternates to avoid muddy roads or to provide a more scenic and/or challenging trail. We get a lot of rain at Dry Creek Basin, so the next day, we avoid the standard route, which is a mucky mess and we ride a stretch of pavement. The smoothness of the road feels alien and good. We can see Lone Cone Mountain in the distance, a peak we rode close to just yesterday. We marvel at how much distance we've covered under our own power in such a short time, confirming yet again what a marvelous invention the bicycle is. Here we are, going 20 miles an hour, without making the world any noisier or dirtier, having a great time, and making our bodies stronger and healthier. We ride into open sage-filled country and then into old uranium mine territory, pedaling through sandy washes and past long-forgotten mining equipment and shafts. If Maslow were here, he'd be taking notes on achievement, self-fulfillment and independence.

To say there's a lot of climbing up to get up to the Geyser Pass Hut is like saying the earth weighs a lot. The road just goes up and up and up. The three of us get separated from each other, and I find myself at the front of the pack. It's the second to last day, and I'm tired, but I become a climbing machine. My mental mantra is "No one's gonna to get you there but you. So just go." The miles crawl by, and I come to a fork in the road. I don't have any information in my extremely brief route description about this split. My map is useless. None of the road names on the map correspond with the signs on the ground. Apparently, the map is out of date and the road names have changed. I just have to guess, because there's no one around to ask either. I choose the left fork, and climb for another 30 minutes, when I hear a pickup truck approaching from behind. I flag it down. Inside is a young couple with a one-month old baby.

"Is this the road to Geyser Pass?"

The driver, Derrick, replies, "I'm pretty sure. Let me check my map." I ask them where they're headed, and to my surprise, they answer, "Up to a hut at Geyser Pass." Derrick works for SJHS, and he's going up to the hut to restock it with supplies. I realize my mantra may have been wrong.

"Can I get a ride?"

We fit me and my bike in the truck and promptly spend the next 1`BD hours lost. SJHS staff can't find the huts because they use the same lousy directions! Derrick has a newer map, but still, the three of us-Derrick, his wife Claya, and me, all reasonably intelligent adults, can't make sense out of the directions. Only after much study, discussion, trial and error, do we find the hut.

Upon arrival, it's 70 degrees, but when the daylight begins to fade, the weather abruptly changes. The temperature drops 20 degrees in 20 minutes, and hail starts pounding the metal roof of the hut. It's then that I realize that the bad directions really are closer to negligence than quirkiness. Rufus and Chris are still out there in 50 degrees and hail without directions on how to get to the hut. They shouldn't have nearly as much trouble finding the hut as my crew in the truck, however, because I asked Derrick to stop at every intersection we were sure about so that I could make the directional arrows in the road with rocks.

Rufus rolls in just before dark. He's exhausted, and his skin is covered in goose bumps, but he's fine. Chris, however, we don't know about. Rufus last saw him about 30 miles back, going very slowly, and Rufus has a theory:

"I bet he bailed and hitched into Moab."

I hope so, because I don't think he can handle as much climbing as we had today.

Chris never shows at Geyser Pass. I'm not too worried, because he's smart and resourceful, but I can't help but picture some bad scenarios involving injury and hypothermia.

The last morning of our trip is damp and chilly. Rufus gets a flat soon after we start, and while he fixes it, I stand in a patch of sunlight, trying to absorb some heat and I'm thinking about how far we've come, how this has been one of the most beautiful weeks of my life, how tired my legs are, and how I'm glad the air will warm as we descend about 7,000 feet into Moab.

We fairly fly down the smooth forest roads toward the Colorado River, averaging almost 30 mph. We hardly need directions. All we need to do is go down. Under the assumption that Chris made it to town last night, we'll look for him at obvious points, like the visitor's center where our shuttle vehicle is parked, and what we know are his favorite haunts in Moab. Chris doesn't have a cell, so we just have to search. This is plan A. Plan B is . . . well, we're not sure about plan B.

No luck at the visitor's center, so we go to a cheap hostel at the edge of town. He's not there either, but his signature is on last night's register. Chris is alive. Within an hour, Rufus gets a call on his cell. It's our missing man calling from a pay phone, and we're relieved. As it turns out, Rufus was right. Chris quit the grind up the mountains before getting hailed on, hitched into Moab, and was up till 4 a.m. drinking with new friends at the hostel. We had nothing to worry about.

Rufus hands me his cell and I tell Chris we need a rendezvous point, and he suggests the public library.

"Perfect" I say. "I know where that is, so we don't need directions."

Attila Horvath is an Athens, Ohio-based writer, photographer, cyclist and musician. His debut CD, Bike Rock, is inspired by his thousands of miles of pedaling on both road and trail. Check out his songs and other cycling stories at www.bikerockmusic.com and

www.myspace.com/attilahorvath