Moab and beyond....

Damn, I finally figured out my stupid login for this site. It's been a year and a half since I last posted here.... Lots of adventures but no way to document them means I'm just going to start fresh with my last adventure.

I usually take a couple of weeks in April sometime to get out of California. Last year it was 10 days in Sedona and Hurricane/ Saint George. This year it was time to get to Moab again. As was the case last year, I'd be joined by my friend Steve who lives just outside of Hurricane. If you've done a shop ride out of Over the Edge in Hurricane you've likely ridden with Steve. He is a VERY good technical rider and regularly rides the toughest lines in his area. We're a pretty good match. We both can usually ride the same lines blind, meaning that we haven't seen them yet but are confident enough in our abilities to either roll them unseen, or take a peek and then roll them. I know that if Steve rolls something and then disappears, that I can be confident that I wont die at the bottom.

Part of my reason for going to Moab was to ride the White Rim Trail in one day. It's a 100 miles around Canyonlands National Park and has some of the most stunning scenery in the area. Id be coming out a few days before Steve so I knew I'd have time to do it and still be relatively fresh for the riding we would be doing together.

I arrived on the Friday after Easter. It was a complete clusterfuck since it was still spring break for a lot of folks. After driving around for the better part of the day I finally settled on a dispersed site out past Horsethief Campground. This turned out to be a great site since most of the good stuff starts up on the mesa above Moab anyways, I was camped 500' from the trailhead down to Navajo Rocks. A bonus was I could start my White Rim adventure right from camp.

I got a little ride in on Friday evening, actually I got 30 miles in because I just couldn't stop. I ended up coming back to camp in the waning hours of the day helped by the light of a car coming down the road behind me.

  A quick shower and off to bed I went. Saturday would be some shopping and getting the bike ready for Sundays ride on the White Rim. Saturday ended up being mostly a wash, literally it was a wash as it rained most of the day and evening. I love the desert in the rain and this was no exception. Just beautiful, minus me getting my truck stuck in the mud trying to get back to camp....
With everything wet and muddy I was expecting to have to alter my plans for the next day. I had planned on getting out at first light and getting some pictures as the sun rose over the Shafer trail
Those plans were scrapped as I had to swap the dropper post out and set the bike up for XC day instead of a trail day.
I had grand plans for my adventure. I knew the record was somewhere around 6-1/2 hours. That was out of reach since the farthest I'd ridden this year was 60 miles, so I set my eyes on a sub 8 hour time without killing myself. Got out of the trailer at 8 and headed for the rim.

First view into the Colorado River side of the park.

 Most people do this ride as a supported multi day ride. It's not really an option if you ride it solo as the only water source is at about mile 80 or 20 depending on which way you go. I didn't see a single soul for the first 60 miles and then ran into a good 50 cyclist out there finishing up their multi day supported adventures. Looks like a fun time with a support vehicle dragging your water and food around behind you, just not my deal.

Pretty cool.

Shafer Trail swithbacks

I can still bail out and head to Moab for breakfast....

It really is pretty spectacular out there. I've been to some pretty cool places on a bike, this is certainly one of them.

The day was rolling along pretty well. I felt good and was pretty sure I'd make my sub 8 hour day if it continued like it had for the first 30 miles. Of course it didn't but I was alright with that.

It was hard not to stop and take pictures every few miles. I pretty much had the place to myself for the first 50 miles or so. The last 50 I ran into a few big groups with support vehicles doing it in 2-3 days, looked like a lot of fun with a large group at a more relaxed pace.

It was starting to get a little warm by the time I hit the Green River. I really didn't know what the route out of the canyon was, but I was guessing it wouldn't be easy so I filtered a little water and headed up river.

 Of course the route out was a beast. I got to the bottom of Mineral Bottom Road and  just stared up at the sheer stupidity and awe of engineering in front of me.

I eventually found my way to the top. It wasn't pretty, but I didn't get off and walk, as much as I wanted to. The rest of the route was pretty much a gas line road straight back to where the loop started. This was actually a lot more difficult than I anticipated. It was just enough of a climb to suck what little life was left in my legs.

I just put my head down, tried to ignore the douchbags flying past me at 50 mph and waited for the last left hand turn that meant I was back at the beginning of the loop. It wasn't long before I was back at the cherry stem road back to camp. I rolled in to the top of the loop 8 hours and 20 minutes after I started, not the sub 8 hour pace I was looking for, but I doubt most folks who put in sub 8 hour loops stop and take as many pictures as I do. All in all a great day on the bike. Next time I'll go the other way just to mix it up😃

Steve arrived the next afternoon and we made short work of getting him set up and settled. We decided to take a short ride from camp. This was Steve's first trip to Moab so he was excited to see what kind of terrain we'd be riding. The top of the mesa isn't a real good representation of the stuff we'd be riding in the next few days, but I took him over to the top of the Mag 7 trail system and we got a great afternoon ride in.

The next morning a planned was hatched to do the Mag 7 trail from top to bottom, the whole proper trail with Blue Dot and Portal trail, no wussing out on fire road drops. It was a great day, I couldn't talk Steve into doing it as a loop, he just laughed at that suggestion so we dropped my truck off at the bottom of the Portal trail and drove back up to camp in his rig.

We finished the day up unscathed, rode probably 95+ percent of the entire ride and lived to ride the next day.

The next day we decided to roll into town and ride the Captain Ahab trail system. I'd not done this trail and it looked to be a really fun set of trails. Steve was a bit tired from the day before and I was actually feeling stronger since the White Rim so we headed to the top at different speeds but eventually worked our way to the top.
This trail was right up Steve's alley with it's medium drops that really didn't need any scouting to ride blind at speed. I just held on tight and followed Steve's wheel all the way to the bottom. We cleaned it top to bottom except for the last drop into the creek but even got that with a little scouting, though I had my closest call of the trip as my foot came unclipped just as I pulled up off the drop into the creek. I pulled it off but it got my heart rate up for sure.

Properly worn out....

Just for

It was a really great day, we came up on a great group of women trying to figure out a tough little section. One gal was determined to ride an honestly tricky section. Steve took a look at it and rolled it like a pro. I followed and nailed it as well. We talked the gal into trying the line we just took, arguably a line with higher consequences but much more doable if you just commit. We both kind of cheered her on and spotted her in the spots that could get her hurt and she nailed it. The cheers and genuine stoke from all the girls was really cool and certainly a highlight of my trip.

 We worked our way back up to camp. Steve rightly decided on a nap and I headed out on the Mag 7 trails just to get a few more miles in.

Our last day was a bit up in the air. I wanted to do Porcupine Rim so Steve could say he rode all of the monument trails in Moab but he was worried he didn't have the legs for the last few miles up to the top of PR even if he took the shuttle. He decided he wanted to do the Slickrock trail instead. No problem, I've done PR enough times it was no big deal to not hit it this time, though I'm committed to doing Mag -7 and Porcupine Rim as a loop from the top if I can find someone stupid enough to do it with me. As it was we did three times the climbing on Slickrock than we would have done on PR, but it was a good day and we both had a great time on this classic trail although we battled likely 40 mph winds up on top. I probably was the most scared on this ride due to nearly being blown off the top of some of the exposed sections. A couple of times I couldn't even get back on my bike because I couldn't get both wheels to stay on the ground without the bike blowing sideways.

That's the wind trying to blow me and my bike off the ridge, scary as shit.

We finished up the day with lunch in Moab and headed back up to camp. This would be Steve's last day and he was headed back home to Utah later in the afternoon.

 I hung around till the next morning and hit the Sovereign trail system on the way out of town. I managed to have a good time on these combo MTB- Moto trails but it certainly was pretty tame compared to what I'd been riding all week. 

 All in all a great trip with a great guy. Cant wait to go back!

Homeward bound