Moab Road Trip Part 1: The Wheels...

   Wow, what a trip! Moab is so similar to Tahoe in the wide array of outdoor pursuits close at hand, yet so different in the stark desert landscape of sculpted sandstone and sagebrush, but it almost feels like home away from home.  Following my first short visit 3 years ago I had been conspiring a return trip, and Kit had not been back in 6 or 7 years! Finally we had the opportunity to do it in style, spending 3 weeks in the decked-out van, with a crew of Tahoe folks for the first week and then just Kit and I for the remainder, going with the flow of climbing, bike riding, and relaxing on rest days. For whatever reason I've decided to split the story up into bike riding and climbing sections, so this part covers the pedaling adventures.

Finally getting to sandstone canyon country!

   The trip began a little wobbly on a Thursday, with us almost getting stuck in snow at our camp in eastern Nevada on the way over, and me with a weird bug that lasted for several days, followed by a severe neck cramp that rendered me unable to do much for a couple more days. All the madness subsided by the following Wednesday and a group of 6 of us (me and 5 dudes) headed out to ride the Porcupine Rim trail.  That wound up being the best ride of the trip (in my opinion), even now after doing a couple of other Moab classics.  Filled to the brim with rocks, drops, and heady technical sections, it felt like a giant mountain bike playground on the longest downhill of my life! It crossed a variety of terrain including dirt singletrack, fast rocky 4x4 trail, and back onto a winding technical singletrack with a few cliffhanging bits, dropping down to the Colorado River. An added bonus was our friend Ben Meester bringing his camera gear along and shooting some sweet photos along the way.

Colorado Trail

  The Tahoe crew headed back home that Sunday after a couple more days of climbing so we decided to make a trip out to Durango to see Kit's family and hang out for a while longer with his climbing buddy Harvey.  At Harvey's suggestion we took a side trip into Mesa Verde National Park, which we probably would never have done otherwise, except that it coincided with a good rest day activity.  We ogled at the ancient cliff dwellings and marveled at the climbing skills possessed by the ancient Anasazi. Once in Durango we inquired about bike trails at a local shop; the Colorado Trail was spoken of highly so we set out to pedal the loop shown to us on a map. It started with a grind of a singletrack climb, filled with switchbacks, and as Kit powered away on his single front chainring I struggled and spun the granny gear feeling very much like a hippopotamus stuck in quicksand.  Out of shape much? At 20 miles this was the longest ride of the trip, and after turning onto a short but very fun descent it climbed yet again to loop back to the Colorado Trail and left us wondering when the trail would finally cross and we could start descending again. As far as trails go, this one had scenery aplenty but was lacking in the fun terrain features and swoopy berms that elevate the fun to a rating of epic in my book. So picky, aren't we? It was still a good ride however with some options to connect with other trails.

   The next day we took a short ride on the Horse Gulch trails behind Fort Lewis College, much more fun in terms of flow and short techy bits, and filled with loops and options galore.  Topping off the Colorado trail experience, we stopped in Cortez the following day for a ride at Phil's World, a relatively new trail system that had been mentioned to us a number of times in context with "must ride!"  Kit and I both concurred on that note--flowy trails, numerous loop options, one-way trails to avoid collisions, and some fast hard-packed clay sections (the Rib Cage, shown in the video) that rode like a giant pump track. So fun!! 

Kit on Slickrock

   After a day of desert sandstone climbing at a new area in western CO, we headed back to Moab, arriving with just enough time to take a lap on the famed Slickrock Trail. Luck and timing were with us on this Black Friday since the crowds seemed relatively thin; our 2 PM start left us with a couple hours of good sunlight and not a lot of traffic on the trail. Not the longest ride of the trip, but we both agreed that it was the toughest, since taking the climbs easy was not usually an option and the descending was too short for much recovery. The scenery was incredible in the late afternoon light and I spent a lot of time stopping for photos. The riding was equally off the hook, living up to expectations for gravity-defying traction and exploratory options. I wouldn't rate it quite as high as Porcupine or Phil's World on the grin-o-meter at this point, but with more familiarity of the trail and surrounding terrain, it could certainly get a lot more fun.  Following a couple more days of climbing, we decided on Amasa Back as our final Moab bike ride before heading home. The climbing was technical and somewhat brutal in places (or maybe it was just me), but on the whole a lot more fun than a boring fire road climb. We explored the slickrock at the end of the trail for a few minutes, and headed back down for the highlight of the ride: coming back down what we rode up! A majority of the ride was blindly mobbing down bumpy rock trying to keep up with Kit on his 7" Yeti, with a handful of more challenging sections where I hoped to remember lines I'd checked out on the way up. Mission accomplished, including not flying off the 4 foot drop to flat at the bottom. On the short climb back up to the trailhead we stopped at a smaller drop with a bit more landing to take some photos, since the light was just at the right angle. With our final Moab trail ride in the bag, we were on the road back to Tahoe by early afternoon.

Amasa Back fun