Tag: road trip

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bikes general trip reports

Moab 9: Snow, arches, and Amasa Back/Captain Ahab

And on the eighth night there was snow.

As a result, the morning was spent waiting for things to warm up a little, and for the snow to go away. We decided a trip to the Arches National Park was in order. Perhaps the arches would look quite pretty all covered in snow?

Here’s an arch with Brendan standing in it (if you squint really hard you can see him, he’s that wee blue spot).

And here’s another arch with Alex and a wild Moosling.

And here’s Delicate Arch. Oooh, look how pretty it is.

By this time we’d well and truly had enough of driving around looking at arches (well I had anyway), and wanted to go and do something more interesting. That wish was fulfilled when Jackie, Greban and I set off to ride *dramatic chords* Amasa Back and Captain Ahab.

Things started off simply enough, with some slightly startling downhill, then a steady climb up a rocky double track.

Biking up Amasa Back, towards the eponymous whale

Then things opened up, and we were cycling along next to Jackson Hole, with a great precipitous drop next to the trail. The sort where in a situation where you usually wouldn’t think twice about riding over something, suddenly you’re wondering: “But what if I DID just randomly swerve a few metres that way, and then roll a bit – just look at that enormous cliff!”

We headed up to the summit of Amasa Back first, taking some obligatory summit shots…

… before descending (wheeeee!) down to the trail junction and heading out and back on the Pothole Arch singletrack.

The riding was good fun, but it sort of petered out to an uneventful conclusion, leaving us with a dirty great hill to climb back up again, which seemed the height of rudeness.

But then we were on our way to Captain Ahab! I was alarmed by the entry sign – expert skills recommended? But apparently I have enough pseudo-expert skills these days, and it was a wonderful trail, flowing and fun, and I think the people who built it may have been wizards.

For an average descent grade of 11%, it had an awful lot of uphill though. Oh, but there would have been even more photos if we hadn’t been having too much fun riding to really want to stop and take photos.

Distance biked: 25 km
Elevation gain: 736 m

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bikes general trip reports

Moab 8: Slickrock!

After a morning spent in an RV, waiting for the rain to clear (we didn’t just break into an RV, it belonged to friends who turned up for a night, honestly) we decided to head out and ride the Slickrock trail. But not before experiencing the strange taste sensation of garlic pancakes. Not only were they garlic-flavoured pancakes, but they were unintentionally garlic-flavoured pancakes, with no known source for the garlic. The pot didn’t taste of garlic, the raw pancake powder didn’t taste of garlic, the milk didn’t taste of garlic, the butter used in the pan wasn’t garlic butter. And yet we were faced with pancake after pancake with a strong garlic flavour.

Turning our thoughts away from garlic pancakes, we wandered a couple of hundred metres down the road to ride the famous Slickrock trail.

Firstly, let me clear up something. “Slickrock” is not terribly slick, it’s actually sandstone, and quite grippy. The slickrock on the Slickrock trail is Navajo Sandstone.The entire trail just follows white painted dashes on the rock, and apart from a few dives into brief pits of sand, is basically all riding on rock. The trail was originally developed in 1969 for motorcycles, so you’re not supposed to glare at them too much when they come revving past you. We didn’t run into many though, and they were all very friendly anyway. There’s another trail for 4x4s which criss-crosses through the same area, so you’re liable to see Jeeps posing silhouetted on the top of rock hummocks as well. That about covers it I think.

Without further ado, here are the photos (photos of me courtesy of Greban). They’re all fairly self-explanatory and involve people riding bikes on rock, so please mentally caption them yourselves…

Distance biked: 16.9 km
Elevation gain: 348 m

Note: The garlic pancake mystery was later solved when it was revealed that there was an extra ingredient added to the batter – an oil which was garlic infused. So the RV wasn’t psychotropic, and the pancakes really were garlic-flavoured. I don’t recommend it to anyone.

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bikes general trip reports

Moab 7: Where it rains, we do laundry and I nap

The closest thing we had to a rest day, the morning was spent lurking about in the rain, then doing unexciting things like laundry, having showers and buying some groceries. Followed by a good nap.

Eventually Brendan got sick of all this sitting around and declared he was going on a ride anyway. Somehow I ended up being the one who went along with him, and we set out into the rain at Klondike Bluffs with the goal of riding Baby Steps.

A drowned rat, prior to reaching the mud

Things started off well enough, and if only we’d known which trails are good to ride in the wet they may have ended well too. As it was, we accidentally ended up in a clay-muddy quagmire, with bike tyres that would not turn. Thankfully there weren’t kilometres of that sort of nonsense, and after a few hundred metres we escaped onto rock and made our way back to the car. By which time it had stopped raining anyway. After shaking our fists at the heavens for a while, we sighed and went and cleaned our bikes.

On the plus side, Brendan made a tasty and plentiful carbonara for dinner, and the rain didn’t come back. And Jackie arrived!

Distance biked: 14.6 km
Elevation gain: 242 m

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bikes general trip reports

Moab 6: Not Moab at all, but a day trip to Fruita, Colorado

We’d all heard wonderful things about the riding in Fruita, Colorado. Well, Alex and I had heard wonderful things, and Brendan had ridden there, and seemed to think it was a good idea. The idea of going over there and camping for a night or two was proposed, but dubious weather and cool overnight temperatures led to a day trip only – to 18 Road.

Zipping over to Western Zipity

The Moosling running most of the way up Prime Cut

Probaby on Western Zipity

Alex on Zipity Doo Dah

The Moosling stares disdainfully from the Tout Singletrailer – probably on Kessel Run

18 Road, Fruita – lots of swoopy fun single track

The Moosling with Mike the Headless Chicken in Fruita

We rode until our legs nearly fell off, then headed back into town.

All in all, 18 Road felt a lot like a nicely bolted sport-climbing area. Fun, and a great workout, but a little tame. I’d love to go back and explore some of the bigger trails the area has to offer.

Distance biked: 38 km
Elevation gain: 785 m

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bikes general trip reports

Moab 5: Dead Horse Point State Park

This was a fairly quiet an uneventful day. The single trail at Dead Horse Point State Park was very, very, very family friendly. At least the views were great, looking out over the Canyonlands.

There were no dead horses while we were there, or cars flying off the precipitous cliffs, although apparently this area was used for the final scene in Thelma & Louise.

We couldn’t convince the Moosling to jump for a photo, but he quite enjoyed the jump photos otherwise

After a wander about, and lunch on top of a rock, Moosling and I dropped the guys off at the trailhead for Magnificent 7 (or at least, part of Magnificent 7). My bike was dropped off for a service in town, we splashed out and had showers AGAIN, and then the Moosling got to play in the park before we headed back to camp.

The wind had picked up, filling our tents, mouths, hair, food and eyes with fine red desert sand. So there was a downside to camping in the desert this time of year. I decided to escape the wind by going for a run in it. Not a very cunning plan, but at least I got to explore the Slickrock trail a little.

Distance biked: 13.1 km
Elevation gain: 124 m