zero_it

~SPONSOR~
May 20, 2000
287
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Myself and two buddies have just returned form a week long trip to Moab, Utah. After two days of driving we arrived Saturday night, the 17th. Sunday we did a fun loop out the Kane Creek Trail to the "Hole N The Wall" on Hiway 191, then back through Behind the Rocks and Pritchett Canyon trails back to camp. Kane Creek is a hoot. Lots of fun creek crossings and sand washes with some rock thrown in for good measure. It was a great way to get tuned into the riding in Moab. Having left behind driving rain storms and nothing but muddy trails throughout our neck of the woods, the blue skies and 80+ temps in Moab were welcomed with big grins and WFO throttles. The Hole N The Wall is a little roadside attraction where people have actually carved out a full-sized home in a rock wall and live in it. Nice place to stop for a cold bottle of Gatorade as well. A short rip down the hiway got us onto Behind the Rocks which is a faster trail, but still fun. Pritchett Canyon has the greatest difficulty rating of all the 4x4 trails in Moab and was very fun to ride. With some seriously technical, steep and high rock steps, I'm not really sure how anything with 4 wheels gets through there. We had to walk our bikes down one particularly nasty rock step, but jumped off & rode over the rest.

Our second day's ride started out on the Slickrock Bike Trail. This is primarily all slickrock (think 30 grit sandpaper, endless traction, it ain't slick at all) with a minor amount of sand to ride as well. It was pioneered by a motorcyclist in 1969 at which time it was officially adopted into the BLM's trail inventory. Since then it has become a very popular mountain bike destination ride, but is still open to dirt bikes. You can climb up, go down and ride sidehill on some obnoxiously steep inclines on slickrock. It was a blast to see just how steep I could go. That seemed to make the MTB riders a little jealous. A few commented that they wished they had a motor as they were panting for breath and wiping the sweat off their faces. Ha Ha! After doing all of the that trail, some of it twice and lots of side excursions, we hit the trailer for lunch, gassed up and headed east onto the Fins & Things 4x4 trail. That turned into Porcupine Rim which ended at a singletrack trail that took us down to the Colorado River. The 4x4 trails were plenty of fun with various difficulty of rock obstacles (nothing too hairy), lots of sand and some really fun rock jumps. However, the ~4 miles of singletrack down to the river was where the serious fun was to be had. It was really nice to get off the jeep trails and kick up the technicality of things for a bit. There was one nasty set of big stairsteps down the rocks where we had to walk the bikes, then cross a little creek and back up a kinda mean climb on the opposite side. Nothing 3 chicks from the Northwest couldn't handle, though!

My buddies needed a breather by Tuesday so we played tourist at Arches National Park. What a mind-blowing place that is! If you haven't done it, put it on your "must do" list. Those sandstone arches are quite impressive, as are the other rock formations throughout the park. We finished off the evening drinking beer and killing paperplate targets with my BB gun back at camp. It's great being a redneck!

Wednesday we headed back out on the Slickrock Trail and peeled off onto Hell's Revenge 4x4 trail. The bike trail is steeper and more technical, the jeep trail is a little more open, faster and has more sand. It was fun switching back & forth between the two, shooting for all the big climbs I could find and lots of off trail excitement pretending I was a trials rider. That got me into a bit of trouble when I came down a really steep face that I thought ended with a gentle little drop onto the flatter rock below. No such luck! It just got steeper at the bottom, concluding with about a 2 foot vertical face. After they laughed at me and took a few photos, my friends helped me down, barely avoiding a full-on endo in the process. After burning up a 1/2 tank of gas playing out there, we decided we need food more than we needed more slickrock and headed for the trailer & a sandwich. Once our bellies were full we quickly loaded up the bikes in the van, hitched the trailer and headed south for the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park. WOW! Talk about spectacular scenery. The canyons were full of amazing colors, cliffs, "needles", columns and cool rock formations. We camped at Squaw Flat at the end of the line and headed out to Elephant Hill 4x4 trail for a quick loop. Elephant Hill has a very high difficulty rating by the local jeep club, but really wasn't any big deal on a motorcycle. A few challenging spots, typical Moab stuff, but not anything that really slowed us down. The scenery was to die for, though. It was right out of every cowboy movie you've ever seen. I'm sure that Geronimo, John Wayne and a pile of cow-rustlers are hiding out there as we speak. The following day we did the same loop with a run down the Billy's Hole and Ruin Park 4x4 trails. If you ever go there, don't bother with that ride. Most of it is passable in a 2 wheel drive vehicle and it's posted by the Park Service at 15 MPH. We missed that whole speed limit thing and averaged about 40 MPH through most of the canyon. Oops! We crossed that place off our list of places to ride, smiled big about all the cool pictures we got there and headed back to Moab to finish out our vacation properly.

It was Thursday afternoon when we made camp along the Colorado at the bottom of Poison Spider Mesa. There was still time for a decent ride, though. Poison Spider is a pretty fun trail with a wide variety of riding conditions: slickrock, gravel, coarse sand, fine "blow sand", loose rocky climbs, rock ledges & steps, etc. We made a run up the hill to Golden Rim Trail and did a decent loop out toward the edge of the plateau to Little Arch, back to Poison Spider Mesa and back down to camp. I got to do a fair amount of playing off trail on the slickrock climbing steep stuff and jumping this & that as well as riding the real trails. Had lots of fun on the final ride of the trip.

We pulled out of Moab with 200+ miles on our dirt bikes, wasted rear knobbies (from the slickrock), something close to 200 digital pictures, some cool new t-shirts, 3 big smiles and lots of killer memories. I can hardly wait for the next trip!
 

zero_it

~SPONSOR~
May 20, 2000
287
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Here's a shot of Deanna climbing a hill on the Slickrock Trail, Lisa crossing a bridge on Kane Creek and me doing a rock jump on Porcupine Rim. Yahoo!
 

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GETMETOCA

Can't Wait For Tuesdays
Mar 17, 2002
4,768
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Lori, I always love your reports! Nothing like reading your story, having my first cup of coffee, and getting goose bumps and having the hair on the back of my neck stand up all at once! What a RUSH :)
 

Mr.Sloth85

Member
Mar 19, 2007
29
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GETMETOCA said:
Lori, I always love your reports! Nothing like reading your story, having my first cup of coffee, and getting goose bumps and having the hair on the back of my neck stand up all at once! What a RUSH :)


Thats how I felt haha. I just wanted to leave work and go ride when I read that :ride:
 

zero_it

~SPONSOR~
May 20, 2000
287
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Now that I've been spoiled in Utah, it's time for a reality check. Monday night I popped a fresh Dunlop on the back of the Katoom and am ready for the first local enduro of the year this weekend. Back into the tight woods and deep water for this one. Should be pretty entertaining, as I'm on the same minute as Chris Blais (who just finished the Dakar Rally 3rd overall). Looks like I'll be getting some schoolin'! :cool:
 

The Ant

Member
Jan 3, 2002
275
0
Great report, looks like even tho Bboom's 5MOH freaked me out, maybe there WOULD be some fun trails over there....
Thanks!
-SusanP.
 

bbbom

~SPONSOR~
Aug 13, 1999
2,094
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There are all kinds of great trails there Susan. 5 MOH is one very tiny part of the riding area. We rode all 3 days and only saw people on quads in the sand washes and the 4 guys on 5 MOH.

My buddy Becky joined us for the 3 days on her CR230F and had a great time. She went on the 50 mile alternate route when we did 5 MOH. There are some pics from their ride on my webshots page, they did about 2 MOH on that route. The terrain was similar to 5 MOH but didn't have the real bad spots from what I understood.
 
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