Moab Utah May '10

[frogslinger]

So...

I have been waiting to go to Moab Utah since I have known there was a Moab Utah. As most of y'all know (or should be able to tell from all the pics of the raptor that I have posted with my bikes in the back) I am a Mtn Biker. One of my oldest riding buddies is assigned to Hill AFB and we coordinated a get together about 8 months ago. One of my local freinds is a budding rock climber and agreed to come bike with me if I went climbing with him. He had a two week climbing vacation in the Black Hills, and then part of the group he was with was going to climb in Santa Fe New Mexico, so I would pick him up there on my way out for our week in Utah. His great Dane would be staying at my house for the entire three weeks and keeping my dogs and neighbors in check.

I got off work Friday morning, finished loading the truck, took a quick kip and headed out. West TX can be very boring when you have to drive across it. There are lots of windmills though. The largest windfarm in the world sits along the ridges that define the path of the railway line that made the towns in this area flourish and that now set the path of I-20, the major east-west path across much of the country (it turns into I-10 a few hundred miles west of me and runs all the way out to Cali).

After several hours of driving I crossed into New Mexico at a small town called Texico (there is also a Texahoma and a Texarkana no word on a Texisiana though). West TX is nowhere near as boring as New Mexico. The speed limits are higher in NM though so that was good. I set the EcoTrip function on the Garmin to see if it would match the fuel usage on the DIC.

I finally got to Santa Fe a few hours ahead of my buddy, hauled my bikes, luggage, hand gun and leaky beer cooler up to a cheap hotel room and went to bed. A few hours later Ken showed up. I told him the beers were in the shower (hey the cooler was leaking and i did not want a puddle on the floor) and went back to sleep.

Next morning we headed out for Utah. New Mexico was still boring. Gas was expensive and was only 85 octane. It started to get hilly. We crossed the continental divide and I noticed that the 5.4 was beginning to get a little out of breath. So was I. I checked the Altimeter on the GPS and it confirmed we were over 7000 feet. I stated to get a headache. The road started to descend and by the time we crossed into Colorado we were down to around 5K feet. The engine seemed happier. I know I was.

Less than two hours later we saw this;

The scenery had distinctly improved from NM...

About 25 miles south of town we got to see our first Arch (Wilson Arch)

Followed by more cliffs and mountain visages;

About 10 miles past Wilson Arch is the first real tourist trap;

 

[frogslinger]

We found our campsite and setup our tent, then headed into town for dinner.

I have to pause for a moment and thank Pack Creek Campground, they were awesome hosts, have great laundry, shower and internet facilities and, have a "your money is no good here" policy for Active Duty Military.

Dinner was at a local restaurant called Zak's it captures the essence of the local area perfectly, as seen on the cover to the menu;

After dinner we went back to camp setup a fire and contemplated the days ahead by Raptorlight;

In the morning, as we had bought no groceries we went to a local coffee/internet/ice-cream/breakfast/book store called Wake and Bake, where they have the worlds third largest breakfast burritos.

As we still could not breathe, we decided that this would be a good day to go wheeling. I have wanted to run the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands National Park for a while so that seemed as good a place to start as any.

The White Rim Trail is an old uranium ore mining road that winds around 90 miles through Canyonlands National Park. It is not particularly technical... if you skip the optional parts and are a good driver you can do the whole thing in one wheel drive (that is 4x2 no locker). Having driven the whole thing I would say your best option would be to drive it out to Lathrop trail, go down to the bottom of that trail, turn around and head back... then take the main roads back to Hose Thief Trail and drive the end of the trail back as far as you want and turn around and head back. The 30-40 miles you skip are extremely beautiful, but pale in comparison to the ends of the road... and it would be more fun to drive these roads in both directions.

The approach to the park on Highway 313;

The girl collecting money at the gate (it was 10 dollars IIRC) was bored and incredibly cute... probably should have absconded with her... ah well... (no photo, sorry guys)

Once you park at the visitors center you can go to the scenic overlook and get very nervous and give yourself vertigo...

from right to left;

And a quick and dirty stitch;

As you approach the cliff you can see the road snaking away under you and to the horizon...

Mtn Bikers directly below the overlook;

Ken trying to look as good as me;

The pictures have a hard time capturing perspective... I will try to point out little things that help show it as I go...

The descent...

Perspective: That is a jeep following the Mtn Bikers with their gear... it typically takes two days to drive the trail and four days to ride it. The jeep is about 200 feet below us.

Perspective: note the two riders on the switchback doing a great impersonation of small black dots.

Ken Looking photo-shopped:

Forty2 and I about a third of the way down the first descent;

Perspective: the panoramic image was taken from the top of the cliff to my right. We are about where the Jeep was.

A look back up the cliff;

And down:

About halfway down the first cliff... continuing downward.

First view of the river that cut all this rock (The Colorado I believe);

Looking back up;

Forty2 and I checking out the views;

Ken trying not to fall;

Ken found this slipped slab and crawled down it.

As the hard layer of rock on top cracks and allows water through it undercuts the sandstone underneath... in places the cracks are very small, only a few inches, to the point you can step across them. The drop between them is around 100 feet. It is a weird feeling being out on them... here are some pics from a distance.

The first mushroom of the trip...

More vistas...

The next point of interest is the Musselman Arch;

Couple of random Raptor shots;

Here is another one of those perspective shots...

Doesn't look to big does it?

How about with Ken in Frame?

A couple pictures along the Lathrop trail:

Perspective: see how the berm along the side of the road seems to be going up at a 45 degree angle? Seemed that way from the truck too...

There are a couple of places where the road is undercut by a cliff... you cannot tell that you are driving over a 450 foot drop (yes we measured it) with only 25 feet of material under you until you get past it.

 

[frogslinger]

A nice magazine style shot to start the next section:

It was really hard to capture the "White Rim". Everything out there is red except there is a little edge of white in most areas right at the edge of the canyons:

This canyon had a drop of over 500 feet, and a cool arch.

If you could work out how to set a top rope this would be some awesome climbing:

Do not open your door... that first step is a doozy...

The white rime being a little less coy:

This is I believe from Murphy's Hogback... terrifying (but easy) to drive.

At this point you are fairly sick of beautiful vistas....

You eventually end up all the way down on the shore of the Green River:

And then you get to climb up 500 feet, then back down 500 feet then up... you get the picture:

The final climb out of the canyon... you end up well over the river...

 

[frogslinger]

The next day we decided to go riding. We had been told that Slick Rock would be a nice starter trail...

Turns out it is rated 30 out of 30 for difficulty... (the highest score is actually 33/30) by Rider Mel the default guide for Biking in Moab...

That is 10/10 for technical difficulty, 10/10 for being tiring and 10/10 for danger/cliffs etc...

Nice views though...

Riding is hard in Moab... the altitude kills you and you tend to go too hard for the first part of a ride and can never catch your breathe... kinda kills the desire to take photos... well worth it though.

We decided to go rock climbing the next day... the only place that seemed really promising for Sport Climbing was "The Ice-Cream Parlor"

If you look really close in this picture there are several bolts mounted... unfortunately it is still virtually impossible to set a top rope and Ken did not feel like leading... we decided to stick to scampering:

The view from the base of the Parlor:

We met a friend on the way down...

These are our neighbors from the campsite... the blond kid is in college the other one works at a ski resort I am the only one who actually jumped to this mushroom... everyone else sort of crawled...

If you are in town to ride my recommendation is Chili Pepper Cycles.

Here is a picture of the effervescent Silvi on her Santa Cruz Nomad (IIRC)... Kinda makes my Stumpie in the background look like a little puppy.

Random eclectic mailbox on the way to the campsite.

 

[frogslinger]

We hit up Arches National Park...

There are some really good raptor trails in here... also tons of scampering...

Surfing the rock:

Lots of good hiking to be had too:

This rock is held up by duct tape:

Notice the Arch in the background?

Standing on the edge of cliffs...

 

[frogslinger]

At this point we decided to do a little scampering... lots of fun... cool pictures minimalish danger...

Starting small...

I can climb that...

First Arch:

Working up to the bigger stuff:

These next shots i was about 8 feet in the air... walked myself up...

Got a little Captain in you?

The last real arch we checked out:

Props to Bike Town;

Interesting note... the rock we are standing on in the above picture used to be in the arch, blocking about half of it... the rock fell in about 1940... there are some before and after pictures at the beginning of the path into it.

Pay no attention to the man in the orange shirt...

Or the grey one...

This is the only place I found a bolt other than at the 'Parlor...
note me sitting checking out the view...

Some wheeling pics from Arches to finish up the park...

I did get a little bumper damage from this trail... bad technique on my part...

On our last day of riding everything went to hell...

We set out to ride Klondike... a 14 mile out and back rated about 15... when we got to the end of the out part we decided to hit up Baby Steps an additional loop that was rated in the 20s and that added about 9 miles... turned into a really long ride... we ran into women weeping on the trail, ran out of water and because we were riding with no shirts to fix our farmer's tans got camel back shaped tans instead.

On the way back down Klondike Will (the blond) wheel dropped a little too hard and blew out a tire... Ian (the ski resort guy) sat with him whilst Ken and I bombed to the bottom of the hill. Ken needed to make it back to the bike store by 5 as he had rented a bike for the day. We got to the trailhead around 4:20, I grabbed the raptor and head the 6-7 miles back up the trail grabbed Will and chased Ian down the slope... I almost caught him at the gate...

It was now 4:55 and I demonstrated my offroad driving skills in a scramble back to the hardtop... we made a left and this happened in front of us...

Right after that last photo was taken the flames completly engulfed the RV and its propane tanks started to explode...

We headed north... finally making it back to the store by cutting across some jeep trails handing over the bike at about 5:35.

On the last day I saw this truck in the parking at the supermarket lot and had to take a photo with it (TX- memorial day weekend...):

Finally for those of you doubting the hard to breathe thing... these photos are of my gas cans that I dumped into the truck right before leaving Moab... this is what the change in pressure (and temp) did to them on the way back to TX
(water jug was full)...

 

[SVTRay]

In on page one

 

[Falcon]

Captivating read Frogman! Falcon says with a BLANK stare. <G>

Falcon

 

[Nacho]

Amazing....truely riveting .

 

[MagicMtnDan]