TR: Spring Break in Moab

[bfree]

Warning: Picture-heavy report from my first time to Southern Utah. What a fantastic week of mountain biking, camping, rock climbing, hiking, and good food.

Day 1: Last week I road tripped it down to southern Oregon to meet some friends and head out to Moab. Our crew of 13 towed a U-haul trailer at mildly absurd speeds to arrive last Friday at ~5:30 AM. Success, we beat the Jeepers and scored a killer campsite within seconds of trail and with a killer view of the La Sals. Only problem: it's still dark out and well below freezing. We begin to setup camp anyways and are much delighted when the sun comes up. We were pretty damn tired from the drive and just wanted to get acquainted, so took it easy for riding on the first day and just messed around on the adjacent Slickrock trail and pounded out a couple practice loops.


Northern Nevada is boring as shit


Sunrise over the La Sals


Unpacking the trailer


Morning light on the adjacent bluffs


Good riding, good views on the rock


Did I mention the good views of the La Sals from camp?


Nonstandard pedaling devices: trials bike and unicycle

Day 2: Porcupine. The snow kept us out of the high country, but we were able to tack on LPS to the Porcupine ride with only a couple small patches of snow. Beautiful flowy singletrack with killer views on LPS. The techy ledges and drops on the Jeep trail are pretty damn fun too, then it turns back to more fantastic singletrack as we descend to the valley.


Crew getting ready to ride


View from LPS


Sending it on Porcupine


This place is sure rough on bikes, notice any spokes missing? (hint: count 5)

Day 3: Mag 7 to Portal. What a fucking day, this ride sure had its moments of brilliance and moments of misery. I've gotta give props to our fearless leader in the first pic below who polished off the ride in ~2:45 and then proceeded to ride the additional 14 miles and some elevation back to camp. The rest of us turned the ride into an 8 hour ordeal of getting lost, suffering through sand and endless rock slabs, and getting lost some more. After some 30 miles, we finally descended Portal in fading light. This trail is fucking insane. I'd like to try it again fresh sometime because I ended up walking nearly half of the damn thing since I didn't have a deathwish after such a long day.


Killin' it on Mag 7


Where the hell are we?

No more pictures of that ride, we were focusing on getting our asses back to the pavement.

Day 3: Rock climbing. After another cold 25 degree night, we took a rest day from riding and got a taste of climbing some desert sandstone. I'm not that great of a climber and the damn rocks in the desert tend to form mostly difficult routes, but we found a few fun 5.8 and 5.9 routes.


Me on a sport lead


Tenting it opens up the budget for damn good food all week


30 second night exposure, you would hardly know it was night with how well the full moon lit the place up



Day 4: Slickrock. Some in the group rode Porcupine again, I had to give the iconic Slickrock ride a shot. I'm glad I did - there aren't as many screamer descents on the ride but its up-and-down nature keep things interesting and the views are great.





Day 5: Amasa Back > Rockstacker > Ahab. We cruised past the long train of Jeeps on the Amasa climb and broke off onto Rockstacker for good fun and more interesting riding. After lunch at Pothole Arch, we turned back and hit Ahab on the way home. I'm stoked on that ride, it's a seriously brilliant trail navigating artfully up, down, and around various rock slabs down to the valley. I'm sure it will only get better with age and rain as the couple of sandy spots get more worn in. Tough choice between Ahab and Porcupine for best ride of the week.


More killer views of the mountains


Panorama from above Pothole Arch


Setting off on Ahab


Sunset from camp



Day 6: Porcupine & LPS again. It's such a good ride, we had to do it again. We pedaled up UPS a bit, hoping the past couple days' heat would melt the snow, but got turned back after a mile or so. Still nice to add some extra flowy singletrack on top of the bluffs.




Lots of flats


Arches NP in the evening


Delicate Arch in the evening light



That's it! Stats: 20 flats, 2 blown wheels, 1 busted Reverb remote ($120 WTF?), 1 blown seat, 1 bent brake lever, ~90 miles ridden, one helluva spring break.

[criscam]

Nice TR!

[keith-stone]

Great report. Makes me want to hang the skis up and get on the bike more...kinda.

[smmokan]

Very nice! I drove through Moab on my way home last week and the town was absolutely slammed... looks like you didn't have many issues with the 1500+ jeeps in town.

[NuMexJoe]

Fantastic TR, and some wonderful photos, too! Yeah, that place is punishing on equipment. Sounds like a great time was had.

[Skipig25]

Nice work. I made a few spring break trips there during college, always a good time. Thanks for the pics, makes me want to get back there soon

[gointhedistance]

Nice work!! I love this first shot...

I'll be heading to Moab/Arches/Bryce/Zion end of June through early July - this just got me even more pumped!

[Tye 1on]

great TR!!!

[bfree]

Thanks all.

Very nice! I drove through Moab on my way home last week and the town was absolutely slammed... looks like you didn't have many issues with the 1500+ jeeps in town.

I was worried about this at first, but it ended up being no problem. We beat them to the prime campgrounds and weren't around the town much anyways, save the daily trip to the bike shop to fix shit. It's somewhat fun to blow by them on the trails and launch off the ledges that they're crawling around on. Some of them are pretty impressive pieces of machinery anyway, and it was neat to watch them storm out of town with the racing lights on for their night rallies.

[HankScorpio]

Nice man, I love Moab, can't wait to get back there.

[SubV]

Great TR, thanks for taking the time to put it together!

[Arty50]

Two of the most important things I've learned riding in Moab...

Never, ever, under any circumstances hit the Diving Board no matter how good you think it looks. According to Mr. AG, that thing has eaten more bike parts than pretty much any feature on the planet. Kindly note the slightly uphill landing. I almost crushed myself on it.


After flatting 4-5 times down Porcy one day, I went tubeless and have never looked back.

[AKbruin]

Awesome TR.

[Conundrum]

Ask Reverend Floater about diving board. Hah! How was Ahab? Going to be there in a couple weeks and want to check that out.

[Dantheman]

Never, ever, under any circumstances hit the Diving Board

78

Truth!

[land]

I rode porcupine a couple days ago all the way from the top of UPS off Sand Flats rd right below kokopelli and it was totally snow free, dry and damn fun. Must have melted fast!

Didn't have a single bike issue, and didn't see another person the whole time. Gotta be a first.

[knumbskull]

Agreed on the diving board. Never again. Mag 7 to Portal was a brutal day for our group too. I don't think we'll be back for that one. Funny story about that ride. In about the most remote section of the trail my friend started asking around if anyone had toilet paper. Well, no one did so he resorted to a one dollar bill. He said the worst part was putting it back in his wallet ;-)

[smmokan]

Agreed on the diving board. Never again. Mag 7 to Portal was a brutal day for our group too. I don't think we'll be back for that one. Funny story about that ride. In about the most remote section of the trail my friend started asking around if anyone had toilet paper. Well, no one did so he resorted to a one dollar bill. He said the worst part was putting it back in his wallet ;-)

I have the same feelings for Mag 7... I broke my ribs in a crash about 5 miles in last October and had to ride all the way back to town via Gemini Bridges and the bike path. I won't be riding that trail ever again. From what I rode and from what my friends said about the rest of the trail, TWE is more my style anyways.

[bfree]

Diving Board was fun, I didn't realize it was known as such a bike eater. It did blow one wheel out of our group's ~10 drops off it.

Ask Reverend Floater about diving board. Hah! How was Ahab? Going to be there in a couple weeks and want to check that out.

I really enjoyed Ahab, perhaps as much as Porc. The first half navigates up, down, and around various rock slabs with the perfect amount of technicality. All of the ledges and steps are nicely built up with rocks for good rolling. The second half has some great steep descents with a few masher uphills to keep you on your toes. There's some sandy spots towards the beginning, but nothing like the poison spider wallow. I'd consider just doing Ahab twice instead of going out to Rockstacker/Pothole for a longer ride.

I have the same feelings for Mag 7... I broke my ribs in a crash about 5 miles in last October and had to ride all the way back to town via Gemini Bridges and the bike path. I won't be riding that trail ever again. From what I rode and from what my friends said about the rest of the trail, TWE is more my style anyways.

Bummer, and that section is one of the best parts of the ride really. The rock slab up-and-down traverse on golden spike is kinda fun if you like techy climbs too, but that part is so damn long.

We took that section all the way out to Poison Spider and then hooked back left through miles of sand to Portal. It seemed like a lot of backtracking. Does anyone know what the blue line is that breaks off from the Golden Spike slabs? Shortcut to Portal without the shitty PS section?

[knumbskull]

I think you are talking about Blue Dot. It follows the ridge all the way out to Portal. Its the way we went and it is LONG too. The less experienced had lots of hike a bike and the more experienced still had some. Plenty of tech and funky moves. Tricky route finding at times. All were whooped with little desire to ever go back.

[LHutz Esq]

I am heading down next week,

Anyone have any great places to camp for free around Moab or Fruita - we will be doing 3-4 days in each spot and driving a campervan.

Many thanks for any info.