Black Canyon

Well we headed over from Jackon over Teton Pass to Victor ID this morning, probably only about 45 minutes or so without a 12,000 plus pound trailer tethered to ya, but we made it with no issues other than slowing down a few people behind us. Victor is an interesting place, i think population on the sign was less than 1000 but some serious high end homes. Im jumping a little but we stopped in the corner store on the way back after the ride, it looked like some po dunk corner grocery but it had all the high end stuff of a Wegman's, very strange.
Anyways, we settled in here then headed back over the pass to start our ride. I was a little apprehensive about the ride, it seemed like the down hill had the potential of being a steep washed out, rocky mess. It was the easiest (not easy) 2000 foot climb ive done on a mountain bike. It was actually on the old pass road, now basically a two lane multiuse trail from just above the valley floor to 2000 feet and four miles above at Teton pass. We made the climb in just under an hour, not having to slide down to the small chain ring at all. From that point the ride directions took us back a dirt access road for a half mile but howie spied a single track that said it took us in the same direction so we took that instead. It was probably a bit steeper in a couple sections and much more exposed but a good call over all. This started the second half of the climb, only 700 feet or so on a nice single track over the next 1.5 miles.



After about 5.5 miles we peaked out and started down. For now out fears were allayed as the trail started down at a reasonable rate, the track was in excellent shape switch backing through wildflower meadows. If we had any complaint it would be the trail was a little on the dusty side but that would really just be whining. After losing about 1000 feet we took a short break to cool howie's brakes down. Just after that we we headed into a pine forest and eventually the trail found the creek. It remained in excellent shape, with a number of drops due to roots, maybe 12" at most. The tread stayed in excellent condition all the way down to the truck, defying our expectations in more than a pleasant manner. For only a 10.5 mile ride, we were quite satisfied, especially due to our some what limited ride time.
I have an epic planned for tomorrow, all the trail is either in the guide book or on the map so im pretty confident it should be a good ride, although we will run into a half mile hike a bike according to both map and book. so keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer for us.

Catching up

Tuesday we decided to check out Grand Teton National Park and then ride a gravel road in the park along the Snake river near sunset. Well we got through the park one way and were eating a couple sandwiches at a marina with the Tetons as its backgdrop and decided to be lazy and just make a couple stops on the way back to get some pictures. But the best lighting for the tetons from the national park side is in the morning since they basically face east. So we hatched a plan for a return trip at sunrise then to do a hike on the far side of Jenny Lake on Thursday. Wednesday we had some work to do in the morning and it was crazy windy. Neither of us seemed very motivated and end up not going anywhere or doing any riding. I did mangage to get one of the trailer tires fixed that had a slow leak due to picking up a drywall screw somewhere. So that brings us to today. We got up early and made it to the snake river overlook towards the Tetons at sunrise.

Then on to the Jenny Lake North View Point

Then on to the Jenny Lake South area where we where going to catch a boat across the lake to the trail. Well we didn't find out the whole story till later but there was a search and rescue operation going on for a missing hiker from yesterday but two area/trails that we wanted to check out were closed due to the search. So we decided to come back another day and go for a ride today. Back to the trailer for something to eat then out Gros Ventre river valley. The ride was on the Adventure Map but not in any of the guide books, raising a small red flag. But the rides on the Map are usually pretty good. The map showed it as all single track, about 16 miles, so that sounded good. The route started out as a red dirt jeep trail, so much for all single track. I then started think this would be a really nice ride with a jeep right up next to slate creek. About the time I finished that thought, the road up ahead had long ago fallen into the creek bed leaving a very faint track that was difficult to hike across let alone try to ride. This led down to the creek and was then ridable for a bit until it climbed outta the bed and turned into a nice single track for the next two miles, climbing up above the creek in the widening valley. The trail ran into a double track that we continued to follow up the valley. It started as an old jeep trail with another track running off to our right. I figured it might be what we returned on but the mileage didn't quite add up. We continued up the double track as it turned into an ATV trail, really just two single tracks right next to each other back into the hinterlands. The valley was not quite as wide now, but basically we were riding along a flat with the occational steep up including a few crossings of the creek. We reached a split in the valley where we took the right, starting our clockwise return to the singletrack. We were on the edge of the valley and the forest and after one of the short steep ups we had a nice view of alot of beavers' work


We continued along the edgle of the meadow/forest dipping into the forest a few times. We started running into some trails heading off to our left, we stayed to the right on our trip around. I did manage to leave the GPS on the trailer table so we had to rely on our sense of direction. The mileages were not quite adding up so we had to kind of feel our way around the loop. After about 10 miles we hit the longest of our climbs. Here's a couple pictures of coming up to it and heading down the other side.




By the way, it was still double track, mostly in good shape, but definitely rutted out in areas, especially on the climbs. Down we went running into a few unmarked, unmapped intersections staying right for the most part keeping the range that we had behind us as we started, in front of us now. The mileage was starting to pile up and if we were gonna finish in the aloted amount, we would need to hit that intersection pretty quickly. We both felt pretty confident with our collective route finding but were both pretty relieved when we saw the big truck with all the hay bails on it that we first saw at the intersection of the single track and the atv trail. The last two miles were alot of fun back to the truck.
Critter count - I flushed some sort of gray heron looking bird from along the creek and we saw a herd of prong horn antelope on the drive back from the trail head
Beer recommendation - Grand Teton Brewing Company Bitch Creek ESB - a really good taste without quite all the hoppiness of the IPA's ive had recently. And yes there really is a bitch creek in the area

First Ride In Jackson

Well it took a little while, had some things to take care of, but we finally hit dirt in Jackson about 2:30. It was a treat to actually be able to ride right from the RV park. I was a little skeptical about how good a ride was that you left right from town for but was pleasantly surprised with a great one. The loop involves another bike path return that basically takes you right by our RV park, thus the starting point. It was a couple miles along the edge of town out to Cache Creek drive then probably a half mile on a the dirt road before we picked up a trail along the creek. There’s a few in there so it took a little bit of route finding but soon we were headed up along the creek. It hardly felt like we were climbing but the GPS was slowly showing our progress up. This first trail, Hagan, crossed back over the creek and we were supposed to pick up another trail on the other side continuing up the drainage. I think we missed the higher trail and caught a lower one that just meant a little more road than trail heading up to the next trail head. 7 or 8 miles into the ride we hit the Game Creek trail head and crossed over Cache Creek on a nice bridge and started climbing in earnest for a bit. The trail moderated to a reasonable middle ring climb till we hit the crest between the two drainages. It was a fun ride down along Game Creek for the next couple miles.

What goes down must come up. At the intersection with West Game Creek trail, we took the right and started to climb again, still at a very reasonable middle ring rate occasionally having to drop down into the little ring for a couple minutes in steeper sections. Like many of the trails that follow creeks, once you get near the top things get steep and the trail climbs out of the drainage on a series of fairly steep switchbacks. We got to the top then headed down towards the next intersection and decision point.

Wilson trail headed left, had a couple black diamonds on the map, and would leave us with about a 4 mile paved railtrail ride back to town. The right would take us back over by the ski resort with what looked like long swoopy switchback trails back down near our camper. We chose left. It actually started out at a very easy fun grade down for a while and started to wonder about the most difficult black diamond sections. Soon enough we found them, it got steep and loose with a few small drops but all quite ridable. It was pretty obvious that this trail doesn’t get used quite as much as the others as the vegetation was a bit more grown in than what we had been riding, but not a problem.

As things leveled out we caught our first views of the Tetons and the valley we would take back to town.

Once a bit of single track above the highway ended, we caught the bike path which took us right back to within a half mile of the camper. Although it was about 4 miles, it was pretty much level and not near the pain that the ride back to Snowmass was a few days ago. The last mile or so was actually very pleasant running along the creek.

Government Trail

Again, not sure when Ill actually be able to post this, but it was Saturday’s ride. The ride basically runs between Snowmass Village and Aspen so we took the drive up along the Roaring Fork from Glenwood Springs towards Aspen, taking a right up to Snowmass about 10 miles before Aspen. We tried to follow the directions for parking but we figure a few new structures there at the ski resort had taken up the parking lot we were looking for so we found an alternate lot, a little outta the way but not bad. Unlike Park City, the climb was up a paved road through some VERY nice houses. A little over 2 miles and a shade over a thousand feet higher, we headed down a dirt road towards the ski slopes. A slight misinterpretation of the ride directions gained us about three quarters of a mile of bonus mileage and bit of extra climbing but no big deal. Back on the right track we found the trail head for Government Trail after about a mile more of dirt road. Initially it was a little steep and loose but even howie really didn’t have any issues riding it. Howie had a little equipment failure on the way up, the hose came outta the bottom fitting of his camelbak and spilled about a half liter of water so at the first stream crossing we filled his empty water bottle with filtered water just incase. The trail was really sweet after that, up and down a little bit never straying more than 100 feet from 9200. It really had it all, a few nice exposed benchcut views of the valley, swoopy trail through aspen groves, some nice pine forests, some wild flower meadows.

There was also one rather steep grunt of a climb as well as a few rock gardens that made you pay attention, nothing like Rothrock, but fun. We were hoping to find a trail that took us back up to near the top of the ridge for some bonus miles but we either missed the single track or it was really a jeep trail. So down we went across some of the Aspen ski trails and down switchbacks till the trail spit us out on the paved road. We took that down through a golf course back to Highway 82 then along a bike path to the cutback to Snowmass. I think this may have been the first time I’ve encountered switchbacks on a paved bike trail, and certainly this many. It may have been a good thing we didn’t make it back up to the ridge as there were some serious thunderstorm clouds building back up above Aspen as we headed the other way. There’s a bit of ridge between Aspen and Snowmass, a good 500 feet, not a bad climb, but when you are on a big low pressure tire mountain bike on pavement with a head wind, the inefficiencies just really mess with your mind. Im finally acclimated enough that my cardiovascular system is able to keep up with my leg muscles so now I can make my legs hurt before I completely hyperventilate (oh goody), again, not a good thing with an inefficient mountain bike on pavement climbs. Almost 10 miles later we were back in Snowmass with only a .3 mile steep climb back up to the truck. Total mileage was 20, guestimate on climbing of 2000 feet.

Howie’s main bike out here, brown stumpy, has been complaining for a while, something from the rear end, and he finally diagnosed it as a rear hub issue and now the front mavic hub is complaining as well, so we hung her up on the wall and fixed up the Spider with a new rear tire (david had poked a hole in the old one and had been using a tube in it, it had also seen better days, thus the lack of attempting to patch it) and the longer stem and set back seat post, the harp seal is much bigger than the pup. I also had put a new rear tire on my blur, the tread on the 2.2 mountain king was totally wore out after about 600 miles. Seems like they went over board as did Kenda with the nevegal UST, making a tire with a great side wall but with minimal tread. I had also noticed a number of small punctures that the stans had sealed, the sealed holes are still a little wet in the morning when the rest of the tire is total dry. The 2.4 version of the mountain king starts with more tread and seems to be working well on brown stumpy, well until she got hung up today anyways. I guess the search continues for the perfect tire that actually fits in the back of my blur.

btw we made it Jackson WY Sunday evening, im posting from there, woo hoo!! we actually have good internet right from the camper as well as water we can drink.

The Best Trail in Colorado

This is the installment for Thursday and Friday but as we are having internet issues here at the campground, Im not sure when it will actually get posted.

Thursday we were leaving Fruita for Glenwood Springs CO, but first a beer recommendation. I was in the mood for some brown ale but the beer store did not have any moose drool, and HO had gotten a 6 of the SKA’s brown (a brewery in Durango) that was not good at all, so I opted for Sweet George’s Brown Ale from dillon DAM brewery, Dillon CO. Its very good. Anyways, we couldn’t check into the place in Glenwood Springs till 1pm and it was only an hour and half or so from Fruita so we switched on the Olympics and stuck around long enough to see the US women loose to the dutch in water polo in the gold medal game. We finished packing up and headed across I-70 with only a minor slow down for some repaving. HO followed us to the campground to help us get set up then continued on to Denver to turn in his rental car and stay near the airport for his flight out Friday. Now to the name of the post, when we checked into the campground mountain biking came up and the guy here let us know that they had the best trail in Colorado right here in Glenwood Springs. We had already planned on doing it, it’s a loop but the final “great” trail is called Scout or Boy Scout. Since it started right in town we decided to do that Thursday afternoon. We parked at a park downtown and proceed outta town first on the wrong road, 3 bonus miles, then on the right road. Up Red Canon road then to lookout mountain road where we picked up a serious 4wd jeep trail. This is where we ran into problems with the directions and a hidden trail sign. We got to a decision point and misinterpreted the directions as they said stay straight which really meant right (as we figured out on Friday) so we went on the straightest of the three possible trails. After more climbing and a couple miles it dumped us out on the road we had been climbing on before, just up higher. The maps we had from the guide books were not very good either. We back tracked to that bad decision point, took the other possible way that was not correct, back to the road again. It was getting late and we were both getting dehydrated as the water we had filled our camelbaks with from the campground tasted awful, well, kinda salty/soapy, and we were not drinking much. So we ended up bailing back down the roads that we came up, 2400 feet of climbing for nothing.

Not to be deterred we decided to try again on Friday. First we needed to find some good internet downtown, not a problem, then over to one of the bike shops to see if they could help us figure out what we did wrong as well as pick up some tubes since we were down to one between the two of us after David’s couple of flats and HO taking off with my last one in his pack. The kid at the counter helped us out a bit so off we went, back up the mountain. We got to the bad decision point and poked around a bit, found the trail marker and now realizing what direction we really wanted, we continued on the jeep trail we needed. Some up and downs and under power lines the book kept referring to, we made it to the first more or less single track. The book refers to a trail sign here but none could be found but we figured it had to be it. This took us down a pretty good pitch for a little less than a mile then a left on a real single track, I believe that was Forest Hollow trail, but hard to tell when that officially started. It was actually a very nice benchcut single track, basically flat for about 2 miles. It was actually rather tight with tall grasses and other greenery encroaching, a bit reminiscent of Pennsylvania, except no rocks. There were a few nice view points of the canyons to the east of Glenwood Springs.

This took us to Boy Scout. It started steep and loose, but not too bad, even howie made most of the switchbacks. He had been having some issues with his rear brake over heating and getting brake fade on previous rides (it a lot work for those poor brakes, keeping all the weight of a well fed harp seal under control) so proactively he decided to cool them off with his camelback. I never gave it a second thought until we just started back up and he said something to the effect that he hoped that wouldn’t make the brakes sticky, then I remembered he had gatoraid in his camelbak. It was kind of interesting after that, I just smelled sort of a carmel / sugar cooking/burning smell for the rest of the ride down as his brakes heated up. The second half of Boy Scout was less steep and had some really nice benchcut sections carved into the rocks. Total of about 19 miles and 2500 feet of climbing. It was a nice trail but hardly the best in Colorado, but I guess if that’s the only trail you have really ridden, it’s the best to you.

Back to Fruita

Well yesterday we packed up and left Moab. Howie, David, and I had no real interest in doing a ride but little HO was ready and raring. So we got a late check out and sent him over to The Slickrock trail. Had David gotten up earlier and shown any interest, he and Howie were going to go over to Arches National Park, but David didn’t on either account so we just hung out and got some work done and Howie made himself and me one of his famous omlettes. The drive back to Fruita was uneventful, just over an hour and half and we were back at the same RV park we were in a couple weeks ago. HO and I took advantage of the hot tub and pool after dinner and then we started in on the second season of the TV show 24 since we finished up the first season a couple nights before.

The ride today was the famous Kokopelli loops, just a few miles down the interstate from where we are staying. It was reasonably cool at 8:30 when we started, in the high sixties. Not so cool by the time we finished about quarter to 2, 96 degrees. This was actually David’s second time here as howie had him on part of it when he was about 10. The ride starts with a quick road climb into the Colorado river “valley” and then a right on Mary’s loop, basically an old technical jeep trail, but still really nice riding. After a mile or so we took the turn off for Horsethief’s bench trail. This is true “singletrack” alternating between hard pack, sand, and slickrock sections.

Once around and we climbed back up onto Mary’s loop. It continues as a jeep trail till this point

Bypassing Steve’s loop, we got to the intersection with Lion’s loop but missed the left and did some bonus mileage up to the intersection with Mack’s ridge and Moore Fun. Backtracking the quarter mile, Lion’s was made quite clear and off we went, first climbing then up and down on super rocky benchcut trail above the Colorado. This dumps onto a jeep trail climb then intersects with Troy’s loop. The initial plan was to finish out around on Troy’s but David had jammed his thumb on Lion’s and was having issues holding onto the handle bar so we bypassed Troy’s and finished the dirt road climb over the ridge. Howie and David bailed down the dirt road and back to the truck while HO and I took a right up Mack’s ridge since we were already most of the way to the top. This runs along the ridge for a bit with some fantastic overviews of both the river and all the trails we had just ridden. That took us down off the ridge to the intersection of Moore Fun trail. None of us had ever done this so we really didn’t have a clue what to expect other that it is rated most difficult and one description mentioned a 900 foot climb. It did not bode well that we were off the bikes within a couple hundred yards of starting as there was a big drop that neither rider or bike could handle. We started climbing on a steep rocky switchback trail, and climbed and climbed and climbed. It was all pretty much granny or 1-2 with a few short hike-a-bikes. The top of the ridge afforded a few more really nice views. Just when we thought all the climbing was done we had to summit the ridge one more time. The initial trip down was on the same sort of rocky switchback trail as we climbed up, almost as slow but obviously easier cardiovascularly. It got a little more flowy and fun after that with some really wild off camber slick rock sections that you were amazed your bike stuck to when you got over them. A few short ups managed to sap the last of our energy reserves just before the final descent to the dirt road that took us back over to the truck about 23 miles and 5 hours after we started.

Cool Critter count went up by one as HO spotted a pretty cool looking snake on Mary’s loop pretty early in the ride.

David flies out tonight just in time to move into the dorms on Friday, and tomorrow we head for Glenwood Springs for a couple nights before heading north to Jackson. Now that David is leaving I can start to rebuild my self esteem without him constantly making me fun of me.

The Whole Enchilada

That’s the name given to the ride here in Moab that starts up in the La Sal mountains at Burro Pass, elev 11,000 feet. We had initially planned on using a shuttle service to take us up when we thought it was $100 for the van but when we double checked it was $200. Since HO had a vehicle and the bike shop in town said it could make it up there as well as the truck we decided to shuttle it ourselves. We had the truck packed up the night before so first thing we headed out, first into town to drop off HO’s vehicle. Up first a paved road then a gravel road to Geyser Pass, total of about an hour’s drive. The last mile to the road up to Burro pass was pretty degraded so we just rode from Geyser Pass. It was a good 800 foot climb, first on really really old jeep trail then on single track, in about 1.5 miles up to the pass at 11,000 feet. It started out great, very reminiscent of Crested Butte although a bit looser tread on the track. Well that lasted for about 200 yards. Then it got steep and very loose. About a quarter mile down or so, David and I both agreed that we had had more fun on a bike before as we waited for HO and Howie to catch up. We rode it all save a few of the steep loose switch backs but HO who is stuck with my 26” Fisher (he’s now spoiled with his big wheel bike) and Howie were even less thrilled then we were. It got better from there, as things leveled out a bit and ran along a creek. We moved from pine forest to a nice ride through aspen groves ending up at Warner Lake campground. Who would have thunk , pine, wildflowers, and aspen on a Moab ride.

From there it was a short dirt road ride to the Hazzard County trail.

As with all good rides, it started with a bit of a climb culminating in an epic view of both Spanish Valley where Moab is as well as Castle Valley, the valley the Porcupine Rim edges. It was a great single track ride down through meadow and scrub. Locals have built up rock “gap” jumps along it that we all took the bailout options on as the consequences of a mistake were pretty huge. The Hazzard County trail ends right across from where the Kokopelli trail heads along an old degraded jeep trail.

This heads down to the Porcupine Singletrack. This is an amazing piece of trail switching between hard packed sandy soil and “slickrock.” For those that have never ridden it, slickrock is a sandstone that actually provides incredible traction for bike tires. I believe the name initially came from the poor horses that had to cross it, not so much traction. The other amazing part of this trail is the incredible views of Castle Valley. For the most part the trail was pretty easy to follow with one exception where HO came through with the find of the rest of the single track.

This runs into the more Porcupine Singletrack, same sort of drill and again we lost the track at one point and again HO to the rescue, it was quite the drop through a shoot to continue on the correct path. This put us back on the Porcupine Rim soon to hook up with original Porcupine Rim “trail.”

This is what Howie and I rode 8 years ago when we were in Moab. Its basically a very technical jeep trail for about 7 miles before turning to singletrack as it hit the rim and heads down to the Colorado River. The memory of this part of the ride was a rather scary, very exposed, technical ride down. What it seemed like this time was a fun, somewhat technical ride with a few points necessitating a little walking, but nothing like what I remembered as it was one of my first western rides. We ended up 7000 feet below where we started and about 45 degrees warmer, it was in the mid 90’s at the end. After about 7 hours we had riden about 29 miles from geyser pass to the bottom of Porcupine, then about 6 miles into Moab on road and bike path and back to the car. We were all glad we did the whole thing but in retrospect, next time we would skip the time and effort to get all the way up to Burro and just do the ride from Hazzard.

Probably the funniest part of the ride was as we were heading back to town a roadie blows by me then I see roadie-HO blow by me and bridge the gap to the roadie. HO said he stayed off him enough that he wasn’t drafting but could tell the roadie was not amused and tried to drop HO on a small rise but couldn’t.