Wag's Way

The first big storm of the season came through Moab on Saturday, bringing lots of snow and wind and colder temperatures. When the clouds parted we could see that the La Sals were covered, pretty much bringing an end to the high-alpine riding for the year. I feel very fortunate to have spent some time there before it closed down.

But the snow and rain and cold just mean that it is time for some desert riding! Hanka and I rode out to Gemini Bridges and up to Gold Bar Rim to follow the "blue dot" trail over to the Portal Trail. This is a singletrack route along the slickrock of Gold Bar Rim, above Poison Spider Mesa. It is a technical, windy trail that requires great route-finding skills. The next day T-Roy joined us once again and we rode Wag's Way, which is a route that Todd Wagner showed us a while ago. It is also known as "slickrock for adults" since it has a good deal of exposure and there are some steep, tough climbs that you really have to commit to making, otherwise you will slide down the rock quite a ways...

I wrapped up the trip with a classic ride through Hidden Valley and over to Bartlett Wash. There is no established trail in this area, it is just a wide-open expanse of rock with lots of ledges and compressions and steep slopes. It is one huge playground for mountain bikes. This is where the Test of Metal freeride competition has been held in the past, where every rider gets to make up his or her own lines and judges rate the technical aspects and how much air everyone catches!

Trans La Sal

I made it down to Moab very early on Wednesday morning, driving straight through the night all the way from Oregon. The Westy ran beautifully and it felt great to be on the road and mobile again. Pulled straight up to the Love Muffin Cafe, Wes and Penelope's new coffee/breakfast spot, and was instantly overwhelmed by seeing all my old friends and acquaintances. Within an hour Hanka had a shuttle set up and we headed into the mountains to take advantage of the Fall colors and cooler temperatures. Troy and Randy had the day off from working at the Poison Spider and the Chile Pepper, so we had a pretty fast crew.




Unfortunately we had some afternoon thunderstorms roll in that shortened our route. We decided to drop down Schumann's Gulch to Oowah Lake, then climbed back up to Geyser Pass. The weather was still a little suspect, so we continued across the Trans La Sal Trail to a new piece of singletrack called Hell's Canyon. It is a super-steep descent with some tight switchbacks that leads right down to Pack Creek, just south of Ken's Lake. It turned into quite the adventure, and we made it down to the pavement just as the sun was setting. I felt lucky to catch the changing colors at the prime time.


The next day I caught a shuttle up to Geyser Pass with Kyle and Acme Shuttle. I rode over Burro Pass and descended down to Moab on the other side of the La Sals. There was a little bit of snow on the highest part of the trail, but it warmed up quickly by the time I arrived at the Kokopelli Trail and jumped on the UPS and LPS singletrack. There was a huge fire this Fall that burned a section of Kokopelli's, but everything else was just as I remembered it. Once again it was approaching dark by the time I rolled into town.

Friday morning looked a little ominous in the mountains, so we decided to stick to the desert riding closer to town. Hebdog had the day off from running Rim Tours, so he led the charge out to Amasa Back, the Pothole Arch, and back down Rockstacker. We had a little rain, but mostly clear skies. It didn't take very long at all to get used to riding the ledgy, technical slickrock sections. Everything felt familiar and comfortable and I had a great time riding on the red rocks once again.