100 Miles, Or Not...

Wednesday morning I was out the door at 4 a.m. to head to Canyonlands National Park, outside of Moab, UT, to ride the White Rim Trail.  White Rim is a 100 mile, mostly hardpacked dirt road trail that circles much of the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands.

 I was riding by about 7a.m. and it took just a few miles to see it wasn't going to be a good day.  As soon as I sat on the saddle, my butt hurt.  As sad as it sounds, I have had the same saddle for 2 years and never liked it.  Usually this isn't a huge deal since when I mountain bike I am out of the saddle alot, seriously, most of the time it could be a 2x4 and I wouldn't care.  However, I quickly realized that this wasn't 'mountain biking' it was 'riding a mountain bike', no technical stuff, just grinding out miles.  About 7 miles in it became decision time, I wasn't far from the paved road that led through the entrance gate and then to the drop down to the actual White Rim, once all that happened, I was committed, no matter what.  I reeaaallllly don't like this saddle by the way.  After a stop, think about quitting, nah ill keep going, then another stop, I decided to head back.  I figure going into a long day without my head on straight was a pretty bad idea.

Where I would have finished at the Horsetheif Switchbacks

My shame and dishonor at turning I was pretty stoked with my decision once I got back to the car because, well, I was in Moab.  So instead of doing a glorified road ride all day I drove to the Bar M trails, conveniently located between Canyonlands and Grand Junction, and rode some singletrack.  The trails conditions were excellent, the singletrack was flowy, and no, my but didn't hurt that bad.  But seriously, I'm swapping saddles today.

Backpacking in Canyonlands NP - Day 1

 Kelly and Jen took Friday off work and we headed out of stormy Grand Junction down to Moab, Utah.  Our initial plan had been to hike Rattlesnake Arch here in town but that was scrubbed due to the weather.  We were going to hike around Upheaval Dome in Canyonlands, but that was scratched because there were no more backcountry passes available there.  So, we ended up hiking the Lathrop (Lay-throp) Trail down to the Colorado River.  Now, when we initaially planned to do the trip to Rattlesnake Arch, we decided that would be a good trip since its just 14 miles roundtrip and this was Jen and Eddies first backpacking trip.  Lathrop, on the other hand, is 22+ miles with 2700ish feet of elevation.  Surprise!!

 Heading out under cloudy skies.  It really wasn't too bad, the clouds kept it cool and we only got a drizzle of rain.  The first 2-3 miles of the trip was pretty flat and easy and everyone was feeling good.  Then...



We were headed down to the bend in the river down there, waaaay down there.

The big elevation change was a drop of over 1200 feet over 2 miles.  The trail was cut into a talus/scree/debris pile on the side of the mesa.

Still smiling!  We started up at the top of the mesa behind them, and still had 4 more miles to go.

After close to five hours we finally made it down to the river, set up camp, and had a great dinner of pita pizzas (thanks camp cook Kelly!).



Canyonlands N.P.

 Saturday we took advantage of the weather and hopped in the CRV and drove the 2 1/2 hours out to Canyonlands National Park in Utah.

Our first stop was Aztec Butte.  Its a rock rising about 200 feet above the high desert floor that was used by Pueblo Indians to store grain.

Not a  bad view

Old, old pantries

Then we went to the Green River overlook.

The top of the canyon in this picture is about 1000' down, then its about 700' down from there to the Green River.

We took a detour on the way home and drove up into the La Sal mountains which get up to over 12000'.  We made it up to about 10k and saw this marker for the Kokopelli trail which runs for 142 miles from Fruita to Moab.  Ill be doing this over 3 days in May.  I had no idea it made it up this high though. 

Our final stop on the way home was the town of Cisco (like the musician), Utah.  Its an almost abandoned town in the middle of the desert.

The post office is a little rundown.

It was a great way to spend one of the nicest Saturdays of the year (so far...).