Trailhead bike maintenance with the Sprinter bike stand
Sue riding Slickrock
Moab
The road trip to Moab, UT was a last minute diversion from our originally planned trip through South Dakota and Minnesota with places like Spearfish, Custer, Badlands and Cuyuna on the itinerary. Just as our departure date was coming close the weather forecast changed for the area to be cold and soggy which didn’t sound so great for our riding plans. Our alternative option was a trip into Utah, starting with a few bike rides in Moab and then make up an itinerary on the fly for the rest of the time we would be on the road. The northern route will have to wait for Spring unless we get a nice warm stretch of weather later in the Fall.
Moab is world famous for its quality and variety of mountain biking trails. This was evident by the number of folks we met on-trail that had travelled from so many countries around the globe just to ride in Moab. We’ve been to Moab several times before, but never for an extended period of time. This trip will allowed us to dig deeper into the selection of trails. Of course, we checked out some more of the great road cycling options as well in the Moab area.
Sand Flats Recreation Area
Our first choice of place to camp was the Sand Flats Recreation Area just above the town of Moab. One of the key attributes for us was to have 4G data access and according to this Campendium review, it does and it did. While so many folks claim they want to be disconnected while away from home, that is not the case for us. We found some available campsites in the D loop that were big enough and level enough to park comfortably. Some of these sites are well off the Sand Flats road which helped to reduce the noise from the various off-road vehicles that were traveling in and out of the area. The 4G was strong, we were set. This trip is the first use of our newly completed Side Slide Mini Kitchen, so we were hoping that both camp setup and cooking in general will be much easier.
Sand Flats Campground
Side Slide Mini Kitchen
Slickrock
The first ride…SLICKROCK! It is just a stone’s throw from our campsite and it is ahhmazing. Yes, we said we want to dig deeper into the trails that are in the area and we’ve ridden Slickrock last time we were here. I love this trail for its unique, smooth and tacky surface with very steep climbs & descents that are made ridable only because of this surface. The new trails will have to wait a day or so.
Sue at the Slickrock trailhead
Yeti bike at Slickrock
Sue riding Slickrock
Canyonlands National Park
The next day we woke to a steady rain. This was a good excuse for a low-key morning while waiting for the weather to pass. Once the weather cleared a bit, we took a drive through the Island in the Sky area of Canyonlands National Park. The drive is great with many places to stop at overlooks and trailheads for hikes. We stopped for a short hike around the Upheaval Dome which is an interesting geological formation of uncertain origin. One of the nice things about Canyonlands is that it is still old-school in that there are few railings, steps and boardwalks like many of the more popular national parks making it feel more raw, remote and unsettled.
Canyonlands overlook
Upheaval Dome in Canyonlands
Sue in Canyonlands
Arches National Park
We have driven through Arches and done some hikes in there on a previous visit to Moab. We’ve always wanted to do a road ride through the park as a way to see it at a different pace. We started the ride from the Lions Park Transit Hub. From there, you follow the paved bike path to the entrances of Arches. After entering the park, there is a nice climb with a few switchbacks to start you off but then the rest of the ride is mostly gentle inclines and descents. At the time we were there, some night time road construction was underway, leaving us with some gravel sections, but nothing too bad. We spoke with a surveyor and he said there will be no bike lanes and the traffic lanes will be 12 feet which he felt was still too narrow for the many first-time RV drivers. Fortunately, for us, all the drivers were very courteous and gave us ample room and waited for safe places in the road to pass when necessary. The scenery on this ride was amazing.
Ross and Sue at Arches entrance
Balanced Rock in Arches
Skyline Arch
Navajo Rocks
Navajo Rocks is new trail system for us in Moab. We started at the trailhead for Ramblin’ on 313, crossed the road to the RockyTops trail. We were feeling pretty good so we took the advice of an Evergreen family we met at the trailhead and took the longer route up to the Horsethief trails before looping back around to the Navajo Rocks trails. The total route included the following trails; RockyTop to 7-up to Whirlwind West to Mustang West to Chisolm to Big Lonely to Big Mesa to Ramblin’. This route provided plenty of variety of terrain, keeping it interesting all the way. Big Mesa was the highlight of the overall route, getting you into the scenery that you’ve been looking at from a distance all day.