A Rainy Sunday
The weather front that had been threatening all week moved down Sunday morning. Like every other morning, the clouds were low on the red rock valley walls surrounding Moab. This morning, they kept lowering and finally developed into a moderate but cold rain. Not the weather anyone really wanted to be out riding in! Sow we had a quiet morning of reading and catching up with friends. As Dan and Leslie prepared to head back to CO (they both had to work on Monday) Nick and I decided to try a short hike/run up off Porcupine Rim. I wasn't sure about running since my quad was still really painful walking up and down stairs, but figured a hike would be good.
We drove up Sand Flats rd, passed the empty parking lot for Slick Rock and continued east. There were plenty of campgrounds and the 4x4 trails criss crossed the road several times. Finally, we reached the main Porcupine Rim trail parking lot. The ground was damp, but not muddy. Nick was a little disappointed - if we'd know that it was ridable, we would have bundled up and gone out for another epic day. As it was, we ventured further east and reached one of the drop ins for the Lower Porcupine Single track (LPS). That was where Nick wanted to hike. If we couldn't explore on two wheels, we'd do it on two feet! There was about 3 inches of snow that high up, but it had stopped snowing. Just cloudy with a cold wind blowing. Given that I knew nothing about the trail (and there was a 2000+ foot drop on one side) I didn't get to far from Nick. With wet rocks and unfamiliar trails, sticking together seemed smart. But it was a fun run - with some really gorgeous views and a really cool trail. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable riding it - something about that long drop to the valley floor, but running was fun. Next time, we head to Moab, we'll get Porcupine Rim in.
After lunch, Nick wanted to ride the Pipe Dream trail that we'd tried to take yesterday. And while I'm happy we didn't find the trail head (we would have been riding single track in the dark without question) it was a great trail to ride today. This is a new trail, cut along the side of the valley wall to the west of Moab. It's a well built and well designed trail, with plenty of technical sections. There were some long switchback climbs, some shorter punchy climbs - all with plenty of rocks to keep you honest! And for every climb, there was a fun descent, winding over, under and between rocks and around tight corners. Every place where the trail crossed a drainage area was covered in rocks to prevent trail damage. It was only 5 miles, but took us almost an hour to get to the other end. Next time, we'll ride back on Pipe Dream and not drop down to pipeline - but we were running short on time again.
We drove up Sand Flats rd, passed the empty parking lot for Slick Rock and continued east. There were plenty of campgrounds and the 4x4 trails criss crossed the road several times. Finally, we reached the main Porcupine Rim trail parking lot. The ground was damp, but not muddy. Nick was a little disappointed - if we'd know that it was ridable, we would have bundled up and gone out for another epic day. As it was, we ventured further east and reached one of the drop ins for the Lower Porcupine Single track (LPS). That was where Nick wanted to hike. If we couldn't explore on two wheels, we'd do it on two feet! There was about 3 inches of snow that high up, but it had stopped snowing. Just cloudy with a cold wind blowing. Given that I knew nothing about the trail (and there was a 2000+ foot drop on one side) I didn't get to far from Nick. With wet rocks and unfamiliar trails, sticking together seemed smart. But it was a fun run - with some really gorgeous views and a really cool trail. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable riding it - something about that long drop to the valley floor, but running was fun. Next time, we head to Moab, we'll get Porcupine Rim in.
After lunch, Nick wanted to ride the Pipe Dream trail that we'd tried to take yesterday. And while I'm happy we didn't find the trail head (we would have been riding single track in the dark without question) it was a great trail to ride today. This is a new trail, cut along the side of the valley wall to the west of Moab. It's a well built and well designed trail, with plenty of technical sections. There were some long switchback climbs, some shorter punchy climbs - all with plenty of rocks to keep you honest! And for every climb, there was a fun descent, winding over, under and between rocks and around tight corners. Every place where the trail crossed a drainage area was covered in rocks to prevent trail damage. It was only 5 miles, but took us almost an hour to get to the other end. Next time, we'll ride back on Pipe Dream and not drop down to pipeline - but we were running short on time again.
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