|
So what about the gear, bikes and stuff? Well you must have all your paper work when crossing the border for your bikes including your insurance. We were never stopped in Utah
while riding and all street plated vehicles are welcome to ride on the designated trails only which are well marked. Bikes - myself and Jon Mutiger had large tanks and Mark and Ken carried extra gas but
this was only ever done on 1 day. Most days we were able to ride trails, head into town for more gas and food and then go riding again. Excellent!
We drove straight, me and Mark in the new F150 and the two girls in the Turbo Diesel Golf. After working all day this is not the best thing to do, it took us 31 hrs straight to
get there. Mostly due to us both falling asleep at a pee break!
First stop was Green River, 60 miles north west of Moab. We headed here for the weekend to avoid the clearing out of the big Jeep Jamboree still taking place in Moab. Thousands
of jeeps over Easter descend upon Moab and there really is thousands of them!
Jon & Ken hooked up with a local and were introduced to ‘White Wash’. A big local riding area full of people camped out for the weekend and what looks like weeks at a time.
All sorts of riding, sand dunes, rock trails, single track trails, river running, canyon running, 130kph in dried up river beds, tons of slick rock, hundreds of feet high, massive hill climbs, the
biggest I have ever rode up. And yes I was damn scared a few times. It’s healthy to be bricking it every now and then. You’re either worried about being seen messing up or messing up your bike and
killing your week. Mine was the latter. Part of the perils of riding rock is that if you do mess up you have rads and crank case covers to worry about, there were a few times when my elbow pads took the
brunt of it as I held my bike off the ground!
We rode this area for 4 days and it truly was awesome, check out the pics below. To ride in 50ft sand dunes and climb what appears vertical slick rock was definitely worth the
drive and I’ll do it all over again. On our last day in the area Jon spotted a single track trail. We checked our gas and water and headed off to explore. Turned out to be one of the best trails we ever
rode and it went on for miles.
Single track in the dessert you say? Well the dessert is made up of all sorts, rocks, vegetation, sand and rubble so you cannot go ripping across a piste if you will. It’s more
like scrub. Every now and then you’ll have those massive sand dune area’s where you can rip all over the place. This single track trail rose and fell in elevation, went over varied terrain and blasted on
for miles. At one point we were on dusty, sandy like piste conditions with almost a kilometer separating the leader from the sweep.
So then we packed up and headed for Moab, Utah where we scored a local campsite, $50 for two people for 3 nights hot showers included! From here we explored the Pritchet Canyon
trail otherwise known as the toughest 4 miles in Moab as we were told when stuck half way up it! We met up with a bunch of jeeps on the trail who were very impressed with us as much as we were with them!
This was without doubt a scary moment, big time rock climbs and big drop offs. Mark Kauk however, from here on now known as ‘The Stormin German’ was not deterred and took on all that Pritchet could throw
at him. He blasted up that rock and when he could’nt do that he carried his bike up it. He then went back and carried our bikes up it! Kudos Mark! The man was on a mission...
We also rode the Behind the Rocks trail, Hells Revenge part of the Moab Slick Rock Bike trail that we also rode in the Sand Flats recreation area and attempted to get onto Kane
Creek Canyon trail which looks damn good on the map. We also rode the Lasal Mountain Pass and hit around 9000ft up on the Brumley Trail.
|
