In mid September, I went for a weekend trip with my parents, who were visiting. But I was partially operating on separate basis. On Saturday morning, I mountain biked from the Boulder Mountain, west from Capitol Reef NP to the national park itself. Start of the trail was on UT12 at about 9000 ft., end at about 4000 ft. at the park visitors center. Length, with several side trips in the park, around 70 km. It took me a little less than 4 hours of non-strenuous pace. Most of the riding was on jeep roads in relatively good shape, last about 15 kms were on the pavement. In the afternoon, we drove to Gablin Valley SP and did a little hike there. On Sunday, we drove about 15 miles north of Goblin Valley nearby the Temple Mountain, highest hill in the San Rafael Reef. I mountainbiked around the mountain while my parents hiked a nearby hill. The ride was quite short, about 25 km with about 5 km side trip in a wash when I got lost. In the afternoon we drove home.
View from our campsite at the Boulder Mountain towards east, Capitol Reef is in the hole below, mountains in the distance are the Henry Mountains.
My mom in the Goblin Valley.
Our campsite in the Goblin Valley.
Overall view at the campground in the Goblin Valley.
Me at in the Goblin Valley, view to the north with Temple Mountain in the background.
Rock formation in the Goblin Valley, which reminded my parents of the former Stalin Monument in Prague, also nicknamed "The meat line" = people standing in the line for meat.
The goblins in the Goblin Valley, they looked more like mushrooms to us, but people in America don't pick mushrooms, so they came with different name for this place.
After spending more than a year in Utah, I finally made it to mountain bike
in Moab in late October 1999. The trip ended up to be a large group size adventure, encompassing a good half of our research group and several other friends.
I arrived earlier on Friday to get a good campsite. We camped at the Sand Flats area right next to the famous Slickrock Trail. Camping fee is $6 per car per night, no water, open air pit toilets. But importantly, the campsites are quite spacious and contain a fire ring. This came in handy, since the temperatures were around freezing at night. Since I was at the campsite before 3pm, I hopped on my bike and went to the Moab Rim trail. This one starts from the Colorado River valley few miles downstream from Moab, climbs for about a mile on a slickrock, the toughest climb I have made so far. Then the trail continues for several miles behind the rim, on a mix of slickrock, gravel and sand. The endpoint is an overlook to the east towards the Moab valley.
On Saturday, several of us did the Porcupine Rim Trail, which is a quite long (>30 mi.) but rewarding adventure. We biked from our campsite for about 5 miles east to the end of the dirt road (quite unpleasant ride). Here the real trail starts, slowly climbs for about a mile or two to the top of the rim, from which, towards the east, one can see the Castle Valley and the La Sal mountains in the south. From here, the trail slowly descends on a jeep road towards the Colorado River, turning to a cool singletrack for the last several miles. After that, there are good 5 miles on the road to Moab.
On Sunday, we went on the Slicrock Trail. It is about 11 miles long and goes mostly on the sandstone, which has an amazing traction, enabling one to go up and down on very steep sections. The main barrier in my case was fear. This is the first ride of the weekend where I did not forget to take my camera, so there are some pictures below. It took us about 3 hours of leisure ride to do the loop. After that, we packed up an headed towards home. I still stopped on a small side trail between Moab and Green River, called Klondike Bluffs Trail. It is about 8 miles long one way, probably first four on a jeep road, rest on slickrock. We probably got about 6 miles down, and had to turn around because it was getting dark.
Udo looking down the trail.
Udo and Misha on the Slickrock Trail.
Three Ms at the Colorado River overlook.
View towards Moab from the overlook.
Leaving the overlook, La Sals in the distance.
Colorado River with the highway bridge from another ovelook side trip.
View upstream the Colorado River from a nearby point.
One side canyon, accessible by a short sidetrip from the Practice Loop.
Klondike Bluffs - Gayathri getting ready for the plunge down.
And the actual descent went quite smoothly.U of U / Chemistry / HEC / Voth Group / Cuma / Travel / English / Fall 99
URL: http://voth.chem.utah.edu/~mcuma/fall99e.html
Last updated: 23-Nov-99 / mc