Moab and Arches - some of Utah's Finest - Fall 2012

From previous escapades, I was well aware that Southern Utah was one of my favorite places on the West Coast for adventure.  Then came Moab!  What a great spot to be outdoors.

Typical Moab View - soak it in.

Some of the usual suspects gathered Gene, Mark, and I.  I flew into SLC to meet Mark; we drove to Moab from there.  Gene made the long solo drive from LA, managed to blow out a tire and won back some casino money lost on our prior Zion trip at the desert lovely oasis called Mesquite.

We planned for a late Fall trip, in mid-October and that was a really good time to be in Moab.  Sure, the days were shorter than August but the weather was warm enough during the daytime and cooled off at night.  The crowds were minimal too; I hear that in the peak Summer season, Moab is a zoo.  I was grateful for the affordable lodging, meaning we didn't have to camp.

Evening 1: We played some disc golf at Old City Park just South of Moab.  I'd rate it a 4 out of 5.  I nearly threw my first hole in one on my first throw on hole 1 - so close!  It was Gene's first disc golf outing and he made considerable improvement throughout.  It was a fun course, challenging but still plenty of birdie opportunities.

Day 1: The first day was all about exploring on two wheels.  I rented a bike from Poison Spider Cycles (sweet name, good service!); Gene and Mark already had their mountain bikes in tow.  We headed out to the Moab Slickrock area.  I highly recommend this for some mildly technical to extremely technical mountain biking.  The risks are high as the trails are solid rock and there are ups, downs, curves, and bumps.

Gene, Mark, and I did the practice loop to get acclimated then headed out to the main loop.  A mile or two into the main loop, we came across an older gentleman who took a hard spill down a steep, technical descent.  Mark, who is a doctor, helped out but really there wasn't much that could be done except make sure to stabilize his back and neck neck, check for broken bones, and distribute pain meds (Mark's specialty).  With that fresh reminder of the perils of mountain biking, we continued along; another mile or so into the trail, after some leg crushing climbs, we came to some stunning views overlooking the Colorado River and the town of Moab.  Some nice descents followed by more minor ascents kept us moving along.  I was sucking wind trying to keep up with Gene while Mark was sucking wind trying to keep up with me - peer pressure in tact!

We pumped out the ride, taking in the ridiculously expansive views.  Back to the car, we loaded up the bikes as we were planning another ride up a nearby fire road.  We made it to the fire road where we saw a bunch of mountain bikers, sponsors, organizers, and spectators setting up for some kind of race.  We were in for a treat, the race was starting soon but we still had time to ride up part of the trail that the mountain bikers would be later going down.  Off we went.  Everyone was gassed from our Slickrock adventures already but we made it up a few miles.  Some race spotters along the way let us know that the race was starting soon so we headed down.  The racers caught us midway back as they literally screamed by.  They made us look like we weren't even moving.  I was going as fast as I possibly could (I don't know, 12 MPH) over all the bumps, crags, huge rocks, loose rock, etc; I thought I was moving semi-fast.  Then these pro guys fly by, jumping all the big rocks, full pedal, probably 25 mph.  Mind you we are on the side of a mountain and heading off the edge would lead certainly to a broken collar bone, neck, or back.  Apparently it takes some huge cahones to be a pro mountain biker.  We saw one guy take a huge jump, clear about 15 ft. of boulders and come off his bike in mid-air but somehow he gracefully recovered without falling and popped back on the bike without missing a beat.  Ridiculous; I would have certainly left my blood and skin on the trail.

After a long day of riding and adventure, we ate some good food at Eddie McStiff's in Moab drank our fair share of beer.

Aren't these rock formations amazing?  They are hundreds of feet tall.

View from the top of our Arches canyoneering adventure

Day 2:  The plan for day two was to go to Pleiades and do some technical canyoneering there.  We had out wetsuits and headed out early.  As we drove to the site, we found that it was much higher in elevation that we'd bargained for and actually there was some light snow on the ground and it was frigid.  Pleiades is a canyoneering adventure best done in the dead of Summer it seems.  We made the call that we probably didn't want to be wet in that weather so we aborted that plan and made an alternate plan to go to Arches National Park.  We had a short day so we were unable to explore Arches thoroughly but we did make time to partake in some really awesome canyoneering.  I don't know the name of the canyon (Teardrop perhaps), but it was very near the entrance to the park, less than a mile or two away from the Moab-side visitor center.  There was a short hike from Park Avenue trailhead back towards the visitor center and then a hefty scramble up to the top of some formations.  From there were great views, and a couple huge bowls to explore.  We found our way to the canyoneering drop-in point and found that the rappelling gradually increased in length and difficulty.  First was a 12 ft. rappel, then a 18 footer, then a 30 footer, then a semi-concerning blind-landing 50 footer.  The rappels were followed by a short hike out and we were on our way again.

Brent spread-eagled on the last (longest) rappel.

Arches is certainly a place I'd like to spend a couple of days at and Moab is an area I think I could spend an entire week or Summer exploring.  I will be back!

I still have Bryce Canyon to explore so hopefully I will be back in Southern Utah in the next couple years ...  and will have time to do Zion again as well as Moab and Arches. So much to do, so little time!

Adventures in Utah -- Part I -- Mountain Biking

For our Summer 2010 adventure, Gene and I decided to do a road trip to the natural beauties of Southern Utah.  We planned to go mountain biking in the St. George area then rendezvous with a friend of mine, Mark "Doc Awesome", at Zion National Park for a unique and very modern adventure called canyoneering.

The trip began rather uneventful with me flying into Burbank late on a Wednesday evening in early September.  I saw for the first time Gene's recently-acquired condo in Pasadena -- baller!  Although I must say, he has a pink couch (questionable!) and a life-sized poster of "Edward" from Twilight (super-questionable!)!  We got some ZZZ's and woke up early to make our way to St. George, a good 6 hour drive away.

Driving east through Southern California leaves a lot to be desired.  We drove past the non-operational biggest thermometer in the world and stopped at In-N-Out for a bite.  We crossed the Nevada border (ho-hum), drove through Vegas WITHOUT stopping, and pit-stopped in Mesquite, NV to satisfy Gene's gambling urge.  I played for 15 minutes at the craps table and made $22.  Gene lost maybe $20 because he refused to bet on my rolls and I dominated!

We continued to St. George, Utah and rented our full-suspension mountain bikes.  At the bike shop, they meticulously went over every scratch on the bikes as we would be responsible for any damages, which, knowing us, were likely.  Gene really hit it off with the rental guy, which is important for later in the story.  We had dinner, checked into a dingy $40 hotel room, and went to Chili's for a celebratory beverage.   This is was where Gene made his first mistake -- he ordered the uber-salty, dinner-sized queso and chips.  I'd imagine there were 17 zillion milligrams of sodium in that dish and I don't think Gene peed the rest of the trip -- ie. SALTY! 

We were informed that "Happy Hour" does NOT exist in Utah, or at least in St. George.  Some other nuggets of alcohol-related Utah wisdom -- you can't order a shot and a beer at the same time in Utah and any beer from outside Utah (imported) is under 4.0% alcohol content; local beers aren't required to meet this restriction.  Gene amazingly finished his queso and we were off to get some sleep; we had a big day of mountain biking ahead of us in the morning.

In the morning, we woke up and packed up our things, including putting the mountain bikes on Gene's bike rack on the back of his car.  I secured my bike first, then Gene secured his.  The bike rack is one of those which sits on the back of a sedan so the bikes are kind of handing off the trunk area (hint -- important info for later!)  Consulting with the bike shop rental guy on the previous day led us to decide to mountain bike the Gooseberry area, ~1 hour outside of St. George.  We were halfway to Gooseberry when Gene noticed his bike, on the outside rack position, was becoming loose.  He nonchalantly pulled over and tightened the straps.  We should have took this as a bigger sign of danger. 

About 5 miles further down the highway, going 60 miles per hour, we suddenly felt the car suspension shift and heard a faint crash of rubber and metal on the roadway below.  Looking back behind us, I saw Gene's rented bike turning handlebars over seat, crashing on the road below and skidding horribly on the asphalt.  Gene pulled over immediately and began chasing after his bike to get to it before any vehicles ran it over.  There was light traffic on the road and as Gene approached the bike; it was sitting in the lane of traffic we were travelling in with a Semi truck approaching.  In the oncoming lane of traffic was a RV; the RV and semi at present speeds were destined to meet at Gene's partially mangled bike.  The semi truck would have nowhere to go but over the bike, crushing it.  Luckily, the truck driver spotted Gene's bike and/or Gene running towards it and slowed down in time to let the RV pass then went into the other lane of traffic to bypass the $1500 Specialized bicycle.  Quickly, Gene retrieved the bike from the road and lugged it to the shoulder; the wheels no longer rolled and obviously unridable.  The damage included a front wheel which twisted like an elliptical pretzel, asphalt-shaved shifters, ripped back seat, and various other scratches and bruises.  Our only option was to put the bike back on the rack and drive back to the bike shop which was just opening for the morning.

Notice that there is no shifter in the pictures below and the wheel is all whacked out.

Bicycle Damage #1

Bicycle Damage #2

Gene was on the hook for some pricey damages.  Luckily, the bike shop rental guy Gene hit it off with was working again; he was surprised to see us.  Gene showed him the badly damaged bike; bike guy took down the damage and went inside to get an estimate from the boss. They determined that frame, suspension, crank, pedals, forks, back tire, and seat were OK it was just the front wheel and shifters which needed replacing.  They cut Gene a super deal (who knows why) and only charged him $160 or so for the damages and gave us another bike to destroy; this time Gene got a woman's bike as they were out of the men's -- fair punishment in my opinion!

We weren't going to let a little roadway accident deter us.  With a few hours wasted and time at a premium we changed our plan and decided to mountain bike in the Green Valley / Stucki Springs area just a few miles from St. George. 

Finally, we were in the saddles of our bikes and climbing rather large and rocky hills.  The terrain was very Southern Utah (high desert) with few trees and great vistas.  We did a awesome up and down this towering ridge where Gene popped his back tire pretty badly, through the sidewall.  We repaired it with our only extra tube, however the tube when fully inflated was bulging out of dime-sized hole in the tire sidewall.  We then repaired this with my energy-gel wrapper (no other tools available) by placing it between the tube and inside sidewall of the tire.  Surprisingly, this actually worked rather well and allowed Gene to fully inflate the tube.  One more popped tire and we were headed back; it was still before noon!

  

Gene fixing his flat

We hit some high-speed downhill going off the trail and over big boulders; quite a rush.  Gene is a pretty accomplished mountain biker and he showed me some techniques to go up and down large gaps and boulders.  We made it back to the car in time to grab a bite to eat and refill our water.  It was very hot in the desert and we were going through water fast.  We saw some great landscapes on this ride and had a really good time navigating the trails, hills, and rocks. 



Green Valley Area

For the afternoon we decided to head out to the Stucki Springs area (without much of a detailed plan or map).  We hit the "Three Fingers of Death" and "Acid Drops" in the map above and then started out on a large loop called the Bearclaw Poppy Trail.  It was a long trail and took us very far away from the car.  I was getting tired and starting to run low on water and was out of food.  Not to mention that my butt was hurting from the 4 hours of the seat jabbing into it.  Gene was also nearly out of water and it was maybe 3 PM; we needed to return the bikes by 6 PM so we started to make our way back, continuing on the loop.  Unluckily the trail ceased being easy to follow and the way back to the car was blocked by numerous ridges.  Trails criss-crossed all over the place and we were very weary from already 25 miles or riding or so.  We tried one route which dead-ended in a narrowing river canyon with impassable boulders.  We tried another similar looking escape and yet again were turned back.  I was starting to worry.  I had my phone but no cell phone service and no warm clothes or gear for a night on the desert floor.  I was out of water and there was no water in sight.  We tried another trail which went nearly vertical up the side of a ridge, pushing the bikes up ahead of us.  If this didn't provide a way out then I'd have to cuddle with Gene for warmth that night.  To our relief, we made it to the top and saw a path back to the car.  I was exhausted but still had a ways to go.  We made out way downhill the rest of the way to the vehicle and returned the bikes.

Celebratory with burgers from "Five Guys Burgers" (not as good as I-N-O) were obtained then Gene and I headed towards Part II of our Utah Adventure -- we were pointed towards Zion to meet Doc Awesome and recover in time for the next adventure ...

More pictures on my Picasa as well.