Road Trip to Moab - Part One
If you live in Southern California and dream of riding the famous Slickrock Trail in Moab, you can do that RIGHT NOW! That is if it happens to be 6:30 a.m. and you start driving right away. Keep driving across Utah, it’s a beautiful countryside that nobody seems to live in. Go through a canyon on Interstate 70 where you will swear you’re going downhill but the river appears to be flowing uphill. Drive through a little town called Green River that seems ordinary enough but as mountain bikers you remember that one scene in LifeCycles where they weave in and out of massive yellow stones, broken off from the mesa above. Ok, so now refocus. Drive a little farther where you finally turn off of Interstate 70 and get in line with the rest of the outdoor junkies heading to get there Moab fix.
You see, all the regular players are heading into town on this holiday weekend. There are the climbers, who have converted an old school bus into a motorhome residence where they can only use the restroom when they’re moving. Foreigners in their minivan campers on their mini 3-month vacations, River rats looking for a float, and cafe racer motorcycle gangs doing whatever they do. Of course, the cyclists are there, roadie and mountain alike, and they all want to get on the trail before you, so keep going you’re almost there. Go straight to the trailhead in the Sand Flats Recreation area and change in the parking lot. You have been in the car now for about 10 hours so what better way to loosen up than with a leisure ride on the mellow Slickrock of Moab.
Congrats, you made it.
This was how our trip started out. My friend and I were heading out to meet a few others who had arrived only 30 minutes ahead of us . We changed quickly, gave the bikes a once over and headed out for the first ride of what was going to be a five-day weekend in Moab over Memorial Day weekend.
Looking at the stats, the Slickrock Trail is not very intimidating at around 10 miles and 1000 ft of climbing. It seems pretty manageable if this was a normal trail only it is not a normal trail! About 95% of the trail is on petrified sand dunes or what they call slickrock, which justifies the name. When the slickrock is dry it’s like riding on sandpaper and the traction is amazing. You can ride up basically whatever you want. The downside to this is that when they laid out the trail, the Moab locals made it so that you have to ride up whatever THEY want. The idea of switchbacks that gradually increase over the grade contours was not part of the trail design. Why waste time meandering when you can just ride straight up to the top I suppose?
The elevation profile has a series of steep ups and down. Trails like this are where dropper posts really shine and my Rockshox Reverb was a huge help. Riding in Moab means you need to prepare a bit differently than you might for your home trails. This is the desert and the sun is harsh with no shelter, it helps to wear light clothes and sunscreen up! Another benefit of covering up your skin is if you happen to go down it will help minimize the damage. The downside of a trail consisting of 95% rock is that if you fall, there is a 95% chance of falling on rocks. Here, there is an added benefit to wearing low-profile knee and elbow pads.
We followed the white dots on the rock for about 4 miles. About halfway through we saw the sign for the portal lookout. Don’t miss this view! It’s definitely worth it and going places that I wouldn’t normally be able to access by car or foot is a big part of why I ride.
You may notice the abundance of clouds floating about and that definitely added to the difficulty factor of the ride. There isn’t a lot of shelter in the desert so we were a bit concerned but we had come prepared. Most of us had packed lightweight rain jackets that we weren’t hoping to use. We were dodging rain clouds and seeing lightning the entire time. Luckily I had invested in a carbon fiber bike last year and realized that another benefit of carbon fiber frames is that lightning is not attracted to them (editorial note: not a scientific fact). These thunder cells did bring with them some pretty intense wind at times. Try climbing up the steep grades of the Slickrock trail while battling 40 mph side gusts and dust sandblasting your eyeballs. Those are the stats that don’t show up on Strava.
While this ended up not being my favorite ride in Moab it’s definitely one worth doing if you have the time. There are very few places that you can ride 9+ miles solely on grippy rock. You can choose your lines, play in certain areas and the views around the edge of the mesa are reward enough. The challenge of making the steep punchy climbs is almost as fun as the downhill, that’s not something you’ll hear me say often.
The next day had us up and early, on our way to meet the Whole Enchilada Shuttle van. Today was the day. We were going to ride the famous bucket list ride: The Whole Enchilada.
The Whole Enchilada is actually a collection of trails that connect together to make one awesome downhill run that drops around 8,000ft overall. We figured that by choosing a shuttle company of the same name it was a safe bet. Since it was early in the season we found out we weren’t going to be able to ride the WHOLE enchilada. About 25% of the ride, from Burro Pass down, was under snow. I’m not sure if that turns it into a taquito or a quesadilla but either way, we were driven to the top of the Hazzard trail section.
We were lucky as this was the first weekend the road was in good enough shape to get the shuttle vans up to the 9,000 ft starting elevation. With our shortened ride we did about 5,500 ft of descending which still was definitely worth the shuttle ticket of $25.
Since the top section had just opened, it was still really wet. It was more like sliding down a bobsled run. The mud was slick and the initial downhill was basically good practice in trying to keep the back of the bike from passing the front while staying upright. The mud started to dry up as we got lower and the speeds started to increase. I had put some new Maxxis High Roller II’s on the night before and once the trail started to dry, those tires shed the old mud and hooked up amazingly well. Good tires are a must on this ride because it is long and demanding. You will pick up speed having the time of your life until you go flying into a section of pointy rocks ready to cause a pinch flat or tear a sidewall without warning. This entire trail is rocky so be sure to bring a couple spare tubes per rider and have handy something to patch a sidewall tear like a granola bar wrapper, or if you’re truly a baller you can use a $1 bill.
After Hazzard trail, we were momentarily on the Kokopelli trail before linking up with the Upper Porcupine Singletrack (UPS) and Lower Porcupine Singletrack (LPS). These two sections were amazing. Fun sweeping corners dodging in and out of the pinyon forest, more rock (that was a theme remember) and on your right ridiculous views off of the Porcupine rim into Castle Valley, definitely enjoy the view.
The LPS eventually merges back onto the Porcupine Rim trail, which is a jeep road so you may have some larger vehicles to dodge at this point. The theme continues with lots of ledges and rocks but it’s wide open so choose a line, point, and shoot. Some of the most entertaining portions on our ride were of us riding side by side, riding off of ledges seeing who came out the fastest. The all mountain bikes really shine in this environment. Years past on older bikes with less travel I would be looking for the smooth worn in line. On today’s modern all mountain bike you can lean back and let the bike take care of the chunder. The last section of trail follows the ledges back down to the Colorado River. It was fast and fun, still rocky, but not as constant as previous sections. We had great views of the Colorado.
This trail was a great experience, a few minor crashes, about 3 hours of ride time, a lot of pictures, three flats and a whole lot of fun. I’m glad to finally check it off my bucket list. Back at the condo, we cleaned up the bikes and then headed out on the town for some guilt-free pizza and gelato at the Moab Brew Co.
Jason F.
All Photos by: Jason F.
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