Moab Boot Camp - Chapter 1

These past 2 weeks have been absolutely amazing and I have so many stories and pictures that I will have to post them in installments. The drive down was long and uneventful and it certainly is a long way from here to Moab, Utah. The motto of the trip was bike hard, hike hard, canoe hard and shop hard and I will start with the bike hard part of the vacation.

BIKE HARD

I would have liked to do more biking while we were there but time was tight. We could spend months down there and still wouldn't be able to do everything we wanted to do.

We spent our first night in Moab at the Red Stone Inn and headed out the next morning to a Bureau of Land Management campground - Horse Thief Campground - and I was extremely impressed with it. It had nice large sites with a picnic table, a fire pit and the pit toilets were absolutely spotless (and very warm which was nice in the middle of the night when I was freezing). We set up camp and then headed over to Dead Horse State Park for our first bike adventure on the Intrepid Trail system. There were a few technical parts that I had to push my bike over but on the whole, it was a pretty good introduction to riding on slick rock.

Beginning of Intrepid Trail

Views from the Intrepid Trail

The next day we did the Klondike Bluff trail. The guide book says:

The Klondike Bluffs Trail is a modest climb, but isn't too technically difficult. It's a good trail for someone who's in good shape, but is inexperienced in mountain biking. It makes an excellent first "slickrock adventure." Round trip, it's 9.6 miles on the bike and 1 mile on foot (bikes aren't allowed off-road in Arches National Park, so you hike the last half mile).

Modest climb? I guess the person who wrote the description was in better shape than I because I certainly did not expect it to be as physically demanding as it was. I wore my heart rate monitor and my maximum heart rate reached 192. I'm surprised my heart didn't burst out of my chest. I ended up pushing my bike through spots but I could tell by the end of the ride I was becoming more comfortable with the more technical sections.

At the beginning of the ride.

Couldn`t quite make it and had to get off my bike and push.

More uphill

A little worse for wear near the top of the trail.

The view from the top of Klondike Bluffs was incredible. It was a very picturesque spot to have lunch.

Coming down was a lot easier than going up, at least physically. Technically there were still a few scary spots but I made Tim go first so he could let me know when I should get off my bike or if there was an easier route I could take. However, I did have a little wipe-out when I hit a sandy part coming down - I was going a little too fast - but no serious injuries.




Next chapter - Hike Hard!