Later in the day after the morning ride of Sovereign/Salt Wash we were somewhat undecided as what to ride. Originally I had planned on riding Amasa later in the afternoon once things cooled down but the idea of climbing the ride to the rim didn't appeal to Amber or I.
Given our indecision we decided to just take the easy way out and do just the best! Amber dropped me off at the Lower Porcupine Single Track (LPS) drop for Porcupine and headed back down to the Slick Rock trail. The plan was for me to ride Porcupine while she did Slick Rock and when she was done to pick me up at the bottom of Porcupine.
Ok, so I think I definitely got the better half of that deal but I wasn't complaining and Amber had a great time on Slick Rock as well so we were both stoked at the end of our rides.
I had been looking forward to doing Porcupine since I changed my fork to a Lyrik U-Turn coil and I sure was not disappointed! I can't imagine a better way to end a great day's riding than racing down Porcupine Rim late in the day without another soul on the ride. Amber dropped me off at about 5.30pm and I saw one other rider on the trail and he was riding it in reverse on a 29'er. I caught a couple of guys just before the trailed ended and other than that the trail was empty and the solitude really enjoyable for a trail that is normally super popular.
I also realized I have has some work ahead of me for the downhill season as my legs were really tired and sore the next day after the pumpy/flowy riding on Porcupine.
What a great weekend of riding! I can't wait to get back again next weekend.
(sadly no photos from either Amber or I for the afternoon ride as neither of us thought it worthwhile to carry the camera while riding alone).
Random travels, thoughts & pictures with Sean, Amber, Moab, Bishop & Whistler, Driggs
Monday, April 21, 2008
Moab - Salt Wash/Sovereign 04/19
We had tried to get over to Moab the previous weekend to this but got stopped by bad weather in the mountains. We were literally at the Eisenhower Tunnel when they closed I-70 westbound. It stayed closed for about 2 hours and we made the decision to turn around and head home very quickly after trying to go around the Tunnel via highway 6 and Loveland Pass only to see cars stuck spinning in the terrible conditions.
So we were very motivated to get to Moab for this weekend as we hadn't been on our bikes for a month because of bad weather and me travelling to New Orleans for work.
I had read on MTBR that there was some new trail options added to Sovereign and that seemed a great morning ride as we would be camping very close to the trail head and could get an early start to avoid the heat and crowds. (we failed to avoid either)
The new trail is called Salt Wash and is best ridden from the Willow Springs end and is well marked at all the junctions. We picked it up from the first junction on the very first section of slick rock on the Sovereign Trail.
It didn't start out that promising with a lot of very sandy sections, but they were mixed with some fun technical riding.
The ride really started to grow on us the further into it we got. It is definitely a good option to add to Sovereign if you have done it as an out and back many times previously. I think that Sovereign is the "better" ride but Salt Wash is still a good option with a nice variety of riding in it. It has a lot of steep (but very ridable) sections that drop you down into gulley's and is most definitely going to be better done in one direction rather than the other.
The trail wanders nicely through some very diverse terrain.
and has some really nice flowing sections.
It crosses Sovereign a number of times and joins it for a while to climb the last dusty hill on Sovereign proper but quickly breaks of it again on top of the hill.
We returned to the trail head via Sovereign and overall I would rate this as a very nice addition to the single track Moab has to offer - as long as you can get past the sandy first sections.
Moab single track is growing nicely, it still doesn't have as much as Fruita, but for me Moab remains the destination of choice on my weekends at this time of the year. The quality of riding compared to Fruita is higher and the atmosphere around around town much better! This is just my opinion and others will have different opinions - it doesn't suck being able to argue whether one possible weekend destination is as world class as another possible weekend destination.
So we were very motivated to get to Moab for this weekend as we hadn't been on our bikes for a month because of bad weather and me travelling to New Orleans for work.
I had read on MTBR that there was some new trail options added to Sovereign and that seemed a great morning ride as we would be camping very close to the trail head and could get an early start to avoid the heat and crowds. (we failed to avoid either)
The new trail is called Salt Wash and is best ridden from the Willow Springs end and is well marked at all the junctions. We picked it up from the first junction on the very first section of slick rock on the Sovereign Trail.
It didn't start out that promising with a lot of very sandy sections, but they were mixed with some fun technical riding.
The ride really started to grow on us the further into it we got. It is definitely a good option to add to Sovereign if you have done it as an out and back many times previously. I think that Sovereign is the "better" ride but Salt Wash is still a good option with a nice variety of riding in it. It has a lot of steep (but very ridable) sections that drop you down into gulley's and is most definitely going to be better done in one direction rather than the other.
The trail wanders nicely through some very diverse terrain.
and has some really nice flowing sections.
It crosses Sovereign a number of times and joins it for a while to climb the last dusty hill on Sovereign proper but quickly breaks of it again on top of the hill.
We returned to the trail head via Sovereign and overall I would rate this as a very nice addition to the single track Moab has to offer - as long as you can get past the sandy first sections.
Moab single track is growing nicely, it still doesn't have as much as Fruita, but for me Moab remains the destination of choice on my weekends at this time of the year. The quality of riding compared to Fruita is higher and the atmosphere around around town much better! This is just my opinion and others will have different opinions - it doesn't suck being able to argue whether one possible weekend destination is as world class as another possible weekend destination.
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