A day on Slick Rock

Dateline: Moab, UT Sand Flats XG

Last night b4 10:00 a diesel pusher RV pulled into my safe spot. Sure call attention to me why don’t you. They were quiet.

Hot engine noise up & down Main street. But @ 10:00 a coordinated quiet descended: All loud car noise ceased! Able to sleep and no cop rousting.

Diesel fired up engine as I was getting out of bed and left shortly after. Drove up to Slick Rock TH, just a few rigs in the lot and fixed scratch pancakes.

Chilly morn but no wind or rain. Parking lot filling up.

Took off to ride the practice loop to see how new brake worked and if my cluster wasn’t worn from old chain. Practice loop had some good test climbs & drops and both worked well. The new Formula brake is white and after the pads settled in the stopping power was grand. The cluster is slightly worn but the chain never skipped under standup I gotta crank this pedal or fall over backwards.

Continued on the main trail which is a path of white dashes on the slick rock. This slick rock is exposed sandstone and there is nothing slick about it for our rubber mtn bike tires. It is called slick rock because of the early horse days with iron shoes the rock was indeed slick. There are more riders on the trail than I have ever seen, for the most part everyone was considerate. I made all but a few steep climbs, my engine is loosing performance. Trail is 10.36 miles & 1928′ vert. Grinders.

Riding Moab is like nothing else, like skiing Utah powder or riding FATS. There are many very steep sections so steep that if you were riding your home tread you would have spun out long ago. There is an amazing side hill gully where you ride your side knobs for friction. Unbelievable.

Finished ride & hung in parking lot waiting till 3:00 to find and open campsite. This AM driving in the sign said full. I needed to wait until weekenders headed home.

Picked site on first loop just past the closed campsite where I first camped back in ’92. Went for a walk on slickrock, amazing what even hiking shoes can do for traction.

Fixed dinner & cleaned up and a storm blew in. I am parked somewhat broadside to wind which is rocking the van. Wind gauge read 34mph. Hardly a drop of rain  in it. But blowing dust, real fine: it is in the air and on the keyboard.

Got some sun to add to my biker tan: my arms are brown from the edge of my gloves to my jersey hem line, everything else is blindingly white.

Living in my van is advantageous with these storms as I can shut openings and be protected and comfortable not exposed like the tent campers.

Sunday music is classical: Straus’ Blue Danube.

Plan tomorrow is to drive back down into town and then ride back out here to do Porcupine rim trail & back into town, about 33 miles. Today from up on top I looked down on the bottom parking lot which was plugged. Don’t know if they were all from the shuttle from town riders or not. Won’t have any weekenders tomorrow.

Weekenders: When i was hiking the Pacific Crest Trail we called the weekend hikers we encountered as Wally Weekenders because they hiked from Sat to Sunday and we had the trail to ourselves during the work week.

Saw maybe 6 VW campers, they are still on the road although in diminishing numbers.

Buddy Tom Zysk from Spokane is in China on a work assignment. he sent a link to a hike he just did. Impossible! Over time I had seen these same pictures showing the trail is (3) 2 x 4s together on the side of a vertical rock wall with the hand line being  a chain bolted into the rock. Pretty airy. Several pictures had him in it so i know that it is real instead of a Tom prank. Way to go Tom.

This desert riding is so familiar to me, I have almost forgotten riding in the eastern broadleaf forests w/ no vistas.