Welcome to Moab Utah

We hustled down from Salt Lake the night before in efforts to find the most seclude camp spot the desert had to offer. What we encountered was a sea of campers and a rave happening against the red rock cliffs. To our surprise it was UEA weekend and every parent and child had found refuge from the cold northern weather in sunny southern Utah. They just all happened to be in the same camp spot as us, dancing, carving pumpkins and blasting NOW remix CD version 1000. As we drove through the sea of 12 year old burning man children we met up with our group and quickly crashed for the night for our 8 am shuttle pickup.

 

 

 

The whole enchilada is 26 miles of single track mountain biking starting in high alpine mountain meadows of the La Sal Mountains traveling down to the desert. It is by far the most diverse scenery on a bike in Utah. It is recommended that you are an intermediate to expert rider comfortable with long hauls in the saddle. Every year we choose to shuttle the ride with Coyote shuttle. These guys have been dragging our asses up to Burro pass and will continue to send us off on this ride until their vans decide to never run again. They are reliable, fast, and on time.

When it comes to the trail, I would suggest being prepared for whatever it is going to throw at you. There are 3 sections to this ride. The first section is Burro Pass where you can expect snow or rain because you start at 10,300ft. And at 7am when the vans drop you off, it’s cold up there. ideally you want an early van ride up from Moab because the valley gets very hot in the afternoon. We’ve ridden this in the spring, summer and fall. The trail off of Burro Pass slowly dries out closer to fall, but I can defiantly say climbing Burro pass is the exact same in each season.

It’s an ass kicker.
You’re instantly climbing almost
1,000 feet right after you
get dropped off.

Bring a jacket or hoodie because once you climb the pass and reach the top there is a large wooded section that follows a stream down to Hazard County that gets very little sunlight in the moring and is much cooler than the rest of the trail. As you descend, you follow a stream. There are a few mandatory crossings but if you aren’t an experienced rider you might want to get off your bike. It’s actually easier to just send it through but if you ride clipless I would unclip. Once you reach the bottom of the wooded pine forest you enter a long stretch of aspen trees that lead you up a slight climb to the Hazard County shuttle drop-off. This is your last climb and the rest is downhill into Moab. At the top of Hazard county you descend into a 3 mile field of crisscrossed single track flow trails with lots of small jumps. The you can see that the landscape is changing from fields to red rock at the bottom of this trail. The trail ends when you have to cross the paved road. This trail now turns into a wide graded service road that leads you to the Kokopelli trail.

 

 

 

 

 

Just before you reach the Kokopelli trail on the service road there is a cattle guard that you have to ride over and the road has a slight uphill climb. On your right will be the turn off to the Kokopelli trail. It is obvious, but can be easily missed. This section of the trail is at least 20 degrees warmer from when you started on the pass. Expect slick rock covered in sand and technical miles of red rock. Pack a lunch, or two and extra tubes for your tires, and grab so much water that you think it’s ridiculous. I even stuff in energy bars as this trail (especially the desert part) will deplete you. The trail from here twists and turns around the rim then you descend into the lower section that is much wider, less slick rock and basically a wide rocky service road. The next section of this trail cruises along slick rock and wraps around the lower rim where it is much more heavily traveled by day riders. There are some technical descends, and one especially right at the end of the trail. At the bottom, cruise through the tunnel and pedal along the highway on the bike path. The paved path will take you back to Moab.

Once you reach Moab the best part is remembering that you stocked your cooler full of beverages at the end of the ride. Or taking a cool dip in the river. To our surprise we had a McDonalds Cheeseburger (fully loaded) and a new friend wanting our van. We later found out it was one of our friends, co-worker, and long time prankster who placed this delicious burger. We later found out he was part of the rave at our camp spot the night before. And yes, if you are wondering, another buddy we rode with ate the burger that had been baking in the sun all afternoon. The photos in this post were from the 1st year we rode the trail and the first year we had the van. We used to stuff our bikes inside before we had a proper bike rack on the back. The right equipment makes all the difference.