EMSC
Well-known member
Hot, sweaty, dusty, dirty, thirsty, hungry, rolling, technical, painful, muscle aching fun; and did I mention freaking HOT during the day. One of my favorite MTB trips.
Welcome to the deserts around Fruita, Colorado; just west of GJ. A couple of us went for some camping and MTB riding. Well, the camping is in a state park where there are even coin op showers – a necessity for after MTB riding in the heat. A blast of a trip, with 3 days of riding. And the stars at night in the area are just unparalleled for viewing given the lack of vegetation/terrain blocking things in the grand valley as well as the lack of light from civilization – just “wow” kind of spectacular (new moon helped too).
Despite the desert, we awoke to a random 20 minute rain shower the first morning. A single chunk of cloud overhead and blue sky all around it… weird.
Spent day 1 at the “18 road” area. It’s also known as the Book Cliffs area, but the Book Cliffs run for ~100 miles, well into Utah, so I consider that a less than accurate naming convention. We hit trails like prime cut, chutes & ladders, and zippidy do da among the bunch of possible loops that push up against the cliffs. Super hot day so we only did a little over 3 hours of actual ride time.
Day 2 & 3 we spent at the Kokopelli complex just S of I-70. Again a series of possible loops, though in a very different way, with many of them going much farther away from the trailhead (The actual Kokopelli trail being mostly old dirt roads that go for something like 140miles over to Moab).
For day 2, one of our riders had the whole family along (at their own campsite) and he did an easy ride with them while we did the Horse Thief Bench. With all of us going out later and re-riding Horse Thief and then completing Marys loop for a decent ~20+ mile day. Again, a super freaking hot day – yes it’s the desert, but this was a good 10+ degrees above normal for the end of Sept. Something moved through that evening and we “enjoyed” an hour rain shower back at camp as we were attempting to cook up some dinner. So, 3 ½ days in the desert - and getting 2 rain events!
Day 3 we decided to take it easy and get on the road early. So we did the easy, but super fun rustler loop 3 times fast at about 25 min/lap. All in all a great way to prep for skiing while waiting for old man winter to think about arriving this time of year. There are a couple of other clusters of MTB trails around and couple more long distance trails in the area too. A lot of possibilities to keep coming back to explore; with very different riding than we see on the front range or central mtns.
Fall color is "pop’ing" pretty well in the high country right now. Mostly green aspens on Thursday evening's drive had turned to mostly yellow and only a few green aspens by Sunday. Peak has to be in the next few days. But, instead of a standard western pic of yellow aspens we have….
Welcome to the deserts around Fruita, Colorado; just west of GJ. A couple of us went for some camping and MTB riding. Well, the camping is in a state park where there are even coin op showers – a necessity for after MTB riding in the heat. A blast of a trip, with 3 days of riding. And the stars at night in the area are just unparalleled for viewing given the lack of vegetation/terrain blocking things in the grand valley as well as the lack of light from civilization – just “wow” kind of spectacular (new moon helped too).
Despite the desert, we awoke to a random 20 minute rain shower the first morning. A single chunk of cloud overhead and blue sky all around it… weird.
Spent day 1 at the “18 road” area. It’s also known as the Book Cliffs area, but the Book Cliffs run for ~100 miles, well into Utah, so I consider that a less than accurate naming convention. We hit trails like prime cut, chutes & ladders, and zippidy do da among the bunch of possible loops that push up against the cliffs. Super hot day so we only did a little over 3 hours of actual ride time.
Day 2 & 3 we spent at the Kokopelli complex just S of I-70. Again a series of possible loops, though in a very different way, with many of them going much farther away from the trailhead (The actual Kokopelli trail being mostly old dirt roads that go for something like 140miles over to Moab).
For day 2, one of our riders had the whole family along (at their own campsite) and he did an easy ride with them while we did the Horse Thief Bench. With all of us going out later and re-riding Horse Thief and then completing Marys loop for a decent ~20+ mile day. Again, a super freaking hot day – yes it’s the desert, but this was a good 10+ degrees above normal for the end of Sept. Something moved through that evening and we “enjoyed” an hour rain shower back at camp as we were attempting to cook up some dinner. So, 3 ½ days in the desert - and getting 2 rain events!
Day 3 we decided to take it easy and get on the road early. So we did the easy, but super fun rustler loop 3 times fast at about 25 min/lap. All in all a great way to prep for skiing while waiting for old man winter to think about arriving this time of year. There are a couple of other clusters of MTB trails around and couple more long distance trails in the area too. A lot of possibilities to keep coming back to explore; with very different riding than we see on the front range or central mtns.
Fall color is "pop’ing" pretty well in the high country right now. Mostly green aspens on Thursday evening's drive had turned to mostly yellow and only a few green aspens by Sunday. Peak has to be in the next few days. But, instead of a standard western pic of yellow aspens we have….
