Fruita and Moab 2004
March 25th
This trip was the smallest so far as it was just me and Paul going. It’s alot easier to plan with such a small group (if you can call it a group). In fact, we didn’t have any plans, we just knew we were leaving on Thursday night at around 9pm and heading to Denver. I had traded in the Forester for a 99′ 4-Runner this year.
A week before the trip, our beloved Illini actually made it to the Sweet Sixteen and was facing Duke Friday night. We thought it would be nice if we could meet up with Lisa, an Illini alum also, in Denver and watch the game. That meant driving alot faster than we had planned, so we left Chicago around 8pm on Thursday. At around 1am, we stopped at a rest stop about an hour east of Dubuque, Iowa. There were a handful of other cars and a dozen 18-wheelers parked along the side of the rest stop road also. It was raining, but the weather was quite warm. We cracked the windows open and those little window deflectors worked perfectly to keep the rain out and let the air in.
March 26th
7am, we woke up and noticed that we were the only vehicle left from the night before. Everyone else must have got an early start. This was going to be a long driving day, so we were on our way by 7:30. After a long, uneventful drive through Iowa, Nebraska and NE Colorado, we finally arrived in Denver around 5pm. Denver rush hour was mild and we found Lisa’s apartment by 6pm. With an hour to spare, we arrived at the ESPN Zone in downtown Denver and waited for a seat in the big screen room. After watching Xavier upset Texas, our name was called and we were seated. But when Deron missed his first shot badly wide left, I knew it wasn’t going to be their game. As you all know, our beloved Illini lost to the Dukies. Disheartened, we went home and got a good night’s sleep.
March 27th
We decided to stay in Denver for the day. We took a stroll through downtown Denver and visited the Red Rocks theater, did a little hiking and took pictures. As Saturday came to a close, Paul and I were trying to decide where to go next, Fruita or Moab. We decided to try to hit Moab early before the Jeep Jamboree week arrivals started to come in. So on Sunday morning, we headed out to Moab.
March 28th
We arrived at Moab around 3:10pm. Well, not acutally Moab but at an interection of 128 and Entrada Bluffs road. This road led to an off-road trail called ‘Top of the World’. This trail is rated a 3 on most 4×4 sites, meaning that four-wheel drive and a little drive daring was required. Having never driven this before, being a single vehicle, we weren’t quite sure if the 4runner was up to the task.
The dirt road was fairly smooth and we quickly covered its 5 miles to the Top of the World sign. From there, we slowly began to drive the trail. After about 1/2 mile in, we decided to park it and continue up the trail with our bikes. We were racing with sunset, which we figured was 6:00pm. There’s nothing worse than riding downhill in twilight with no lights. So, it was 4pm and we had about 5 miles with 2500 ft of climbing. So 5 miles in 1.5 hours and half hour to ride down, no problem right? Well, doing a long steep climb against time was not the best idea as a first ride on a vacation. At 5pm, we had gone alittle over a mile, so we decided to turn around and head back to the car. We reached town around 6pm and got a room at the Aarchway Inn and then headed to Pasta Joe’s for dinner.
March 29th
8am, time to get the gear and head out to the trails. Today it was Two Tortoise (again) and Day Canyon. Last year, we tried to do this ride and ended up doing Bull Canyon, only to find the trail on the way back. This time we would ride it the correct way and then head to Day Canyon and maybe to Dry Fork depending on how we felt. After passing the Gooney bird we made a left towards the Gold Bar Rim trail and parked. We could see Two Tortoise in the distance and we headed out towards it. A minute later we found ourselves lost in a small canyon that had no exits. After searching for a possible trail we decided to head back towards the car. There we found the problem, I guess we misread the sign that pointed our way. Instead of saying “Gold Rim”, it said “dead end”. We encountered a few off-roading Jeeps and watched them attempt to climb large boulders. Two tortoise was as we remembered it from last year, alot of ledges, decently marked trail and downhill to start. Once we arrived before the Two Tortoise rock, it was uphill back to the road. Of course, we did lose the trail a few times, as usual.
After exiting the Two Tortoise trail, we headed for Day Canyon. We encountered the dreaded sand, rocky trails and sandy hills. At some point everything looked too familiar, we realized that we went the wrong way. We were in Bull Canyon again!! That’s the second time we rode this trail on accident. After finding our way back, we made it to the Day Canyon overlook and had lunch. After lunch, we had a quick ride back the way we came to our car.
March 30th
We drove to Arches National Park and found out that the campground was full. So it was back to Aarchway Inn. We had to go get a campsite before we rode today. By 11am we had a site in Arches National Park, had our tent set up and ate breakfast. The trail today was Amasa Back. It was a 10 mile out and back so we figured it would be a fairly quick ride. The first drop at Amasa back is a left turn with exposure on the right. It was also rocky and sandy. After that, it was a fairly ridable, uphill climb. The Amasa back trail doesn’t really get you onto Amasa back which is a sandstone pennisula surrounded by the Colorado river on three sides. The trail takes you to the southwestern edge of it where the trail ends and becomes a large area of slickrock. We could not find any cairns to mark the way to the western edge. So we freerode and walked westward.
Eventually, when we couldn’t go west anymore, we ended up at the cliff edge and had lunch. Luckily, I had my Garmin GPS and had marked a waypoint when the singletrack ended. We used the GPS alot to find our way back to the trail and rode back to the car.
March 31st
Our plan was to head to Fruita today. Since we were at Arches National Park, we decided to go see some arches, and we saw many in our one hour short hike.
Fruita was about a 2 hour drive. Our first stop was the Colorado welcome center to find a place to stay. We camped at the Colorado River National Park. This is a fairly new park with all new amenities. It is also very close to town, in fact you could see the McDonald’s sign from the campsite. The next stop was the Over the Edge bike shop to get a map of the trails. After getting a map we decided to do the Book Cliffs area which consisted of Chutes n Ladders, Joe’s Ridge, Kessel Run and other various loops. The next day we would hit the Loma area which had Horsethief Bench, Mary’s Loop and Rustler’s.
embed bookcliffs video
April 1st
The Bookcliffs area is about 10 miles north of Fruita. The singletrack here is very smooth and narrow. We parked at the first parking area and rode Prime Cut Trail up to Chutes & Ladders. Prime Cut trail is a very nicely cut winding singletrack. Chutes & Ladders consisted of a climb and then downhill and a clumb and then downhill, hence its name. However, the last half of it was a steady winding singletrack through the gently rolling plains. Truly great riding, except that cows get the right of way and sometimes they don’t want to move. The last half of it was so fun, we rode Chutes & Ladders twice.
Next we rode Kessel Run up to Joe’s Ridge. Kessel Run has you weaving up and down constantly as you ride a small stream
bed. Joe’s Ridge is the ultimate top of the world experience. The trail rides the ridge line with drop-offs on both the left and right side.
The amazing thing about Fruita is that we did four trails that were all within a few miles of each other. All four trails were different and all four trails were the same in some way. Just an endless variety of trails here. Unfortunately, it was overcast this day and the smooth singletrack meant that we hardly stopped, which also meant no still camera pictures to post. The only pictures I have are from my helmet camera. Below is the top of Joe’s Ridge.
embed horsethief video
April 2nd
Our final day of riding and we were going to do the Loma area trails. The trails here consist of big loops with great views of the Colorado river. The terrain is closer to Moab, with rocks and ledges and double track. Rustler’s loop is considered a warm-up loop before going onto Mary’s Loop. Within Mary’s Loop is the entrance/exit of Horsethief Bench.
Rustler’s was truly a warm-up loop as it was a great easy ride without difficult climbs or technical portions. Mary’s Loop consisted of alot of double track in the beginning. Throughout the entire ride, the Colorado is too your left. Horsethief bench has a nasty drop in that is very technical and rocky. We did not see anyone attempt to ride this down this day. Once down onto Horsethief, we rode it clockwise and were able to stop and take pictures of the great views it had to offer.
After Horsethief, we continued and completed Mary’s Loop. Now it was time to head back to Denver.
April 3rd & 4th
In Denver, we stayed with Lisa again and somehow convinced her to see ‘Hellboy’. After a relaxing Saturday we left Denver at 9am on Sunday morning. Arriving in Chicago at 2am Monday morning. Our 2004 Fruita & Moab trip was complete.
