Leaving Aspens, Entering Hot Sandstone...

Leaving off where Amanda did, we camped in Durango another night and decided to do an out and back ride on the Hermosa Creek trail which is supposedly a classic.  It’s usually done as a shuttle but there’s still too much snow in the higher elevations.  The trail was very smooth with frequent ups and downs, nothing very difficult skill-wise, but certainly tiresome.  We made it out about 7 miles and then turned around and headed back for a 14-mile total ride. 


Some pictures...

On the trail, we met a very nice biker with her dog.  Being the small world that it is, she turned out to also be a GIS professional and gave us awesome advice about Moab, UT – our next destination.  Originally, we had planned to go to Fruita first, but a cold front came through, so we made the decision to head straight to Moab and ride one of the sunny ultra-hot slickrock trails (Amasa Back) in the cooler weather.  This decision paid off tremendously and the next day was the best of the trip so far with incredible views and a great downhill with tons of rocks and jumps.

We chose the “Moses” option (akin to wandering through the desert for 40 years) and rode out to Pothole Arch which seemed lame when you first see it after riding all that way, but turned out to be pretty cool:

Following more of the great advice, we had a stellar camping spot (about a 100 yard walk into a canyon).

View from the campsite:

Moab is absolutely beautiful and unlike anything we’ve seen.

Josh