My older brother invited me to San Rafael Swell on Easter Weekend. His family rides dirt bikes and do a lot of camping. I've heard of Devil's Racetrack trail before and thought that would be a fun trail to ride on my mountain bike. When I got there, my brother and his family has ridden Devil's Racetrack and told me I was crazy to ride on it on a pedal bike and thought it was too technical for it. I didn't listen to them and decided to go ahead and do it since the trail is right by the campsite. Devil's Racetrack is primarly an atv trail and I went out and back because most other trails in that area were too
sandy and I can't ride in sand. So I (walked) to the trailhead about a mile from the car which was very sandy. Then from the trailhead is all fast to the bone! It was downhill all the way to the wash which was about 10 miles or so and it was a fun, fast, technical ride. There were some parts I walked on like in the middle of the trail and was the most technical and hardest section of the trail.
The scenery was beautiful and the weather was perfect. What more is there to ask? It was great. It was cold at first because I started early in the day and when I started heading back uphill, I got really warmed up.
I found my brother's buggy his wife was riding on out there, way out there, like 8 miles out just before all the technical stuff. They did the big 50 mile loop on the day before. The wheel broke off the buggy and they were on like the last 8 miles of the trail, and that last 8 miles was all the hard stuff. So they left it out there and had a rough time carrying all the kids on their motorbikes but made it. Then it took my brother a lot trips and a trip to the city of Green River to get the part fixed and finally got the buggy back to camp. I'm glad!
This is about where I turned around, well, a little past that, almost to the wash. It was a good technical climb back to the beginning. It was a fun bike ride.
The next day, I decided to go on another trail, Eagle Canyon Trail. It is also another atv trail but way easier, no rocks, and quite a bit of sand down at the wash. I'd rather ride on rocks than sand though so maybe this is a harder trail because I can't ride on sand! I started from Swasey's Cabin and went down the trail and I wanted to get to the I-70 bridges and then ride back. It didn't take long but the ride back was all a climb back. It was fun.
When I got the I-70 bridge, it was pretty cool. All of my life, I've wanted to see the I-70 bridge from down below and people around where I live have told me that there is a trail that goes under the bridges. Anyway, it was awesome how they built them. There were a lot of broken tvs down below. One day, somebody is going to get hit by one, ha ha!
Anyway, it was a great trip and I'd do Devil's Racetrack on my bike again! The scenery was awesome.
3 comments:
Dang, I commented as Shelly, had to delete it. Good write up, we had a good time even with the breakdown. I wasn't sure how much sand would give you problems in Eagle Canyon, it's hard to judge on a dirt bike..unless it's a foot deep like on five miles of hell. There are a lot of good trails in the swell for sure!
Thanks for the invite! It was a blast.
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