San Rafael Swell fall of 2012

 This is the trip I planned for a long time, to go back to the Swell.  I wanted to invite my family too also to see the area.  Mike and his family came and also my parents.  We all met at the Wedge on this good day with perfect weather.  Clear sunny day and perfect temps.  My parents and I left like an hour and half earlier so I can do a bike ride along the Good Water Rim Trail on the Wedge.  I did this trail last year and this time, it was awesome.

 Awesome singletrack with lot's of turns.  The trail was 15 miles and I did a loop with the road back to the campground area with a total of 23 miles.  It was a blast!  I had a bike wreck and it wasn't pretty.  One end on my handlebar got caught on a tree branch so I fell and fell on my side,  broke my cell phone and a buckle on my shoe.  The buckle can be replaced and my cell phone contract is up in two weeks anyway, so I will get a new cell phone by then.  I am using one of my old cell phones now.

 It was pretty and I loved the scenery!  Other than the crash, I had a good ride.  We all ate a picnic at the Wedge Overlook.

 After that, we went down Buckhorn Draw.  It's a good scenic dirt road that goes from the Wedge to Interstate 70.  There are petroglyths, pictographs, and a dinasour track along the way.  Also a Matt Warner name painted on a rock who was an outlaw that rode with Butch Cassidy then fixed his life up afterwards.  Pretty cool.

 These pictographs were amazing.  Everybody was amazed.  When we got to the pictograph panel, we couldn't really see them but we've read that we could see them better when it's shady.  So we saw the sun would go behind this mountain any minute, so we waited for like a half an hour.  Then we were in business.

 It's amazing to see how these pictrographs were painted by the Lamanites when Christ was on this earth 2000 years ago(Mormon beliefs).

 Jeri was really thirsty and she had a blast.

 We saw some modern petroglyths, if it wasn't for Laura, we wouldn't see these.  She had good eyes!  Mike and Josh were trying to figure out the story on these petroglyths.

It was a good day trip and everybody enjoyed it.  We didn't know we could get to this kind of stuff in 2 hours from our homes.  It was awesome.

Dreamin' on Pipe Dream Trail

This sign said the trail is for advanced riders, expert only, yep, they were right!  It was a lot of fun too!  I did the Pipe Dream Trail on the day after I did Bull run.  This. Trail. Is. Hard.  It is located just south and above Moab and I can see riders like to get riding on this right from town.  It is a great technical trail

 Going under a boulder.

 I loved the switchbacks on this trail.  Fun!  Also with lot's of boulders to go over and steep side sections.  Lot's of up and down riding with 1,000 vertical feet of total climbing.

There's a biker down there.  Yeah, she passed me and we were talking about how fun the trail was.

 This a hard section, fun but ridable.

I was going to do an out and back which was 10 miles total but my hands were too fatigue from a lot of braking.  So I did a loop by doing a return on the Pipeline Road.  I liked this trail because it was challenging.

Biking with the Bulls on Bull Run Trail

 This was a really nice, fun trail with a bunch of sweetness added to it!  That's all I can say!

 A lot of this had slickrock and dirt variation kind of trail.

 I don't why I keep taking pictures of the easy parts of the trail, so this is not most of it.  There were a lot of sections, with boulders, slickrock, drops, and with gnarly climbs.

 Went down for a nice trip to Moab, my parents came along.  It was very nice, perfect weather and that's what made the trip more enjoyable.  It was a 5 mile trail and I did it out and back with a total of 10 miles.  The Bull Run is the first part of the Mag 7 Trail series.  They say the Bull Run is the funnest part of the Mag 7.  I agreed, it was a fun section and I had a blast.  I started From Gemini Bridges and went uphill with about 1,000 vertical feet of climbing, then I went back down with a fun downhill. 

 There were some cliff side riding and lots of fun boulders to go over.

I turned around here at the top.  The continous trail was 7 Up and I wanted to go more on it but I turned around because it was getting dark.  Next time, I will make sure I have more time to ride.

Horseshoe Canyon Hike

 On UEA weekend, the Tony family invited us to go see some pictographs in Horseshoe Canyon located in Canyonlands National Park.  The hike was around 7 miles out and back.  It goes down into a sweet looking canyon with pictographs in most areas.

 Brayden checking them out.

 This one means "Holy Ghost"  and this one is very big.

 Most of the hike was on a sandy wash and was fun to walk on it through the canyon.  The hike up back from down the canyon was a 700 vertical foot climb and was it a good workout.  The hike took about 5 hours.  It was great fun!  My parents came but they only hiked a couple miles.  We still had fun.  We had Stan's Burgers in Hanksville afterwards.

 More pictographs.

 Tony and Hannah walking.

 Hannah.

 It was great to hike and see this stuff!

This guy stole my nephew's trail mix while we were sitting looking at some pictographs, now I got a picture of him and I can report it.  Ha ha.  Well, we were taking about he probably needed it worse than we did.