Moab Spring of 2014

I went to Moab this weekend to do some riding.  I just got back this morning and I came home feeling happy and bike replenished.  Saturday morning I left and got there at around 11:00 in the morning and I couldn't wait to do some Moab style riding.  First I did a new trail on the Amasa Back called the Hymasa, it just opened this year and I wanted to try it.  I wasn't disappointed at all and it was also a pretty good hard trail which was all climbing all the way to the top of Amasa Back.

Hymasa Trail looking down.

Self portrait with the Amasa Back in the background.

When I got to the top, this is the view.  It was breathtaking.  I rode a little bit of the top of Amasa Back jeep trail and I was planning to to go all the way to the viewpoint and maybe ride a little bit on Pothole Arch but I felt like I should turn around and go ride on the trails at Dead Horse Point state park which I was planning to do the next morning.  It was a weird feeling.  So I turned around and went back down on Hymasa even though I am too chicken to ride down on Captain Ahab.  I keep hearing Captain Ahab is "too hard" or "just for experts".  Hmmm, maybe next time.

So, I finished the ride and went to town and got a big thing of cold chilled Gatorade and a sandwich and ate while I was driving.  Pretty much all the loading, unloading, stopping at the gas station, and driving to took a good old two hours.  So I took pretty much a two hour break before I got riding again.  I was pretty tired from Hymasa so the break was good while it lasted.  The Dead Horse Point Intrepid bike trails is relatively new and very intermediate difficulty.  I liked it though because I could go pretty fast and it's on top of a mesa, I like trails like those.  So I did a 14 mile loop on all the Dead Horse Point bike trails.  There were many different trails but I kept taking left at every trail fork and did it clockwise. I did the ride at moderate intensity.   I loved it and there were hardly anybody there and there were quite of few people at Amasa Back though.

After riding at Dead Horse Point trails, I was rewarded with this view.  It was amazing.  I haven't been to Dead Horse Point ever since I was a teenager and it was nice to see it again and even better, to ride up there.  Also, this was the first time I've ever been to the Amasa Back area.  So that was pretty cool.
After I was done with Dead Horse Point, I rushed back down to Moab and ate at a fast Mexican restaurant and ate some fish tacos then caught a movie, "Captain America" at the theaters to watch.

After that, I drove to the Kane Springs Campground and crashed in the back of my truck which was a very comfortable bed inside my new Softopper.  The night was pleasant and very warm.  The next morning, the sound of thumping of rain onto the Softopper woke me up and it was raining.  At first I thought I was glad I did that Dead Horse Point ride yesterday instead of today.  I was pretty lucky.  So I got up and ate breakfast somewhere and had banana walnut pancakes and went home while it was pouring rain all over Moab this morning.  It was a great little trip and I enjoyed it.  I did my calculations and I rode about 24 miles and took a total of 3.5 hours on Saturday.  It was enjoyable and did plenty of riding myself.