Last weekend my buddy Chris Allen and two of his friends came to ride The Whole Enchilada from the LaSals down to the Colorado River. Not just a part, not a couple bites, but The WHOLE Enchilada. It's a big strenuous ride. With this ride you get everything: the cool air (in between cow pies) in the green mountains while you duck around aspens to big air over scrub oak to dodging cliff sides on the red rock. Not to mention the breathtaking view the entire trail! (or maybe I was just out of shape and breath)
We started out at 10:30 am after driving to the trailhead and began an ascent of 800 ft in one mile to get to Burro Pass, the first section of our ride. That was a lot of hike-a-biking. As soon as we got to the top, it was just crazy fast downhill singletrack through the trees and streams and over rocks and roots. Every time we stopped we had to move off the trail because there were so many riders! We cruised down to Warner Lake and were surprised by a wedding facing the lake. Oops.
The trail crossed through the creek several times. It was pretty, but the water made my feet smell like wet dog at the end of the day.
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| Chris, Clint, Matt, and Chris at the top of Hazard County. |
After Warner came Hazard County. This trail starts out with half a mile uphill but it's worth the view up top. Overlooking the Moab Valley, we began the descent into the sage and scrub oak and then hit some big man-made jumps and dusty burms along the trail. We crossed the LaSal road and began the Kokopelli section of the trail, which was my favorite. Wide open DT with big whoop-de-dos and it was easy to ride.
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| Changing the first of three flat tires. |
The Kokopelli blended right into the next part of the trail - The Porcupine Rim. The first part of this ST was fun; it flirted with the cliff edge overlooking Castle Valley and Castleton Rock and had some fun drop-offs. The lower section of Porcupine was killer, we had several flat tires and we had run out of water (I drank all 3 liters of my Camelbak and hadn't peed once!) and we were just exhausted. It was all I could do to stay on the bike. When we finally got down to the truck at the Colorado River, it was 7:15 and we had ridden 28 miles. We threw the bikes in and sped to Matrimony Springs, the first water source we could find. After we had satiated our thirst, we went to City Market to get some Gatorades and energy foods.
The Whole Enchilada was definitely the hardest and most technical ride I've ever done. It was also by far the funnest too. I want to do it again, except maybe next time I'll take a smaller bite of this Mexican delight.
2 comments:
Chris, that is so cool! I also love your Mark Twain quote. I definitely want to ride the Whole Enchilada. Easier than the Slick Rock practice trail? Please say yes. :)
Thanks! That quote definately applies to many of my posts :D
Eh, 30 miles, loose scree flying everywhere, dodging trees left and right... no sweat. Yeah, it's easier ;) Actually, I would just do half at a time, from Burro to Hazard or Kokopelli to Porcupine. Nine hours of mountain biking that day was just too much of a good thing.
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