White Rim Trail (September 30 - October 2, 2005)

You would think I would learn. Cindy calls to ask if we want to join them (she, her husband Jay, and a few others) for a weekend in Canyonlands National Park in Utah – just outside Moab – to bike the White Rim Trail at the first of October. Cindy assures me that it’s an easy, non-technical trail. Later I have to wonder if she knows that I am not really a mountain biker. It’s for certain that when I say “sure, that sounds like a blast”, that I’ve completely lost my mind.

I have not been on a mountain bike in four or five years. And now I’ve just committed us to a three-day, 103 mile trip. It’s madness.

But I don’t have much time to think about how mad this plan is, since this is a camping trip and there are preparations to be made. Pull the tent out of the closet, stuff the sleeping bag into its stuff sack, figure out what the hell to do about food for three days, and generally try to pull together biking clothes and other stuff for the sojourn. Mick is a trooper, and volunteers to take on most of the food preparations. I do the easy stuff, picking up trail mix and Clif bars and a few other things, while he pre-cooks chicken and pasta and makes brownies and packages a bunch of PB&J sandwiches for us. And then it’s time to jam all this stuff into my car, and head off towards Moab.

The one thing that I somehow forget to do, amidst all the preparations, is to ride my mountain bike. Big mistake.

Day 1. It’s a beautiful day when we meet up with Cindy and Jay and all the others at the parking area just above Horsethief Trail: spectacular blue sky with nary a cloud, perfect warm temps, and not even a hint of a breeze. Perfect day for riding.

Although we’re a bit late getting here – the lack of cell phone service made it a bit tricky to figure out the logistics of the meeting place – it’s still just past one p.m. when we’re set to ride. We’ve done an admirable job of pulling all the stuff out of my car and dumping it on the ground with everyone else’s stuff, just to be repacked in Big Rod’s Cadillac pickup truck. Big Rod is Jay’s dad, and he and Jay’s brother Kirk have graciously agreed to transport our camping gear for us each day. It turns out to be a good thing that Kirk also has a jeep on this trip, since the rest of us have so much crap that it nearly takes a semi-trailer to pull it all.

It’s an interesting crew on this trip. Jay and I used to work together at my last job, and I met Cindy sometime during those years. Jay is a computer jock, and Cindy is a veterinarian. Beyond that connection, I can’t really even remember how we got to be friends; we have skied together and rock-climbed together and consumed some beers together. In a few weeks, we’ll all go to Washington, D.C. to run the Marine Corps Marathon together. The one thing we’ve not done together before this weekend is ride bikes. Any bikes. Most notably, mountain bikes.

The rest of the group comprises people that Cindy works with now or has worked with in the past. Francisco and Christobal (both from Latin America) are vets who work with Cindy at her current government job up in Fort Collins. Bruce is another vet who worked with Cindy back in her days at the Denver Dumb Friends League; he’s here with his wife Debbie. (In a small world twist, it turns out that Debbie works in the same building where Jay and I worked together for so many years.) The last member of the group – at least the last to arrive today – is Joey, another connection from the Denver Dumb Friends League. Joey is a business manager there, and in his spare time he takes classes at the Iliff Institute of Theology. I’ve not met any of these folks - including Jay’s dad and brother – before today, and even as we start to ride, it seems like an interesting group.

Mick and I take off with Francisco and Christobal a short time after Bruce and Debbie have started up the road. Our journey each day is largely dictated by the campgrounds where we have reservations. Cindy has informed me that she had to reserve our camping spots nearly a year in advance, so I appreciate that we have access to some very limited resources. Today, even with our late start, we will cover nearly 40 miles before arriving at our destination “Airport” campsite. There are really no shortcuts out here in the desert, so it’s time to pedal.

The first 10 miles of our ride are extremely mild for a mountain biking trek: we ride back up a dirt and gravel road that brought us to this parking spot. The road is in reasonably good shape, but I learn very soon that riding this kind of road takes much more attention than riding a road bike on nice smooth pavement. We’ve scarcely been on our bikes five minutes before we hit a patch of washboard. The guys are all up out of their saddles in a heartbeat, but I’m a bit slow on the uptake and bounce around like crazy. Francisco drops back to ride with me, and offers some mountain biking pointers to me that are well received. I can use all the help I can get.

But once I learn to stand up through the rough bits, this is a nice stretch of riding. This stretch of road connects to the asphalt road that brought us out to the Canyonlands Park, and now we have another stretch of about 10 miles on paved roads. Later, every single one of the true-blue mountain bikers on this trip will complain about this part of the ride (stating disdainfully, “how boring!”), but for now I’m in heaven. I don’t realize it at the time, but this is the beginning of my slow three day long realization that I’m much more a road biker than a mountain biker. For now, I just enjoy going fast along this lovely smooth road. Little do I know how much I’ll be longing for this kind of non-jarring ride in just a few short hours!

When we turn off the paved road, we are finally truly on the White Rim Trail. Mick and I have lost our riding companions, who stopped to eat sandwiches back at the turn onto the paved road. I suspect that I’m one of the slower riders in this crowd, so I’m working to get out in front a bit, fully expecting to be passed from behind somewhere along the way to the Airport campground.

This stretch of the White Rim Trail is the Shafer Trail, and it’s only minutes after we leave the paved road behind that I’m oooing and ahing over the sights. Wow! We are riding straight into a quintessential Utah redstone landscape. I stop over and over again to take pictures, and Mick accommodates me by posing with this spectacular backdrop. I’m so enchanted by the scenery that I don’t even notice that the trail is becoming increasingly steep downhill. But finally, I realize that the back end of my bike keeps trying to skid out from under me, and I hit a few patches of really dodgy rocks and dirt, and I look out and see just how steep this road is. It only starts to scare me a tiny bit at a time, though, so I actually ride most of the descent, even making it through some really bumpy and rocky sections that my better senses tell me to walk through. Just as we’re hitting a point where the trail flattens out a bit again, we’re caught from behind by the rest of the gang, who all just go flying by as if there weren’t steep sheer dropoffs on the side of a road that is littered with rocks and potholes and other hazards. I’ve just started to get really scared, but put some of that fear back into check when we all start riding together.

This next section is one of my favorite parts of the entire trip. We ride together, and the trail gets more and more gnarly, but I’m learning to manage it, mostly. The scenery is so spectacular, and the day so perfect, that I don’t dwell much at all on my lack of mountain biking skills. We stop at a number of great scenic places along the route, and go for walks along the rocks, taking pictures with the dramatic red rock walls as backdrop, and of the Colorado River snaking through a green oasis way down below. We go out onto a crazy narrow rock arch that scares the bejesus out of just about every single one of us, but the guys all end up hamming it up for the cameras. It’s really a delightful day.

But the miles are crawling by now that we’re off the paved roads, and our progress toward the Airport campground seems really, really slow. I’m pretty proud of myself for managing the ride down the Shafer Trail so well until Cindy says, “that wasn’t steep at all!” and then mentions that there is a much bigger climb and descent tomorrow. Huh? The more that I hear bits of descriptions of tomorrow’s riding, the more uneasy I become. Why didn’t somebody tell me that this ride would be full of scary challenges???

We’ve stopped many times, but finally somebody mentions that we’ll lose our light soon – it is, after all, already 6 p.m, and this is October, not the middle of the summer. We have not planned on this turn of events – nobody has lights – so we ride hard for this last stretch. I’m looking for something that looks like a campsite – my idea of a campsite being a place with trees and grass and a picnic table. Instead, finally, in the twilight, I spot Big Rod’s truck parked on a patch of rock just up ahead. This has to be the most stark, uninviting campsite I’ve ever seen. But I’m starting to get really saddle sore, and the growing dark is making the trail all shadowy and full of unseen obstacles, so I’m glad to be here.

Camping is on ground that is nearly solid rock. We set up our tent, but don’t have any chance of staking it to the ground; good thing there is no wind. Our nearest “neighbors” at this campsite seem to be nearly a quarter mile away. With only a few spaces available at each campsite out here, it’s starting to become clear why you have to make reservations a year in advance. The only real manmade structures here to denote the presence of the campground is a permanent outhouse and a few signs to identify each space.

Big Rod and Kirk show up in Kirk’s jeep well after dark, as we’re all sitting down in our camp chairs to eat our hurriedly put-together dinners. I’m so grateful that Mick took care of our food for this trip and pre-cooked our dinner so that we only have to heat it up a bit. All I’m interested in is sitting in a comfy chair with a cold beer. We’re all still getting to know each other, and have fun telling stories around the Coleman lantern that fills in for a campfire. But we’re all very tired from this first day of riding, so although the stars are incredible out here where you can see forever in the night sky, it’s an early lights out.

Day 2. Who would have thought that a mere 40-mile ride would take so much out of me? But I’m more tired and stiff today than I counted on. And just about the first thing that I figure out, as soon as we get back on the bikes, is that road biking does nothing to prepare you for the saddle-soreness of mountain biking. It’s still pretty early when we set out on the trail, and my sore bum screams at me already. It’s going to be a long day.

We’ve looked at maps of the trail before heading out today, and I’m not feeling so good about it. First of all, it’s another long day: it will work out to be 35+ miles. And I’m getting a sense that 35 miles on a mountain biking trail ain’t nothin’ like 35 miles on a nice smooth road. Secondly, there is this ugly looking hogback thingy in the middle of the ride. I get an ugly feeling in my gut just thinking about it. Third, we have just started out for all of this riding, and I have such a nasty case of saddle sore that I can barely to sit down on my bike. Riding 35 miles standing on the pedals? It’s an interesting concept.

The first stretch of trail is actually not so bad, but it feels miserable to me. I feel every bump, every rock, every eentsiest thing. I take off riding fairly fast, because even though we’re just starting, I already very, very badly want this day to be over. I’m riding out in front of almost everyone. Well, make that everyone except Mick. The guy is just a bike freak, and he hates to be behind people, so he’s out in front. And then there’s me. Well, make that, sometimes there is me, and sometimes there is Joey. Joey is not a bike freak like Mick, but he seems pretty determined to get going, too. And finally, everyone else is riding along behind us.

The really irritating thing is that while I’m working at this, whenever we stop, it’s clear that the others – Cindy and Jay and Francisco and Christobal and Bruce and Debbie – are just lollygagging along, and they’re barely behind me at all. Curse them all for being in mountain-biking shape. The really delightful thing is that since Joey and I are trading places, and both kind-of riding alone, we’re starting to connect whenever we have a stop. Joey was the last guy to show up at the meeting place yesterday, and I barely had a chance to talk to him. But today, I’m getting to know him, and it’s a nice experience.

But still. Still, there is this riding to do. We stop a number of times to look at scenery, but I’m getting a bit antsy every time I look at my watch and then calculate mileage to the next campsite and figure out how much more riding time until I get there. This is really not such a bad thing, since Mick is a cycling freak and he is just getting frustrated with the stopping and starting. Joey, too, seems to have had his fill of looking out over spectacular red rock vistas for the morning, so the three of us all take off, each at our own pace.

In truth, although I’m in some pain, I’m starting to feel a bit better about my riding. We hit little baby steep climbs, and I’m getting into a rhythm and finding a way to power over them. To be sure, sometimes I come to a dead stop short of the top, but for the most part I’m improving and feeling good about it. Just before mid-day, I make it over a particularly challenging little baby summit and feel just absolutely on top of the world coming down the other side. And just on the other side, there is a fork in the road, so I stop to get my bearings.

A guy rides up from the other direction on a dirt bike and asks me to take his photo in front of the fork-in-the-road sign, so I oblige him. He returns the favor, and Joey rides up. While we’re standing there chatting, a number of people come riding by from the other direction. For the middle of the wilderness, it feels like Grand Central Station. Most of the riders going in the other direction pedal on by, but one woman stops to chat with us. She tells us that she’s a guide with the tour company, and she and the riders who have just paraded past us are all coming from the campground where we’re headed. Joey and I have figured out that one leg of the fork in the road goes to a lookout point called “Whtie Crack” – a place that Cindy specifically said she wanted to see. But when I ask the tour guide about it – the sign says it’s a mile or so to the overlook – she recommends to the dirt bike guy that it’s a nice ride, but to Joey and me, it’s probably not worth the extra riding. So we both take off in the direction of Murphy’s Hogback.

Joey rides off ahead – we assume that Mick is long gone in this direction, since he’s disappeared from sight – and I’m riding alone again. It’s really okay with me, since it’s easier for me to get into a rhythm when I’m by myself. This stretch of trail is nice, and I’m feeling my oats, so I pick up the pace a bit. I’m starting to think that I’m getting the hang of this mountain biking thing and just then I hit one long gnarly stretch of thick sand. I’m going pretty fast, and I’m hoping to be able to just ride it out, but the sand just gets thicker and thicker. I’ve chosen a route along the side of the trail, trying to avoid the worst of the sand and this works pretty darn well until I meet an unmovable object in the shape of a prickly bush, and I’m toast. The bush stops my bike abruptly and I’m flying through the air and I end up flat on my back in the middle of the sand trap that is the trail.

This would have been worth some serious points in a gymnastics meet. I realize that I’ve done a complete endover and completed a 360 in the air. The incredibly good news is that, because the trail is so sandy here, it’s a very soft landing. I take inventory as I sit, and then stand, up, and am happy that all my working parts still seem to be intact. I’m covered with sand from head to toe, with an especially healthy coating on my face, but other than some scratches from the prickly bush, I seem to have come through this crash unscathed. Luckily, my bike seems to be in perfect working order, too, so after a moment to absorb the shock of the crash, I’m back up and pedaling away – albeit slightly more conservatively – down the trail.

As I ride, I laugh. I’m having a great time. I’m riding with more confidence. And I just did my first endo with no lasting ill effects. Life is good on this mountain bike.

Up ahead just a little ways, there is another of the little climbs that I have been tackling so aggressively today, and I look at the incline and think, “yes I can!” and I go for it. But the reality turns out to be “no I can’t” and before I know it I’m toppling over on my side. It’s a slow motion fall, and it all seems to happen before I even know it. This fall, unlike my endo, hurts. It actually hurts a lot. Even though it’s slow and easy, I land with my hip on solid rock. Ouch. Ouch.

And now, just a few minutes after my feeling of invincibility, that little devil crawls right under my skin and takes control. I get back on my bike and try to ride the rest of this little climb, but I just hit obstacle after obstacle. It turns out not to be as minor of a little hill, and it has tight twists and turns, and I end up walking most of it. I’m scared now, and my fear makes me tight and inflexible, and suddenly everything is going wrong. I can’t unclip either of my feet, and feel in constant danger of going over again.

To top it off, as I round a final corner on this little bend, I see Joey just ahead. He’s standing and looking at something, and I follow his gaze. The Murphy Hogback.

Oh no. No, no, no.

Joey, who seems to be riding pretty aggressively, seems to be a little bit intimidated by the Hogback. I just look at it and feel deflated. From where we are standing now, it’s really just one long, fairly steep uphill to the top. No problem, as long as you’re not bothered by the steepness, or by the unprotected dropoff on the lefthand side, or by the rocks and scree and sand. Nope, no problem at all.

Joey tells me that he’s going to try to ride it. I feel defeat. Utter defeat. So Joey takes off riding, and I take off walking. It’s a small consolation to me that Joey rides part way up, and then can’t maintain his momentum and ends up walking, too. This mountain bike is starting to feel really heavy, pushing it uphill so far.

We get to the top of the Hogback, and find a little oasis on top. There are actually campsites up here, and a few trees and trunks. We find Mick sitting on one of the trunks, having a break in his ride and eating a PB&J sandwich.

Given a familiar audience, I start to whine. The little devil is taking control, but is not in complete charge yet. I tell Mick that I’ve been riding better until just before the hogback, but now everything is falling apart. Mick is having a great time – and admits to having to walk a short part of the Hogback himself – and his good mood only makes me start to do a slow boil. When things are going wrong, it just grates to see other people having a great time.

Mick helps by loosening my cleats so that I can unclip again – they are dirty, full of sand. I eat a little, but I’m so angry with how the day is turning that I’m not really hungry. In fact, the little devil is getting so far under my skin that I start to see the rest of the ride in very dark light. All I can think of is getting to the next campsite and getting off the bike.

The route down the other side of the Hogback is no less steep, and equally rocky, so I decide at the outset to walk. I get a few odd looks from a couple of cyclists I meet who are powering up the same route. Each person I pass who is on a bike gets my ire. I think about just throwing my bike down this road, and imagine it landing with a satisfying thud at the bottom of the hill. I start to whine; I think it’s all in my head, but that whining voice is so loud that I wouldn’t doubt everyone within miles can’t hear these thoughts. By the time I’ve reached the bottom of the steep section of the Hogback, the devil is in complete control, and it’s not a pretty site.

I reluctantly get back on the bike that I’ve decided I hate with my body and soul. I curse everyone and everything that I can think of to curse. I curse Utah, the Canyonlands, the desert, and this trail in particular. I curse Cindy for dreaming this trip up, and I curse Mick for agreeing to come. I curse anyone who is having fun. I curse mountain biking in general, and I curse anyone who has ever enjoyed the sport. I think about tomorrow’s ride, and the fact that the last few miles of the trail are a big climb back to the parking area where the cars are, and I decide that, without a doubt, I will not ride tomorrow. I will stay at the campsite and demand that Big Rod and Kirk give me a ride out of this hellhole.

Once I’ve made this decision, I actually start to feel a bit better. Only a few more miles, then, I think. If I can get through the rest of this ride, I’ll be done. And so I’m back on my bike, and riding.

Mick has actually started to worry about me and my state of mind, and so he and Joey and I pretty much ride the rest of the way to the Candlestick campsite together. And even though I’m extremely saddle sore and tired and feeling bruised and battered from my falls, I start to enjoy the trail again, even if it’s ever-so slightly.

Still, I’ve seldom been happier than the moment I see the Cadillac truck, sitting out in the open, just like our last camping site. There is not a tree for miles and miles, and there is the big blue truck parked in the middle of the desert. The only other sign of any kind of habitation is the park service outhouse next to the trail. Home sweet home.

It’s hot and desert-dry, and I think that Mick and Joey are as happy as I am to see the truck and the end to our day. We abandon our bikes and quickly go in search of Gatorade. We’re confronted by something we hadn’t counted on: the truck is locked, and the spare key is with Jay or Cindy. Damn! We want access to the coolers, and we want it badly. We want it so badly that we rummage around the truck and start to tear the tarp off the back pick-up bed, and find that a few of the coolers are actually accessible. We pull them out like people crazed after months in the desert without water, not the few hours that we’ve been out here. And we strike gold – there seem to be just a few cold bottles of Gatorade left, and we grab them for ourselves.

There are no trees here; this is desert. The only shade for miles and miles and miles seems to be the shadow cast by Big Rod’s truck. So Joey and Mick and I set up camp chairs in this tiny patch of shade and suck down the Gatorade. We are like so many old men sitting in the shade on a porch in the middle of nowhere: it’s enough to just sit and drink. There’s a kind of peace that obtains when you sit so quietly for a while, and this starts to revive the three of us.

Eventually, we get up and walk around. It is all slick rock, from the campsite over to the lip of the overlook, and it’s just too tempting to walk out to the edge. This is, after all, the White Rim Trail, which means that we’re following this elevated rim of rock around the Canyonlonds, all tucked in between the Green and Colorado Rivers. In bypassing the White Crack overlook, we’ve sacrificed our view of the confluence of these two great rivers. Now, when we reach the edge of the rock, we look down upon the Green River.

Eventually, the others in our group trickle into camp. Jay and Cindy and Francisco and Christobal all arrive together. We’re all concerned about Bruce and Debbie, so Mick and Jay form a search party, and the two of them, armed with extra water, head back out on the trail. They find the rest of our group – happy to see them and even more thrilled about the water, as they are bone dry by now – and the foursome returns to camp soon.

The Gatorade and the shade of the truck and the comfort of the camp chairs conspire to perform an exorcism of the devil, and he quietly slips away from my body. It’s good to have my being back to myself once again. When the rest of the group arrives, we go into a frenzy of story-telling – it turns out that today’s ride was rough on everyone. This makes me feel marginally better. The food that soon magically arrives on the card table, and the beer that is still somewhat cold, and the pure joy of washing off desert red sand with Wet Wipes: these all turn the day from a complete disaster into a wonderful outing with friends.

Rod and Kirk have chosen to stay in a hotel in Moab tonight, so it’s just us trail warriors tonight. The day on the trail has brought us closer, and it feels like we’ve all known each other forever. The entire process of setting up camp and cooking dinner and cleaning up the remains seems far more collegial than even last night. Francisco passes around a flask of tequila that burns so nicely going down, and the bottles of wine that I’ve brought disappear. We sit around our Coleman lantern “campfire” and tell stories. It’s another perfect evening – a clear sky with more stars than you think could exist in the entire universe, just perfectly cool after the heat of the day. Even with the aches and pains of the day, and the ground that hasn’t even a hint of softness underneath our tent, I fall asleep easily.

Day 3. Did I really think about not riding out of here yesterday?

We move a little more briskly this morning, just the prospect of the trail’s end pulling us forward. We breakfast, and then pack up the truck once again. And then we’re all riding off down the trail. Today, we ride in a group once again.

Other than my bruised pelvic bones, I’m really feeling quite good today. Riding is fine as long as I stand on the pedals, but sitting is agony. I take as many Advil as I think my stomach and liver can handle, and just hope that the pain gives way to numbness soon.

It’s easy riding to start out. Bruce has a guide book and has spotted a slot canyon for us to explore along the way. We abandon our bikes on the trail for a little while as we check out this beautiful natural wonder. But there are still many miles to ride, so we are back on the trail again soon.

As we make our way down the trail, my confidence returns in fits and starts. I make it up some little hills, and feel good about it, but I’ve lost the nerve for trying anything bigger. We approach one hill that seems very ride-able to me until we hit a few steep and rocky patches, and my nerve just goes. So I’m off, walking again. But this hill is not quite so steep nor as long as the Hogback, and it doesn’t take as much out of me to push this beast of a bike up it. At the top, the trail flattens a bit before heading down, and for an instant I think that I can ride it. But it turns into a serious sand pit soon, and so I walk. Partway down the hill, I pass a guy pushing his bike up the hill from the other direction. “At least I have an excuse – I’m going uphill”, he says to me as we pass. “Oh, I have an excuse, too,” I say in return. “I’m a complete wimp.” So there. But today it doesn’t really bother me, and the devil is nowhere in sight.

I finally get up the nerve to get back on my bike, and after I start riding, I catch up quickly to the rest of the group. They are exchanging packs, and picking up something from the side of the trail. When I get close, I see what has happened. Just a short while ago, Big Rod and Kirk drove by us on this jeep track, Kirk going by first in his jeep and then Big Rod in the truck. In the bumpy trail leading down off this hill, a couple of things have fallen off the back of the truck, and the largest of these is Mick’s backpack. The guys figure out how to carry these dropped items down the hill, and then we’re all riding together again.

There’s another campsite up ahead a bit, and we stop there to drop the pack. This is the lowest point (in elevation) that we’ve traveled along the trail, and the difference in vegetation is startling. We’re very near the Green River now, and there are trees and grass and a slight breeze. It’s a pleasant place to sit and have a sandwich, except for the wind that is whipping up. We give up on the sandwiches and are soon riding again.

We spread out a bit here. It’s pleasant enough riding, but I’ve identified the real difference between road biking and mountain biking. Road biking can be much like marathon running: you get into a groove and just go. It makes for great meditation time. But on a mountain bike, the trail is always changing, and there is no time to relax and just enjoy. As soon as you’ve figured out how to navigate the slick rock, it turns to scree and loose rock, and then to hard-pack dirt. Just as soon as you have the hang of this, you ride smack dab into a giant sand trap. It’s all about making quick changes and reacting to the changing environment. I’m much more a slow-twitch girl, and this trip is a valuable lesson to me.

Once again, it’s Joey and Mick and me all riding together. We hit a fork in the road, and I prepare to get off my bike. This fork is at Mineral Bottom, the low point that hooks up with the road back up to Horsethief Trail and the parking lots where our cars are all waiting.

I’ve been thinking about this last stretch of trail for sometime, figuring that I will have to push my bike all the way up. We saw the switchbacks and the steep climb out when we first parked the car up on top the other day, and I just don’t think I’ll be able to ride it. But Mick takes off, climbing, and Joey tells me that he’s planning to do the same. What would I be if I didn’t even try?

So I mount my bike, and Joey and I take off at about the same time. And it’s not all that steep – I’m able to ride it, and I feel grand. In fact, I take off in front of Joey. But this doesn’t last for long. Just as I’m starting to think that I might ride this entire thing, the road surface gets loose and gravelly and the pitch seems to get just enough steeper that it scares me. I lose traction, and come to a stop, more out of nerves than anything. As I’m standing, trying to figure out what to do next, Joey rides past. I think about trying to pedal some more, but the steep dropoff on our left has me too scared to even try, so I push my bike.

I watch as Mick and Joey criss-cross the switchbacks in front of me, and it looks like a huge climb. But I’m patient, and push and push and push. A couple of the other riders go past me – on their bikes – but I’m pretty comfortable with my wussiness, and I keep pushing. But somewhere just around the last switchback, I can almost smell the end of the trail approaching, and I just can’t get there pushing this beast of a bike. So I figure I’ll give it a go. I am afraid that I’ll just spin out of control – lack of traction – if I try to ride, but that doesn’t happen. I’m on my bike, riding the last stretch of the steep switchbacks, and it feels good. It’s a triumph for me to come over the last hill and coast into the parking lot. Nobody else really notices – or cares - that I’ve ridden this last bit, but it matters a bunch to me.

It’s early afternoon, but Mick and I have a long drive back to Denver, so we load up our stuff into my car as quickly as we can. Jay and Cindy are staying in Moab tonight (why didn’t we think of this), but the others are all heading back, too, so soon we’re all saying our goodbyes and heading off down the road in our cars.

As Mick and I drive, we talk about the good and the bad and everything in between about this weekend trail ride. It’s inevitable that the conversation takes a turn that is becoming all too familiar to me. Next time, we say, we’ll make sure we have more ice, more Gatorade. Next time we’ll bring full air mattresses instead of the flimsy Thermarests. Next time, we’ll bring more Wet Wipes, brownies, whatever. Next time, I’ll ride my mountain bike beforehand so that I’m not so saddle sore. Next time.