Mt. Biking

Natalie gave me the opportunity to get down to Fruita with a few guys yesterday. We left Eagle about 830, and got to our destination of the day, Rabbit Valley, around 1030ish, and ready to ride about 11. Temp when we left the parking lot was about 40 and sunny, so dress code was bibs, jersey, long sleeve base layer, and knee warmers. Pretty light compared to how I have been dressing to ride around here. We hopped on some single track/quad double track right out of the parking lot. Man, it felt great to be riding on dirt!!! There were 7 of us, so we had a good crew. The first trail we did was the Western Rim. It was all up above the Colorado River Basin, on the edge of the rock cliffs. It was super sweet! The trail itself was never closer than about 10 feet from the edge, so you were never worried about falling or anything, which was nice! It wound around the edge of the cliffs for several miles, then dropped down into the Kokopelli Trail.
The picture below was staged... the trail actually headed the other direction. We were still about 6 feet or more from the edge here. We wanted a pic that looked like we were riding on the edge...
After riding on the Kokopelli Trail for a few miles, we connected with a trail leading to the Zion Curtain. The pic below is from the top of The Zion Curtain. Looking off the other side of this ledge, you could see I-70 several miles away as it streaked through Utah, and you could see a long ways after that. From the Kokopelli Trail to the top of Zion was a LOT of climbing... 3-4 miles worth of rocky technical ish climbing, with a GIANT, STEEP, hike-a-bike section at the very end. On top was kind of rolling single track, to the high point of the trail. From there is mostly downhill back to I-70 in Utah. We started the ride at Mile 2 in Colorado, and now were in Utah, almost 27 miles later. At this point we had 2 options. Continue on the trail for another hour ish to get back to the parking lot, or hop on I-70 and ride back East 3 miles to the parking lot. Because we had 2 guys who were struggling a bit, and we were all really worn out, we hopped on the road, and it took us about 10 minutes with the 25mph tailwind to climb back into Colorado. It worked out great since the interstate at that point has like 10 foot shoulders.
This was my first serious ride on the Western Slope. I did a few other rides up 18rd when we were camping, but nothing of this difficulty or length. It was really cool having the opportunity to ride in Colorado and Utah on the same ride. 30 miles, about 3,500 feet of climbing and warm sunshine made for a fantastic February day in the saddle! Thanks to Natalie for giving me the day to head west!