Slickrock Trail, Moab 2004

Bud, Doug and Derrick setout on the Slickrock trail. This is the classic trail on slickrock. Slickrock is particularly hard sandstone which has been compressed over the years and exposed by erosion. The surface is the consistency of rough sand paper, but firm, so your bike sticks like glue which means you can ride up and down what look like impossibly steep slopes. Well, down anyway! Going up is tough.

We were licking wounds from the past two days riding when we started, so we only rode part of the trail. Slickrock trail is an amazing workout with continuous steep downhills and corresponding climbs.

These pictures are from both the Slickrock Practice Loop and Main trails.

This is the start of the practice loop. The trail is marked with white paint dashes on the rock. It is critical to stay on the trail, as the rock curves down at the sides and drops into sharp ravenes in places and it would be easy to ride down into one of these before you realized you were getting into a life threatening situation.

Amazing views across the slickrock, you can easily imagine these were sand dunes at one time.

The Practice Loop stays on this crest for a ways, then drops steeply and curves back to the left at the bottom.

More amazing scenery. Remember, this is still the easy stuff on the Practice Loop.

The canyon in the background is amazing, but the trail doesn't go there.

The Practice Loop turns back towards the main trail.

There were lots of other people out playing on the rock.