Porcupine RIM Trail, Moab 2005
Porcupine Rim Trail is one of the classic single track mountain bike trails in Moab. This year I (Derrick) did it on my own. Bud dropped me off, but first we had the biggest excitement of the trip. There had been some snow the previous night, Bud was driving up the Sand Flats road towards the upper dropoff for the trail. We past the snow line and the road began to get a bit slick. All of a sudden the whole truck slid towards the edge of the cliff! Luckily it stopped sliding and Bud managed to get it up onto a rock section where he could turn the truck around. We inched back down to the lower dropoff - I would just have to climb the extra height on the trail. That road was super slick with greesy mud. Quite a lesson in the danger of slick dirt roads!
The trail starts out with a long climb on a jeep road. It was muddy from the previous night's snow. And cold and windy too.
As I climbed the snow got deeper, but I got out of the wind and warmed up. Sections where very technical and steep - I soon was very warm.
The trail got snowier, muddier and steeper. I was working hard.
Getting close to the top - there were sections where the snow covered the road, but mostly, it was just muddy.
The view from the top looking down the valley. It was in the 30's there, but the 60's down in the valley.
Looking over the bluff into the valley, upslope there was plenty of snow.
What a great view!
There was a good sized group at the top catching their breath and having something to eat. From here the trail is almost all downhill. First, the trail runs over technical jeep road with lots of rocky sections with some big shelfs - two to three feet and some even larger. Then a single track with lots of technical bits along a steep canyon wall with a few very exposed sections. I flew down this section, just getting off at the biggest steps and the exposed sections. What a blast! I didn't stop for photos, but take a look at last year's page for some pics from those sections of the trail. Porcupine is everything I love about biking in Moab - great views, lots of fast sections to blast thru and and plenty of ledges to jump off of. Awesome!