White Rim Trail

Tuesday 10-25-11
Today we dropped into the canyon of Canyon Lands National Park to ride the White Rim Trail. This trail goes around a canyon that is in the canyon we dropped into. The entire second canyon has a white rim around it which is Navajo sandstone. The White Rim Trail is an unimproved road that goes along the edge of this canyon in various places. It was originally built for uranium mining. We descended into the main canyon at Mineral Springs Road. It is approximately a 4 mile descent with several switchback corners.It reminds me of the Moki Dugway only a little longer.

Daren riding down into the canyon

At the bottom you are close to Green River and the trail does go alongside the river for awhile.

Green River

Unfortunately the road section that parallels the river was 20 feet under water this winter and had become a mile long sand wash which is not the preferred medium upon which one rides a 500 pound bike. I saw an area that looked to be packed harder than the main trail so I gave it a try. It was not any better so I went back into the tracks left by others and wrestled the bike through to the other end.

The area to the left was not any firmer than the sandy part

Once out of the sand the trail turned into a two track road which did not have many smooth sections. The trail is not difficult for motorcycles or 4 wheel drive vehicles but it is rough and gives the suspension a workout. Of course this would be the time that my bikes started dieing whenever the engine speed dropped below 2000 rpm. This made the ride a little more challenging. I really should have had that firmware upgrade done.The only other sections that were somewhat difficult were 2 steep hills that had been churned into sand by jeeps spinning their wheels. We went up one and down the other. On the uphill section I needed to go up a step and just as I hit the step the rear wheel went into a hidden hole and over I went onto my right side. This was the only fall of the day.

My bike takes a rest. This is actually an uphill section but the picture does not  show the grade,

There are a few primitive campsites along the trail and each one has a pit toilet. These toilets are stocked with paper and we met the man whose job was to maintain these. He drove a 4 wheel drive flat bed truck and said that he camped in the canyon as it took him a few days to make the trip and service the toilets. He seemed to like being alone. The weather forecast was for thunder showers and a little over halfway along the trail we saw lightning in the distance. Then the wind came and finally a light rain. About 10 miles from the end we met several mountain bike riders. I felt sorry for them as the wind was quite strong. We climbed out of the canyon on Schaffer road which was getting wet and looked like the type of soil that is really slippery when wet. It started raining harder and we had about 25 miles of highway back into town. I rode all the way into town with my left hand over my face to protect me from the rain drops hitting my face which hurts at 60 miles an hour. We had a good meal in town along with a cold beer. Back at the cabin Daren brewed some bedtime tea to put us to sleep. It rained hard all night long and we were glad that it was not us out camping in the canyon.