Moab, 'Poison Spider' Part two

After securing a campsite, we still had some daylight. Ian and Bruce had a shitload of energy left. Tom and I would have been just as happy to take a nap.....but that was not to be.

Ian had a recreation map of the area. Somebody puts out maps with all the trails around Moab on them. They are marked for bicycle, ATV, 4X4 even hiking, for God's sake....whatever. The ATV/4X4 trails have an E, M, D, or DD marked at all the points where there is a questionable hill. The letter designates either Easy, Medium, Difficult or Dammed Difficult.

As it turns out I can do most Difficult hills, but the DDs are for rock Crawlers or better riders than me (of which, there are many).

Note, I said I can make most difficult hills on the first try. When you don't make a hill, the best scenario is that you have stalled the bike mid hill, but are still sitting on the bike. Other scenarios run the gamut of picking yourself and the bike up off the ground, usually with help from friends as you can't get a foot hold where the bike is....or another possibility is a trip to the emergency room.

We still had a couple hours of daylight left so we went for a little exploratory ride. Not knowing at the time just exactly what the letter designations meant we picked the 'Poison Spider' trail. It had a half dozen 'D' s. So out along the river we went till we picked up the trail.

This was a Saturday, and Moab is fairly busy this time of year with bicycles, 4X4s, and Motos. We hung around at the trail head and asked some moto riders about the difficulty. Most of these riders were on much more capable bikes than ours.


They recognized the KLR and the DR350, but had no idea what the NX250s were. Those two were off the low scale of dirt capable in the minds of the 'real' riders. No matter, we eventually decided to go take a look at the trail ourselves.

The title picture is on the way out the trail. It was 3:30 by then and it got dark at 5:15 so we didn't have a lot of time. Enthusiastically, we set out on the trail. The trail was 95% easy riding with some ledge out croppings or 'steps'. Steps make things difficult. When they get one foot tall you need to be able to hit the low spot in the step which may only be a wheel width wide.

That is what technical riding consists of.  It being necessary to make your bike go where you want it to go, not just hanging on, and trying to survive where your bike takes you. :)

If you hit the low spot, that's good. If you miss it, then you are probably bounced out of shape for what you had in mind to hit next. That situation will quickly escalate into disaster...but, wait, maybe you will be through the rough spot by then.

Mostly you make it through, usually not too happy with the line you ended up taking, but vowing to do better next time. We spent a half hour like this, and climbed successfully at least one D hill.


Ian had been learning that the KLR was a bit tall geared for this type of riding, and heavy when it got out of shape. He had a small drop early in some steps.
Ian is a triathlete, so conditioning isn't his problem. He's 6 ft and 180 lbs of machine that participates in the 'Pikes Peak Marathon' each year. That's 13 miles of up hill and then down again. That is unfathomable in my world. Anyway, he's able to handle the KLR



Ian showing off his dirt grin. That's what happens when you aren't leading when dirt riding. Looking like that, is a badge of honor when out with the guys....I think???

Eventually, we came to a hill that looked a bit steppy and quit vertical. I was leading.
The first stage of getting a bit better is when you realize that you don't stop and size the hill up. You make a decision of a line and do it. this worked for me. I went right up, looking like a star....and leading to a bit of over confidence.......

Tom was next, and was the least experienced. He didn't get far off the bottom and stalled the bike or something. It fell over. The boys helped him and the bike up. This was the turning point of the day. Tom took out one of his mirrors at this time. We decided not to go any further as we didn't want to get caught out here in the dark.

I tried to start my bike, but the battery only groaned. Shit, what's this? I bump started the bike on the hill. I had killed the bike on top of the hill, and not turned the ignition switch off so, I thought that had drained the battery.

We rode back to the start of the trail without incident. I stopped my bike on a hill, and hope that my bike would show some battery recharge. No joy....hummm....
Another bump start and off to town we went.

We decide to have dinner before going to camp. We selected Mexican..Pretty good.When we got done with dinner it was dark. My bike wouldn't start, and the boys told me that my headlight had been very dim when we rode into town. So My bike would run ok on the ignition coils, but there was no charging for the battery or lights.

I was on the north end of town and about 2 miles from camp. Ian gave me a push start, and I lit out for camp with a dim light. The boys went into town for a few things for camp.

I hadn't gone a quarter mile when I had no light at all. I followed a car to our turn off. He went straight, and I was in the dark alone on the mile and a half to the campground.

I could make out the road ok, but when an on coming car came along with their bright lights on, it damned near blinded me. I successfully met and passed a couple cars like that, then there was the campground and a car pulled into it ahead of me.

I followed the car as he looked for a campsite. I was using his light. Then he decided to take the campsite that he had just passed. I saw his backup lights go on, but didn't realize that he was going to back up, and that he had no idea that I was back there.

Just as he started to move backwards, I tumbled to what was going on, and was able to jet around to the side of him. No harm no fowl, but it was a dumbass moment on my part that could have gone much worse.

The boys had bought four $5 bundles of firewood earlier that day. We made a campfire and told stories for the rest of the evening once the others returned to camp. A full moon came up at about 7pm that lit the sky. Very impressive.

The temps dropped significantly when the sun vanished over the horizon, the campfire was a neccessity. It was down to the mid 30s before morning. I was snug as a bug in a rug in my down bag and rolled up burrito style in my plastic tarp.

Tomorrow showed us some awesome sites, but also kept a trick up her sleeve......