Spring Biking at Moab’s Canyonlands Airport

Between April and October, Moab, Utah, is a holy grail for mountain bikers throughout the West, and some excellent bike trails are easily accessible from nearby CNY airport. Pilots can revel in the delightful irony of combining the speed and convenience of flight with the physical enjoyment of biking through some of the most spectacularly scenic terrain to be found anywhere.

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Few things define spring in Utah better than the change in sportsseasons. Skis get tuned and hung in the garage, and creaky mountain bikes and dustyriver-running gear get cleaned up in anticipation of rides and runoff. Airport junkies areno different; hangar doors are more likely to be open, and GA activity around Salt LakeCity’s several airports increases as skills and equipment shake off winter’s chill. Springis nothing if not unpredictable though, and plans for longer junkets take careful accountof the winds and the occasional late winter storms. I decided to take advantage of thefirst available weather window to load my mountain bike up for a ride on the slickrocktrails adjacent to Moab’s Canyonlands airport.

Moab mapThe entire area around Moab has become a holy grail for mountainbikers throughout the West. Using trails and four wheel drive roads leftover from theuranium mining and exploration boom of the late ’40s and early ’50s, hordes of bike riderscrank through the back country from spring break until October’s "Fat TireFestival". The trailheads for routes such as the famous Slickrock or Poison SpiderMesa rides are frequently jammed with bike-topped sport utilities and BMWs, a phenomenonwhich largely coincides with the closure of Colorado and Utah ski resorts. Thanks in largepart to the development of more comfortable and capable mountain bikes, riders can clingto and climb amazing slopes on a vast network of trails scattered throughout the area’ssandstone domes and mesas. Many of the most popular and spectacular rides are quite closeto town, but there are a group of trails easily accessed from the airport.

Canyonlands Field lieseighteen miles to the northwest of the town of Moab. Home to a half-dozen local aircraft,and served by a scheduled commuter flight from Salt Lake City, it is a vital part of thetransportation picture for Grand County. Local FBO Redtail Aviation maintains a fleet of Cessna206s and 207s, which are kept busy throughout the summer on sightseeing charters andshuttling passengers to and from area river trips.

Day Tripping

The short hour and a half flight from Salt Lake makes the trip reasonable for a day’souting, so I planned for riding bud Joe and myself to load a rented 172 with bikes andlunch for a Sunday ride. I arrived at Salt Lake’s Airport #2 at Oh(!) seven-hundred andload my bike into the back of the plane. Wheels off, the bike makes a manageable butawkward pile of tubing which lies on the reclined backseat. I muse briefly about thepracticality (and legality) of removing the backseat, and then begin my preflight. Whilenot the prettiest sight, bikes do make a reasonable though bulky load, so weight andbalance for us and our gear won’t be an issue. Satisfied that everything is safe, secure,and within limits, I depart the airport for the short hop to Provo to pick up Joe.

As it turns out, we could not have wished for a more stellar day to take this trip.Spring weather cycles can bring long days of pre-frontal southerly winds, but today theweather gods have smiled. Conditions are outstanding, with high pressure over the entirestate, and there is little or no wind and no turbulence to affect the flight. Whilevisibility in the low morning sun leaves something to be desired from a photographer’sstandpoint, the haze does not affect the flight, and soon after leaving Provo we areclimbing over snowy ridges crisscrossed with snowmobile tracks. While it’s still chilly ataltitude, we look forward to temps in the low seventies at our destination.

Few signs of life broke the terrain below us; it’s too early on a Sunday for muchactivity, and deer and elk normally seen on summer flights have forsaken the high ridgesfor lower, warmer ground. After a long, gradual climb, we left the last ridge behind usand began the flight across the desert plateaus south of Price. Summer trips across thisroute are frequently accompanied by turbulence from the thermals cracking off the desertfloor, but we have no such distractions today, and we reflect over the intercom on theriding and exploration prospects of the largely uninhabited landscape below. I’m glad forthe relative quiet afforded by the headsets; having spent plenty of time in aircraft notso equipped made me realize why some non-pilots are uncomfortable with flying in lightaircraft.

We began our descent above Green River, tracking into the VOR at Canyonlands Field, andbegan to look for the mesas and jeep trails we would shortly be riding. I checked Unicom— no response — and announced my intention to land on runway 3.

We turned onto final, and after a second pre-landing checklist and a brief explanationof the VASI lights, we landed uneventfully and taxied to a tiedown spot. While it is nowabout 2 hours since I arrived at the departure airport with my bike, we would not behalfway to our destination had we driven, and we estimated we would be riding before10:00.

Let’s Go Biking!

TiedownAfter we shed enough clothing to match the conditions, assembled our bikes, andorganized our water and riding essentials, we rode off through the tiedowns and out thegate to the highway. Our first destination was the trailhead for the Klondike Bluffstrail, just1 miles south on highway 191. A relatively easy ride on hard packed dirt andsandstone slickrock, the trail winds 7 miles through saltbush and juniper desert to thenorthwest corner of Arches National Park, and a beautiful view of the valleys to the southand east.

As we opened the gate at the trailhead, three fellow bikers drove up; here, as itturned out, after a 28 hour cross-country trek from Clemson University. The lengths somepeople will go to ride in Moab, I thought. We would leapfrog this group several timesthroughout the rest of the day, as they intended to ride the same trails. We left the gateopen for them, and I wheezed up the gradual incline of dirt road that is the initialsegment of the trail. My breathing gradually fell into a cadence more appropriate for anEverest climber, while I wondered if the brakes were locked up on the bike or I wasdragging an anchor or something. After a couple of small hills and a mile or two ofriding, my brain finally convinced my muscles that complaining would do no good, and thescenery became more enjoyable.

Klondike BluffThree miles or so into the trip, the road becomes impassable toall but the most determined four wheel drive fans, and then follows a narrow stream bed tothe base of a slickrock ramp leading up to the plateau. Along with literal square miles ofother outcroppings and formations, tilted benches of sandstone like this are the meaningof life for Moab-bound mountain bikers. Lumpy, pockmarked with waterholes, smoother thanthe best pavement, or dropping precipitously into vertical-walled canyons, these petrifiedbeaches and sea beds are the vistas for several nearby national and state parks, andprovide traction for incredible feats of mountain bike daring, as well as some unintendedopportunities for helmet testing. Fortunately for us, helmet tests were avoided, and wepaused at the top of the slope to contemplate a view of a low 5-mile final forCanyonlands’ runway 21.

After 2 miles or so on the Entrada formation slickrock, we again hit the dirt for thefinal trail segment through the junipers. A couple of mining prospects visible from thetrail provide a clue as the origin of the route we have taken; historically it providedaccess to a copper mining venture abandoned near the end of the trail. Just as Iremembered it, the trail meandered across the basin to the base of a short, steep climb upthe final ridge. We took a short break to reflect on the near perfect riding conditionsand weather, and then resumed riding in the lowest possible gear the 75 or so yards uphillto the trail’s end.

In years past, bikes were permitted to enter Arches National Park at the boundarymidway up the slope, but a sign admonished us to abandon our bikes and walk the remainingdistance into the park. We leaned our bikes against junipers and proceeded on foot therest of the way up the trail and onto the slickrock domes at the top. The view was morethan rewarding enough to make us forget any misery endured on the trail or climb, and wewandered around for several minutes taking in the sights and scents of dirt, rock, sweat,juniper, and boundless sky. Though it had been several days since the last storm,rainwater still filled pockmarks in the sandstone. Off on the horizon the La Sal Mountainsshrugged still snowy shoulders against a sky almost painfully bright. We found a lunchspot out of reach of the breeze and contemplated our good luck.

Bluff viewWe made our way back to the bikes, and reorganized and remountedfor the reward of a downhill ride. My first trip up the Klondike Bluffs trail had been onan unsuspended mountain bike — one without front fork shocks — and midway through thedescent my hands and forearms were literally numb from the vibration. Fortunately, mycurrent bike is not so primitive, and my hands were thanking me for it as Joe and Irocketed down the trail. Joe enjoys the comfort of a full suspension frame more closelyrelated to a motocross motorcycle than a bicycle, so I have no sympathy for him. After ashort stop to let some ascending bikers pass and quiet my rattling seat bag / toolkit, weresumed our descent of the slickrock ramp. Somewhere near this point I managed to miss(both on the ascent and descent) a group of dinosaur tracks in the sandstone, a reminderof the geologic history of the petrified beach we were riding.

While the dinosaurs were not so careful where they stepped, like most desert outdoorspeople we were careful to remain on the rock or in previously used tracks. In this dryclimate, the soil is frequently anchored by an organism that forms a dark gray crust. Oncedisturbed, the soil is more likely to blow away in the next storm than to recover.

At the bottom of the hill we pedaled along the dirt road back to the highway, havingridden the fifteen-mile trail with plenty of time left for further exploration. Our watersupplies were quite seriously depleted, though, so we rode the short distance back to theairport to re-water, relax, and dump unneeded items from our packs.

Taxiing to Bartlett Wash

Hidden CanyonAfter a well-earned break, we set out for the Bartlett Washtrail, southwest of the airport. Rather than ride back down the highway and out the BlueHills road, we decided to ride down the parallel taxiway to the airport fence, lift ourbikes over, and ride off on the intersecting road. This saved a mile or two of highwayriding, and once on the sun-baked surface dirt of the Blue Hills road we made up even moretime. When we reached the base of the Bartlett Wash trail loop, bad decision making tookover, and I unwisely chose the sand-infested and non-recommended exit trail. Sandstoneis a wonderful surface to ride on, but this same material eroded into its constituentgrains and blown together in dunes or deposited in stream beds makes for excruciatinglyslow going. This is the stuff bad dreams are made of; the ones in which you are trying torun and you don’t get anywhere. Pedaling requires much more effort than walking, steeringthe bike requires the concentration of a Zen master, and pushing the bike requiresinfinitely more effort than complaining, in any case. But, whining mightily, we pressed onuntil the four-wheel-drive tracks exited the sandy streambed, and bike tire tracks wereseen leading off the across sloping slickrock walls of the wash.

Bartlett MesaAlternately pushing, riding, and carrying our bikes, we made ourway up to the salmon sandstone plateau of Bartlett Mesa. The area atop the mesa was asrewarding to ride as the sand trap had been frustrating. Additionally, we again crossedpaths with the Clemson riders, who were getting a workout on the mesa top. However, afternearly 25 miles on our bikes for the first time this season, riding across the jarringrocks was beginning to take its toll on our backsides. We were secretly relieved when theysaid they were headed back, and offered us a ride in their truck back to "wherever wewere parked."

We zoomed, bounced, and hopped our bikes along the last mile stretch of sloping pinkslickrock to their truck, taking advantage of any opportunity to challenge our bike tiresto remain stuck to the sandpapery surface. Joe was shocked at the angles he could ridewhile still keeping the bike under him. The Clemson trio delayed for a few minutes to workout on the rock gymnasium, so we thanked them for the offer of a ride and rode down thelast slope to the wash. But after riding all day, and within 50 feet of their truck, Imanaged to pinch the tube in my rear tire and earn a flat. I whipped the bike upside down,changed out the tube with my spare, and had the wheel back on the bike when our fellowriders arrived, but it was too late. We just had to accept their offer. Just couldn’tride the five miles back to the airport. We loaded up all the bikes and installedourselves in the bed of their truck, grateful all the while.

When we arrived at the airport, we jumped (stiffly) out and began to unload our bikes."Where y’all parked?" was certainly a reasonable question, but "…um,we flew" was the best we could do for an answer. "You flew yourselves down here?Cool!"

"If I’d known that I’d have made you ride back!" was the friendly rejoinderfrom our hosts. Once we’d cleared up our transportation arrangements, I recommended atavern to them in nearby Green River famous for its burgers, and we thanked them again forthe chance to avoid experiencing the last five miles seated on a bicycle.

Had we been inclined to ride more I would have stopped in Green River on the flightback and ridden the four miles into town for a burger at Ray’s, but the very thought of abicycle seat was more than enough to ruin my appetite. It’s a shame the Green Riverairport was moved outside of town; the east end of the former runway was about two blocksfrom the best hamburgers in central Utah.

A Little History

Rim CycleryWe had enjoyed ourselves entirelytoo much to worry about a missed burger, though, so we disassembled our bikes and loadedthem into the plane. I walked some of the stiffness out of my knees and seat (under thepretense of checking out the other aircraft on the ramp), and we preflighted for the tripback. While looking at the other planes I remembered that one of the founders of Moabbiking was at one time a corporate pilot. Bill Groff stayed behind in Moab after thedeparture of Atlas Minerals during the fading days of the uranium boom, and opened thetown’s first bike shop just before the local mountain bike craze. His Cessna 320 wasprofiled in AOPA Pilot magazine some years ago, and while he doesn’t fly now,Rim Cyclery still caters to visiting and localriders.

After departing early enough to fit the schedules of our patient wives, we graduallyclimbed over the desert landscape back to the ridges and valleys leading to Provo and SaltLake City. Haze and high, thin clouds had set in, but with a lock on the Fairfield VOR wenavigated directly toward the approach for Provo. After landing I taxied over near Joe’scar and we unloaded the bike frame and wheels. Though I’ve made several of these fly/biketrips, I am always amazed that good health (and a license) permits me to enjoy them as Ido, and since this is Joe’s first such adventure he no doubt feels the same way. Irechecked the remaining load, stowed the extra headset, and taxied off to complete thelast leg of the flight, basking in the glow of a day well spent.

Additional information available at http://www.airnav.com/cgi-bin/airport-info?CNY.

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