Moab Ut Day 3 Poision Spider, Golden Spike, Gold Bar 10-28-06
Ok, on to day 3 of our excellent adventure. We saved the best for last for this day's ride. The trails we will be on today will be much harder as well as a blast. We are starting on a trail called Poison Spider followed by Golden Spike and then Gold Bar. The mileage is not that far but it took all day with stops for the spectacular views and photos.
The Outlaws for today's fun adventure are (visco-daddy) Roy, Greg, Done Daddy, Montana Jim, Jeff Henson, and me (azquadrider) along with our new rookies Mark from Salt Lake City, Monte from Price Ut, and Roy's friend Mike from Colorado.
Poison Spider had some fun steep obstacles that will keep your full and undivided attention to say the least. There is one nasty rut that you have to straddle by putting one wheel on the side wall that will test your tires. Well you guessed it Roy decided to lean his on the side ( not a roll over). It made for a great photo because he still had his feet on the running boards and was smiling.
Right after Poison Spider the trail goes into Golden Spike. There is a Monster hill at the start of the trail that leads to the top which is Golden Spike. Just as Jeff and I were about to go up the hill 4 pedal bikes came out of nowhere and were traversing back and forth across the face of the hill to the top. They made it with ease. The view from the top is amazing. We watched the bikes ride down before we made our decent. The down hill part is quite intimidating because it is so steep. This is a place where you want the best engine braking possible. In fact the hill looks like it goes in at one point it is so steep. The only quad that had any trouble was the new Honda 700 Rincon EFI. For some reason it had been having trouble on the downhill side the whole trip. The engine braking is nonexistent. Even with the quad in ESP 1st it was hard to handle. Jeff had a challenge on his hands keeping the Honda straight. The brakes kept locking up. It looked a little scary. This is one area that the Can-Am 500 EFI did a great job. Can-Am has one of the best engine breaking systems found on any quad. My Polaris 500 and Jim's 800 are a bit weak on engine braking as the only have rear wheel braking but once you are used to it is ok just not as good as it should be.
After coming down the hill is where the trail gets more fun. There are tons of ledges both up and down. I think the rookies were now understanding what we said at the start of the trail "We are now getting off of the interstate" It is a blast to watch the new riders as we would come to one ledge after another. They were like Roy last spring saying "Oh Crap, how are we going to do that"
We stopped for lunch at one of the overlooks along the trail. You are right on the edge of a cliff overlooking Moab, Arches National Park and the Colorado river with the LaSalle Mountains in the background. It just doesn't get any better than this. Soon after our break was our only mishap. Mike on a Grizzly took a wrong line down one of the many drop off's and rolled. Jeff saved Mike from almost certainly being hurt as he wrestled the grizzly as it was going over just long enough for Mike to crawl out of the way. Jeff had a scratch on his face arm and leg, but he out fought the Grizzly on this day.
From here we continue through tons of obstacles until we came to the Golden Crack. The Crack is a natural crack in the rock approx. 3' across. You have to ease down into the crack on an angle because it is to steep to go in straight. As your front wheels hit the other side and are flattened out you have to slowly climb up until your rear drops in the hole. We use a rope on the front and spotters the help climb out of the Crack. What fun. Jim said the look on Mark's face when his rear wheels fell in the crack was Priceless.
After we all made it through the Crack we watched a few Jeeps go through as well as 2 motorcycles. The 2nd single track that jumped the Crack hit hard on his frame but made it ok. The other 2 riders that were with them decided to walk theirs across. That would have been a good move for the next single track rider as he was flying (40+) and when he jumped he bottomed out, hit the gas and went cart wheeling across the rock face. His girlfriend had just went through the Crack in a Jrrp and punched it to get to him. I was right behind her. As I bent down she had a hold of his arm and blood was poring out of his fore arm area. As we cut his shirt away you could see 2 puncture wounds, probably where the bone came through. I ran to my quad and got my first aid kit. The girlfriend, Monte and Greg did most of the hard work but everyone pitched in to help. After getting the bleeding to stop she drove the Jeep back across the Crack and Monte and I helped the injured man walk across the other side and laid him down. He was as white as a ghost for good reason. The group loaded up his bike in the back of the jeep secured it and loaded him in for the hard ride out. They went back the same way they came in because it was the shortest way back. It must have been a painful ride because there are tons of rock crawls and ledges. She must have hauled because we never saw them on our way out.
Lots more scenery and tough stuff on the way out. As we came out the last couple of miles of the trail along a ridge near the highway it was starting to get dark. We had put a couple of trucks at the end of the trail so we had to go pick up the other vehicles, come back and load up.
Everyone had a blast. There is no better place to really test any 4x4 quad in the country. Make sure you put this place on you to do list. There are trails from easy to OMG!!! Last spring we did 2 OMG trails. We will have to find some more next time.
Read MoreThe Outlaws for today's fun adventure are (visco-daddy) Roy, Greg, Done Daddy, Montana Jim, Jeff Henson, and me (azquadrider) along with our new rookies Mark from Salt Lake City, Monte from Price Ut, and Roy's friend Mike from Colorado.
Poison Spider had some fun steep obstacles that will keep your full and undivided attention to say the least. There is one nasty rut that you have to straddle by putting one wheel on the side wall that will test your tires. Well you guessed it Roy decided to lean his on the side ( not a roll over). It made for a great photo because he still had his feet on the running boards and was smiling.
Right after Poison Spider the trail goes into Golden Spike. There is a Monster hill at the start of the trail that leads to the top which is Golden Spike. Just as Jeff and I were about to go up the hill 4 pedal bikes came out of nowhere and were traversing back and forth across the face of the hill to the top. They made it with ease. The view from the top is amazing. We watched the bikes ride down before we made our decent. The down hill part is quite intimidating because it is so steep. This is a place where you want the best engine braking possible. In fact the hill looks like it goes in at one point it is so steep. The only quad that had any trouble was the new Honda 700 Rincon EFI. For some reason it had been having trouble on the downhill side the whole trip. The engine braking is nonexistent. Even with the quad in ESP 1st it was hard to handle. Jeff had a challenge on his hands keeping the Honda straight. The brakes kept locking up. It looked a little scary. This is one area that the Can-Am 500 EFI did a great job. Can-Am has one of the best engine breaking systems found on any quad. My Polaris 500 and Jim's 800 are a bit weak on engine braking as the only have rear wheel braking but once you are used to it is ok just not as good as it should be.
After coming down the hill is where the trail gets more fun. There are tons of ledges both up and down. I think the rookies were now understanding what we said at the start of the trail "We are now getting off of the interstate" It is a blast to watch the new riders as we would come to one ledge after another. They were like Roy last spring saying "Oh Crap, how are we going to do that"
We stopped for lunch at one of the overlooks along the trail. You are right on the edge of a cliff overlooking Moab, Arches National Park and the Colorado river with the LaSalle Mountains in the background. It just doesn't get any better than this. Soon after our break was our only mishap. Mike on a Grizzly took a wrong line down one of the many drop off's and rolled. Jeff saved Mike from almost certainly being hurt as he wrestled the grizzly as it was going over just long enough for Mike to crawl out of the way. Jeff had a scratch on his face arm and leg, but he out fought the Grizzly on this day.
From here we continue through tons of obstacles until we came to the Golden Crack. The Crack is a natural crack in the rock approx. 3' across. You have to ease down into the crack on an angle because it is to steep to go in straight. As your front wheels hit the other side and are flattened out you have to slowly climb up until your rear drops in the hole. We use a rope on the front and spotters the help climb out of the Crack. What fun. Jim said the look on Mark's face when his rear wheels fell in the crack was Priceless.
After we all made it through the Crack we watched a few Jeeps go through as well as 2 motorcycles. The 2nd single track that jumped the Crack hit hard on his frame but made it ok. The other 2 riders that were with them decided to walk theirs across. That would have been a good move for the next single track rider as he was flying (40+) and when he jumped he bottomed out, hit the gas and went cart wheeling across the rock face. His girlfriend had just went through the Crack in a Jrrp and punched it to get to him. I was right behind her. As I bent down she had a hold of his arm and blood was poring out of his fore arm area. As we cut his shirt away you could see 2 puncture wounds, probably where the bone came through. I ran to my quad and got my first aid kit. The girlfriend, Monte and Greg did most of the hard work but everyone pitched in to help. After getting the bleeding to stop she drove the Jeep back across the Crack and Monte and I helped the injured man walk across the other side and laid him down. He was as white as a ghost for good reason. The group loaded up his bike in the back of the jeep secured it and loaded him in for the hard ride out. They went back the same way they came in because it was the shortest way back. It must have been a painful ride because there are tons of rock crawls and ledges. She must have hauled because we never saw them on our way out.
Lots more scenery and tough stuff on the way out. As we came out the last couple of miles of the trail along a ridge near the highway it was starting to get dark. We had put a couple of trucks at the end of the trail so we had to go pick up the other vehicles, come back and load up.
Everyone had a blast. There is no better place to really test any 4x4 quad in the country. Make sure you put this place on you to do list. There are trails from easy to OMG!!! Last spring we did 2 OMG trails. We will have to find some more next time.
