Our Deacons and Teachers planned their summer camp in the La Sal Mountains south east of Moab Utah. One of their activities was to mountain bike a trail called The Whole Enchilada. They planned to ride half of it from Burrow Pass to Negro Bill Canyon on the Colorado River.
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| Burrow Pass lower right hand corner, Warner lake in middle and round circle is where I was to meet the group on their bikes |
The Ride sounded interesting so I asked my Priests if any of them were interested in tackling the ride. I had 4 members of the quorum say they were interested and able to go.
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| Ready to Role: L-R; Sam Andrus, Michael Memmott, Bryson Henrickson, Josiah Kleven, Brighton Grow, Henry Andrus, Lucasa Eliason, Henry Windsor, Henry's cousin, Boyd Memmott, Stephen Bons |
Monday afternoon the 4 young men and I loaded up the car and headed for Moab arriving around 5:30, just in time for Sam Andrus' excellent quesadillas.
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| Lined up for a great dinner |
It was a beautiful evening for camping until about 3 am when it started to thunder and lightening and then rain. I was sleeping in my car and it was pretty noisy. We had to be up at 6 am to get to the trailhead early so we packed up our wet gear, ate breakfast, and were on the way.
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| Priests in my tent, Haven Ruiz, Max Rammel, Zach Eliason |
We were able to drive to within about 2 miles of Burrow Pass where the group lined up for a photo. I helped get everyone there then drove back down the mountain to the point where Hazard County trail meets the Kokopelli trail.
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| L-R: Josiah Kleven, Bryson Henrickson, Brighton Grow, Douglas Kleven, Michael Memmott, Jack Windsor, Henry Andrus, Henry Windsor, Zach Eliason, Lucas Eliason, Windsor Cousin, Sam Andrus, Max Rammell, Stephen Bons, and Haven Ruiz |
I arrived at the trail junction around 9 am and settled in to wait for the bikers. I figured it would take them a couple of hours at most.
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| View from the Kokopelli trail head towards the Colorado River |
About 11 am I noticed that there was thunder and lightning on the mountain where they had started the ride. I also started to get chatter on the waki-taki that we were carrying. I could not make out what they were saying and we kept communicating for about 30 minutes when the radio went silent.
While I was waiting for the bikers I saw lots of cows and a herd of horses and then around noon I looked up from my book and a black bear came out of the brush and walked into the middle of the road and looked at me. I got up to get my camera but when I turned around to snap the photo the bear took off back into the brush. I saw it but have no proof. (The LaSal mountains are where Susie's brother Bert did his Black Bear Research when he was a graduate student at the Y).
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| The trail head at Burrow Pass |
I finally decided that they must have gone down a different trail. I tried calling them as I had phone signal but could never get a response. Around 1 pm I headed down to the trail finish just as it started to rain and hail. When I arrived in Moab around 2 pm I had a phone message from Sam Andrus that it had taken them about 3 hours to make it back to camp and that they had gotten caught in the rain and hail and had called it a day.
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| A little too wet for biking |
I filled their coolers with water and ice, got some gas, and headed back to camp. I was greeted by some cold priests. I had all their gear including jackets so they had to sit out the storm inside the cinder block out house. It was warm but uncomfortable. We loaded up and headed home after having dinner at the Moab Diner. We'll chalk this one up to experience.
