Moab is the world’s mountain biking mecca, so it’s no surprise that we draw stares from people when rolling down Main Street with skis on the rack. Well, spring is the season to both mountain bike and ski in red rock country, so the full suspensions are on the rack as well. On this trip, the goal is to ride bikes, drink beer, rides bikes some more, drink more beer, ski in the La Sal Mountains, then drink more beer… in that order. On the docket, lots of singletrack and a corn snow descent of Haystack Mountain.
As soon as we arrive in town, we unload our bikes at the Klondike Bluffs trailhead. Word is that excellent new singletrack networks have sprung up thanks to the hard-working folks at Trail Mix, so we had to sample the goods for ourselves. This is not the Klondike Bluff of old. Dozens of newly cut trails from easy cruisers to expert rock fests abound. We start out on Inside Passage, climb Jurassic to Jasper, make our way to Dino Flow, then up to Nome where we clip in for a rocky, rolling descent down EKG linked with the downhill portion of Dino Flow. It’s a maze of fat-tire goodness that requires stopping at every intersection to check out the map.
After camping in the area and waking up to inclement weather that keeps us off the mountains, we drive to Amasa Back to ride another new trail, Hymasa and Captain Ahab. Hymasa is a new alternative to the old jeep trail mountain bikers use to have to climb, and it’s really nice. I find it’s much more fun to ascend a purpose-built mountain bike trail that flows rather than grunting up a 4×4 track. At the top, we link up with Captain Ahab, a technical descent that falls back down to Amasa above Kane Creek. It’s a massively fun ride with rock ramps, flowing corners and exposure that will make your palms sweat.
Sated by Moab’s newly-minted trails, we rally up to the Geyser Pass trailhead in the La Sal Mountains, take in a magnificent sunset, stay the night, and awake to a clear, bluebird day. It’s an easy skin on Geyser Pass Road until we leave it to break trail across mountain meadows to the base of Haystack Mountain. An ascent to the pass east of Haystack leads us to a quick bootpack up to the summit.
The views are unparalleled from the top of a La Sal Mountain summit. Haystack is no different. The red rock far below white covered peaks is a contrast found nowhere else in Utah. After lunch and enough view-gazing, we ski down edgeable crust on the north face, swing back up to the pass, then ski creamy corn and schmoo snow back to Geyser Pass Road where beers await at the truck.
Moab truly is the adventure capitol of Utah. Where else can you mountain bike among the red rock then ski the very next (or even the same) day on 12,000-foot mountains? It’s a boards, bikes and beers weekend if you travel to Moab to get it.