Moab

Over the weekend I had an opportunity to join a few friends on a camping trip in Moab. Car camping in the Utah desert always brings a flush of happy nostalgia for a segment of my life when I lived on almost nothing with nine other 20-somethings in Salt Lake City's Avenues, commuted to the hinterlands of Tooele to work 50-some hours a week, and when Friday night rolled around, we escaped to the redrocks. Every weekend. Even if it was January and the San Rafael Swell was coated in a half foot of snow, for backpacking trips that required crossing waist-deep rivers choked with chunks of ice, and my $40 Coleman sleeping bag didn't quite cut the chill, and expired Power Bars from Market Square turned out to be a bad idea, and all of my Nalgene bottles froze solid. 

Most of those trips ventured to quieter corners of the Colorado Plateau, so my experiences in and around Moab feel more limited. There was a time when I thought myself too desert-sophisticated for the tourists and mountain bike bros and sand-dyed T-shirts. Still, there's an air around this former uranium-mining town that feels like coming home. 

The occasion was an engagement of two members of my local running group, the Boulder Banditos. Since the gathering was a whole bunch of trail runners, I assumed the activities would involve running, and packed accordingly. As it turned out, nearly everybody had a bike and riding plans. However, even if I had known, I likely still wouldn't have brought my bike. In the same way I used to wrongly think of myself as a desert-wilderness-sophisticate, I also used identify as a mountain biker. Now I realize that I am a balance-challenged and adrenaline-averse bike tourist who prefers long, open tracks regardless of width, and actually doesn't enjoy jackhammering over miles of rocks. Of course, I still jackhammer over miles of rocks, as long as the ride is long and meandering and goes to interesting places. Which Moab trails do ... although really, it's nearly as efficient and much more relaxing to go on foot.

Had I known the group had no running plans, I would have put together my own, better routes. Instead, Wendy, Jorge and I found ourselves agreeing to run the shuttle for Porcupine Rim on Saturday — we'd park a truck at the river and plod 15 miles uphill while others in the group rode bikes downhill. I've never run or ridden Porcupine Rim before, and didn't quite conceptualize the barrage of oncoming bikes we'd be dealing with. I now believe this is not an appropriate route for a run, at least during an autumn weekend. However, moving against traffic is ideal in this setting, and I think we managed it well — we always veered out of the way so no one had to slow or stop for us. All of the bikers were polite.

The weather was warm and very windy — we shuffled and hiked into a 30mph sand blast for most of the climb. Wendy and I weren't in great shape — I'm currently in a down phase of the infuriating physical rollercoaster I'm riding these days, and Wendy was ill from what was later diagnosed as a kidney infection. So we plodded along with Scout the Border Collie on a leash while Jorge ran back and forth like a loose puppy. Despite gray skies, the scenery was beautiful and I was happy to be hiking, which is peaceful, undemanding and affords lots of time to look around. Despite giving them more than an hour head start and hiking uphill versus riding downhill, we were nearly halfway through the route when we crossed paths with our group. They're not regular mountain bikers, and seemed stressed by the technical nature of the trail. Later, Steve crashed over a 10-foot ledge, smashed his helmet, dented his bike frame, bruised his hip and broke several ribs. Mountain biking ... eh.

We camped close to the Slickrock Trail, so on Sunday I suggested a plod around the iconic loop. Sure, it's another popular spot, but the terrain is open enough to easily avoid cyclists. I also figured it would be less crowded on a Sunday afternoon, and that we'd see almost no one beyond the stem of the lollipop (both true.) Here are the non-bikers shuffling on Sand Flats Road. Look how happy we are!

The Slickrock Trail was my first-ever mountain bike ride, with my boyfriend in 1999. I was 19, so I followed him blindly around each terrifying curve and crashed my hard-tail rental bike many times. So many times. The crashes usually happened after I slammed into a patch of sand at the bottom of a steep descent —flying over the handlebars, ripping my jeans, mopping up a steady stream of blood from my shins and elbows. Look, I found a photo:

My First Mountain Bike Ride, Slickrock Trail, April 1999. I'm fairly certain this was taken as Mike yelled "Go for it!," seconds before one of my many sand-eating dives.

Oh, to be 19, unbreakable and fearless again. That original experience was harrowing enough, though, that I came home from Moab and renounced mountain biking forever. It took me three more years to get back on any bike, and I remember ride number two as the Jem Trail near Hurricane, on a borrowed 1986 steel Cannondale. Shortly after that I rode the White Rim over three days on the same ancient bike. These experiences were enjoyable, however, they were not special enough to embed themselves in my soul. It took seeing a guy on a skinny-tire bike with panniers in Spanish Fork Canyon ("people ride bikes long distances? With camping gear?") to spur me to go out and purchase my own set of wheels — a flat-bar road touring bike. I've always been a bike tourist at heart.

And the Slickrock Trail, well, I haven't been back since 1999. It was surprising to realize how many specifics I could still recall after 18 years. As usual, more intense experiences embed themselves in memory, while comfortable moments fade away. If that's true, memories of this outing will probably soon fade. But it was everything I needed. I loped along at an easy pace, blissed out on vistas, entirely content.

I wish I was in better shape, because this is a really fun running trail —custom-designed to encourage playful skipping and bursts of sprinting. I became overly winded a couple of times and backed off to mostly walking.

Toward the end we veered off trail to blaze a more direct route back to our camp site. Traveling cross-country in the Utah desert is the most fun. That is, until you reach the dead-end of a wash or the ledge of a sheer canyon. This is nearly always the case, but didn't happen to us here.

Back at camp, we burned steak burrito fixings and marshmallows over the fire, and mused about the state of the world. Some things never change. The much-too-early sunset arrived, so I strolled up to a sandstone fin to watch the light fade.

Looking toward the La Sal Mountains.

Every time I return Utah desert, I wonder why I don't spend more time here. A hundred weekends from age 5 to 25, and the trickle since, still seems like not enough. Like Alaska and California and everywhere since, these places are inextricably embedded in who I am.