Day 15- Moab Sovereign and Fruita Kessler Trails

I woke up early and very cold so packed and hit the rest of my scenic route. Yes it was a long slow drive but boy was it scenic (as you can see from the video. Eventually though I started dropping off at the wheel. So arriving at Moab just in time to wake me up was good news!

I took the dirt road up to the Sovereign trail- this one was not even on the map last time I was here (3 years ago). I nearly got the car stuck on the 4WD road but stopped and pedalled to the trailhead.

The trail was lots of slickrock ledges and even more interesting than the slickrock trail. Following the blue arrows and up some huge switchback climb with real exposed drops that you must not put a wheel/foot/pedal wrong on!

At 6.4 miles the trail turned around and headed generally down and back- so it was great fun skipping over the slickrock ledges and being oh so gentle on the brakes down the exposed loose switchback descent that was marked with a Red diamond and the words “Extremely Difficult” (not just a black diamond trail then!

Before I knew it I was back in the car and refreshed on the road to Fruita. There I shopped for some dinner then did a tourist bit around Dinosaur Hill. Where in 1901 a Guy called Elmer Rigg discovered a full dinosaur skeleton Apatosaurus that is now exhibited in Chicago Field Museum!

I even saw a rock with a mould of a Diplodocus femur.  (see pic below- that dark rock dent)

Amazing to be walking where Dinosaurs once roamed!

I headed out to Book Cliffs to camp and it was such a great evening and my legs were still fresh so I took a fantastic fast run down the swoopy Kessler run singletrack- wow I love that trail so so fast and constantly throwing your bike from one side to the other. It took 10 mins down and 30 mins to climb back up Prime Cut to my tent.

Tonight I built my last campfire and stood where some bikers had clearly built a ramp to ride and jump over the fire. Once the sun had set and fire died out I retired to my tent – it was so hot- no sleeping bag needed tonight.