We are at the Peace Tree in Moab. It’s Saturday morning and we are procuring sustenance and coffee. Our heads are fuzzy from driving five hours to arrive at midnight. We had suspected that the crew would be entombed in their nylon shelters, but instead they were all up enjoying a blazing fire. I quickly joined them with my hobo cup in one hand and a bottle of bourbon in the other. And now I was absorbing caffeine as fast as possible to counteract that decision.
I have tried to be a fan of coffee shops for some time. In theory, they seem like pretty cool places to hang out and just when I’m getting into a groove where that may be true, I get hit with the coffee shop conversationalist and it makes me want to pour hot coffee all over myself so I don’t have to listen any longer. Saturday morning was a prime example of this sentiment. Sitting across from us, was this couple. 
They were normal enough, but the longer that guy talked the more I wanted to punch him in the throat. He thought very highly of himself and that girl never once stopped staring contently in his eyes. She was half the problem, never said a fucking word, just sat there stoking his ego and eating up every bull shit idea he spewed. If I hadn’t been so hungry, I wouldn’t have been able to finish my breakfast. But alas, I was starving and devoured that shit.
We were invited on this trip so we were kind of just going with the flow. The plan was to climb in the mornings and ride in the afternoon. KB and I finished breakfast and then hit the market to actually have something to eat for the rest of the trip. Our late arrival had meant that we had left in a hurry Friday leaving a few things unpacked. This included all of KB’s climbing gear.
We headed to Wall Street with the idea of saying hi, getting the plan for the day and then heading out for a quick ride while everyone else climbed. But once we were at the crack, attitudes changed and we got sucked into doing a few routes. It felt strange and familiar to be on the rock. The holds were crimpy and friction was the name of the game. Not exactly what we were accustomed to climbing.
The stoke was running high and morning quickly turned into afternoon and it was almost 2 when someone finally looked at the time and decided rubber tires and dirt were next on the bill. The night before, someone had mentioned doing a section of the Magnificent 7. This sounded good to me as I had never ridden the area and was open for some new trail.
We met everyone at the top of the Gemini Bridges road just off of the Dead Horse Point road. There seemed to be some confusion about the how’s and what’s of the ride, but once we got rolling everything sorted itself out. We headed down Bull’s Run. This trail was chunky on the rigid bike, but the elevation drop was fun and there were nice sweeping corners. With a little squish, I could see this trail being a lot of fun. I enjoyed it even while attempting to extract my molars via jarring motions. 
Once on the trail, the group finally looked at the map and realized we could do a nice loop if we just rode down Bull’s Run and then found our way to the Getaway which would loop us back up to the trailhead. We headed down. My memory of the trail is a bit shady as I attempted to destroy my liver that night, but somewhere between the bottom of Bull’s Run and the turnoff for Getaway was the trail head for the hike to Gemini Bridges. Most of the group had not been there, except one of the Jasons. I say one, because there were three. I eventually just started calling everyone Jason.
The bridges are pretty awesome. You walk out on some sandstone and then there is a hole and you realize you are standing on top of an arch. Pretty fucking cool.
KB was a little scared of the edge. You can see that she was crawling a good ways away from the edge. In her defense, it was a little unnerving to walk up to a giant hole and realize that you were actually on a sandstone bridge. And then take the time to walk around it and realize how thin the shelf was that you were standing on. Of course, stories of jumping across the hole were shared followed by the fact that “a boy scout had not made it.”
We made it back to our bikes and continued on our way finding the Getaway trail. At this point there was an opportunity for some extra mileage on Art’s Corner. There were some other riders standing at the junction who informed us that it would only add a few miles. Four of us were up for it, everyone else wanted to head home. We split into two groups. At this point, the group dynamic changed drastically and those of us who had continued made good time. Stopping only a couple of times. Soon we had ridden the trail and were headed back up to the junction.
My favorite part of this ride was the next section. Getaway is a well-built climb. You know that you are going uphill but it’s just a nice spin, even on the single speed. The only bummer was throwing my chain once. In between, the lower flowy section and the road, was a bit of rock that made things interesting and added some texture to the ride. The trail dropped us just over a mile from where our cars were parked. It was still a good jaunt up to get there. I was ready for some beer so I stomped on the pedals and made my way to the top. I was surprised to see the rest of our group still mulling around the trailhead, but not as surprised as they were to see us.
The original day’s plan had called for a group dinner, but with 20+ people and every restaurant not taking reservations we split up and found food on our own. KB and I mostly ate the salad that we had purchased for lunch and traded some Moab Brewery beer for a fire grilled cheese sandwich, that she ate.
At this point, everything gets pretty blurry. But I assure you that at one point I couldn’t get in my sleeping bag because I thought the drawstring was the zipper. Upon giving up, I just sat there and rocked until KB had pity on me and opened it so I could crawl in. All of which I have no recollection.
P. L. and R.
