Cutting it Close: Fruita, CO

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted here. A lot’s been going on, just nothing post worthy. Recently my weekends in Colorado became numbered (I’ll explain in another post), so I decided to head up to Fruita for some mountain biking. I meant to take some pictures, but it’s difficult to adequately capture the beauty of the desert with a camera. My desert pictures always seem dull. Fruita is only a few hours from Moab, but the trails are quite different and more varied. In general, Fruita trails are less technical, which means more riding and less walking. I like that.

My first stop was the Kokopelli Trail System. These trails have some pretty technical spots, especially when you ride them in the wrong direction like Lucy and I did right off the bat. After a good look at a map, we found a much easier trail. By the time we finished, we’d been riding for nearly three hours, and Lucy was getting pretty tired. I dropped her off at the truck, grabbed a snack, and headed back out for what was supposed to be a relatively easy fifteen mile loop: Mary’s Trail to Troy Built to the frontage road back to the trailhead.

Somewhere around mile eight I came to a fork in the trail and a sign with words too faded to read. There are many trails cutting off to the right from Mary’s Trail, so I went straight thinking Troy Built was a few miles further. After three or four miles, I hit a dead end in a cattle range. By this time, there was just over an hour till sunset. I hightailed it back to the fork, and upon closer inspection of the sign, I could just barely infer that the direction I had gone was private land. I’m not sure why the sign had an arrow pointing that direction, since no one should be going that way. I continued on in the other direction, eventually reaching a sign that only had arrows for Lion’s Loop and Mack Ridge written in permanent marker with no reference to Mary’s Trail or Troy Built. I remembered Mack Ridge from the map and knew it went in the direction I wanted to go but was more difficult and might take a while. I decided to go for it anyways to avoid getting lost again.

Mack Ridge ended up being my favorite trail in that system. It was technical but fairly fast. I got back to the frontage road just after sunset and back to my truck with about six hours of riding for the day. That’s a lot of riding even when you’re pacing for it, which I was not. I usually carry a light if my chosen route is long or not yet determined, but that day I didn’t since fifteen miles on a heavily used trail system shouldn’t be that difficult. I think I’ll start carrying one anytime I’m somewhere new, regardless of route difficulty.

As is now customary, I went to the local brewery, Suds Bros., for a killer hamburger and some craft beer. I slept for nearly twelve hours at my campsite just out of town. The next I day I hit the North Fruita Desert for some smooth flow trails that were much better marked. I rode there for another five hours before heading back home, exhausted.