Bogley

[rockgremlin]

The Poison Spider Jeep Trail should never be attempted on bikes unless you have a boatload of food and water, and you REALLY enjoy getting off your bike and walking every 10 minutes.
Back in 1994, Chuck and I attempted the Poison Spider Jeep Trail on bikes from start to finish (about 15+ miles). And those are 15+ miles of the hairiest up and down extreme terrain you'll ever see. (It's actually rated a double black diamond jeep trail, and for good reason!) Well, we didn't know what we were in for. We thought it would only take us a half day maybe, and so we packed extremely light. One full waterbottle each, and a few packages of crackers. And away we went. On top of all this, it just happened to be the hottest day of the year so far that day - 113 degrees! Well, to make a long story short, we made it half-way until we had to quit from exhaustion and lack of water. The terrain is so rugged that we had to be continually getting off our bikes and walking. Finally we just ditched our bikes in some bushes, and set off on foot in the general direction of Moab. We eventually stumbled across some standing water that was being used by some cows in the area. Not having had anything to drink for over five hours in the extreme heat, we drank that crappy cow water. (I can't believe we didn't get giardia!) Well, we eventually found Moab - that is, we found ourselves perched on a cliff 800 feet up looking down at Moab. By this time, we were out of food, energy, and only had cow water to drink. It was around 8:00, and dusk was coming upon us fast. We were faced with a very real possibility of spending the night up there, which would have nearly killed us. Luckily, we stumbled across some guy in a forerunner up there alone. He said he was just getting ready to leave when we found him. He was the only other person besides us up there on that mesa at the time. He said that he had actually planned on going to Lake Powell that day, but for some reason changed plans that morning for no reason. We told us that we looked so haggard when we stumbled across him that he thought we were participating in some desert survival course gone bad.
To quote the popular country band Alabama..."I believe there are angels among us..."

[accadacca]

:scared: Wow! That sounds like a hech of a deal. :slobber: Glad to hear that you found someone.

Sombeech, myself and several others on this forum have been on that trail several times. Uhhh.......except we were riding in Jeeps. On one of the trails their "Sombeech" jacked his Jeep hard. The rear driveline broke right in the middle of the trail. :gloom:

He'll have to get on and explain the details in the 4X4 section. Man he had to get towed out of there by another Jeep. His Jeep only had front wheel drive and the Jeep towing him was a four cylinder. :kicknuts:

Needless to say there were a few choice words spewed on that one. :frustrated:

[Sombeech]

Holy Crap. Well, we didn't run into that many problems. It rained a little, and that's about it. Below are some photos of some "not so hard" sections.
I guess that's because you're too busy puckering up on the hard parts to take any photos.

[accadacca]

That was a good time! It’s a must to get down there at least once a year. Twice is ideal!

I am working on a friends e-commerce site. He sells Mt. Bike parts on ebay. He has been making some good change selling this stuff. I used him for parts when I was building my bike several years ago. 3-4 years later my bike is still better than most bikes coming out of the shops new. :guitar:

Anyway I think that I am going to trade my services for some Mt. Bike parts. I could use some updated front forks, perhaps some disk brakes, etc. His domain is www.majorsales.net. Right now we have it going to his ebay store until his site is complete. Check it out! :thumb:

We need to take a winter trip down to Moab. I remember us going down there a couple years ago during the winter. We had a great time and the weather was not a factor. Hmmm…I might be thinking about Gooseberry Mesa. Anyhow either would do. :cool: