This little gem has been on my bucket list for about 20 years. I wanted to ride it on my XR650L but the fuel tank was too small. Now that I ride the All-new for 2017 Huskie Adventure-450 I had a chance at it

I met Stevan about 55-miles into my ride. He had come from the west and already done the hard 2/3-rds of the trail when his WR250 died. I towed him a couple miles to the Gooseberry campground where he was able to make cell phone calls. After I rode west Stevan said, “thanks for the tow Mike……..a good Samaritan couple found me at Gooseberry and hauled me out of canyonlands in the back of their van……8 hour ride sitting on a cooler holding up the WR”

While I was eating a snack at this cross-roads a guy walked down from Island in the Sky. He said it was very steep!

Back in the mining days there was an airport here. No plane on Sundays

The western section of White Rim Trail is a lot more challenging than the east parts. I really liked the section from Potato Bottom to Mineral Bottom/ Creek. Only one steep hill with shin deep poof-sand so I’m good

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I’ve been hearing fun things about the Western Rim Trail in Utah so I went and rode it

After I finished it I discovered I rode it in the hard direction. It’s easy if you start on the south west end and ride it toward Rabbit Valley. All the steep loose hills are descents instead of climbs. This would be more fun on a bike, and a lot more fun on an ebike. Now you know

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The temperature climbed back up in the 100’s so I took a drive to the high country. I took the frost-heave highway (US 50) to Delta then 92 toward Hotchkis, Crawford, Paonia, Somerset, Redstone, and back thru Glenwood and I-70 west

Crawford was still asleep when I got there. It looks like a nice little town right at the edge of where the desert turns to green forest. Further south it looked like a delightful forest road with hay fields dotting the landscape. I went north via the Crawford Rd to Paonia. The road to Paonia drops out of the green and into the brown/ grey desert. It looks like it has never rained out there. Ever

Paonia was also a bit sleepy-faced. The grocery store is a decent size, but there is no sign out front saying “Grocery Store”. They also don’t do face coverings in Paonia (Written Sept 2020 – pandemic days). Real estate is spendy and there seemed to be a few rich-folk about

I took hwy 133 over McClure Pass and traveled thru Somerset along the way. Coal mining town gone bust from the look of it. The further I went toward Carbondale the more I saw expensive new SUV’s flying down the pavement. Ah, the smell of money in the fall, mmmmm

At the bottom of the pass sits Redstone. It was a company town for the coke ovens (the meth labs were in Marble on the Crystal River, hence crystal-meth). Seems coke was a thing besides a drink and a drug

“These ovens comprise part of the Redstone Coke Ovens Historic District, where men at the turn of the century [19th to 20th] “coked” some of the country’s finest metallurgical coal, turning the coal into coke, or pure carbon. Brought by narrow gage railroad from the mines above Redstone at Coalbasin, the coal was loaded into the top of the 249 beehive shaped ovens. Redstone cokers cooked the coal for two days then shipped it to Colorado Fuel and Iron in Pueblo, CO, the biggest steel mill west of the Mississippi. There the Redstone coke, limestone, and iron ore were dumped into blast furnaces to create steel, which made the locomotives, steel rails, and barbed wire that settled the American West.”
These coke ovens were used between 1900 and 1909, then again from 1959 to 1961

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I spent last fall testing out routes between Fruita and Moab and I worked out several of them. Some are dirt-bike friendly. Others are big twin-friendly. Yesterday the temperature dropped from the 100’s down to the low 80’s so Zoom! off I went on the Huskie Adventure-450

I rode old highway 6 & 50 from Fruita out to Sulfur, UT then jumped on a dirt road which turned into a gas-line road and took that to the Cisco / Agate road. South to Agate past the dead cow then west to the Cisco Pump House Road on the Kokopelli. From there south to the Kokopelli trail, west to the first fork (turn right) and over the easy-way to UT 128 (easy on a dirt-bike – not for big twins)

Down 128 a mile or two then west again on the Kokopelli Trail / Owl Creek Road to Dewey Bridge. It was getting late and the Huskie Adventure-450 was low on fuel (I didn’t fill up before leaving Fruita) so I rode the wyndy blacktop to Moab, gassed up and rode UT 128 to Danish Flat and hopped on the super-slab east to Mack then 6 & 50 to the house. 189 miles round trip, 6.5 hours

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The Sun, half as bright as a car’s turn signal and just as amber-colored, is about an hour and a half from setting. It’s dark enough for automatic headlights to come on

The power of the Sun so muted by the smoke the temperature has dropped from 95* to 85*F in less than an hour

White flakes drift gently down like snow on a windless February day; ash from the Pine Creek fire

We are hoping for rain in September

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So there are a few fires burning in Colorado this week. One is snowing ash on everything in Fruita, and the other has the interstate closed so all my online orders are delayed a few days

So now we’re wearing an ash mask on top of our Covid mask to stay safe. The good news is we only have to put up with this until the rainy season which maybe starts in October????? So only two months or so away

Since it’s getting into the 100’s in Fruita again I headed up to Grand Mesa for coolness and adventure

I started my day in Collbran then went North and East from there

I rode a loamy little two-track ATV trail up to the boundary between the Grand Mesa and White River forests

I didn’t see but one person and a half-dozen cows the whole day. It looked as though the trails had not been used by ATV’s for awhile. Only cow and horse feet prints marked the soft earth

Where it’s nice and cool, Mmmmmmm

There is an old historic cow camp up on the Mesa which has been preserved for our enjoyment. It was likely tough work in the day, but now we drive to it in air-conditioned rental cars so it’s no big deal

The inside of the upper cabin is quite nice. It smells a little dusty; nothing some sweeping and new curtains couldn’t fix

Further west on FR 100 I came to Lands-end. It’s where the Mesa turns to a cliff and falls into the Grand Valley. Super great views and decent cell phone service. The local wildlife has figured out that humans are a source of food. They put on quite a show for a meal 🙂 so squee!