| Telluride to Moab: San Juan Hut System: 215 Miles Trip Report |
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| Telluride to Moab: San Juan Hut System: 215 Miles   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Colorado/Utah, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 32.84000°N / 113.91°W Date Ridden: Aug 27, 2003 Activities: Mountain Season: Summer | Page By: bulamonster Created/Edited: Oct 24, 2007 / Oct 25, 2007 Object ID: 263080 Hits: 2841 Loading... Page Score: 88.95% - 13 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Day 1 I'm posting this because when I did this trip there wasn't much online about what to expect. In summary, this is a 7 day mountain biking trip from Telluride to Moab on fire roads and single track. Total ascent is 16,300 feet and total descent is 21,050 feet. For the most part, the first 3 or 4 days you're riding at around 10,000 feet. The remaining days, you're riding around 7,000 feet. It's 215 spectacular miles. We started our trip on Wednesday, August 27th in 2003. Day 1 was pretty brutal because you go from ~8500 feet in Telluride up to 11,000 feet at the first hut in about 14 miles. The scenery is spectacular though, and it makes it worth the trip. Since we were doing this during the monsoon season, we left as early as we could each day to avoid the afternoon storms; however, day 1 we got rained on. The last part of this day's ride is a hike-a-bike up the last few hundred feet to the hut. The huts were stocked with canned goods, pb 'n j, bread, and sometimes even fresh veggies. The first hut had the best facilities, but I'm sure the other ones have improved since then. Click here for a video of the hut and some great banjo music played by fellow rider, Alan, in the background.Day 2 There were two options to take on this day. One option is longer than the other and our group elected to take the longer one; however I would not recommend it if there has been or it looks like there will be rain. When wet, the terrain for the longer route becomes clay mud. Although the day started out with sun and warm weather, we had a hell of a time after a huge T-storm started. We crouched in a field away from the bikes and things were ok, but as the rain and hail came, so did the mud. We ended up carrying our bikes to a slightly wooded area after the thunder and lightning stopped and set up a tarp to wait out the weather. We were thankful to find a small pond further down the road because the mud/clay that was stuck on our bikes was horrendous. We used trash bags to carry water from the pond to the bikes and tried to rinse off the mud, but it wasn’t moving. We used sticks and other things we could find to get the stuff off the bikes. It truly was an adventure. The temps dropped significantly and we needed to keep moving to keep warm. As the day progressed, the clouds cleared and it was again a beautiful day.Day 3 Day three started out as another great day and of course we got rained and hailed on. Most of the riding on this hut system is easily doable in the day that you have to do it. The key is to start early and finish the day’s riding before the storms. Once you’re acclimatized, it’s challenging, but not insurmountable. Day three mileage is up there at 34 miles for the day, but the overall elevation gain isn’t bad at about 2000 feet. We ended up at another hut that was well stocked. Even had a couple of lukewarm beers left over from the people the day before. The people who maintain the hut system sometimes put small surprises at the huts for the riders, things like fresh veggies and cold beverages (since there is no electricity there’s no ice, etc…). This day’s ride was overall tough due to weather but otherwise manageable.Day 4 Day four was interesting because most of us were up quite early (if not all night) as the thunderstorms never stopped at night. It was constant thunder and lightning. This was also a bit inconvenient because we were riding the famous “firecracker alley,” a ridge so named due to the number lightning strikes on the ridge. Their guidelines put it best “There are miles and miles of extreme exposure to lightning along this day’s journey. As you ride along, the exposed, spiny nature of the ridgeline you are pedaling across will be very apparent.” Thankfully, we did not have that problem. Although it was raining quite a bit that morning and there was thunder in the distance, we never had to stop due to the weather. In fact, we had sunny blue skies along the ridge described above. Although this is the second longest distance on the trip, we ended at the lowest altitude thus far on the trip, and it was nice. Day 4 did bring some of us to our wits end just due to all the riding/“surviving” out there and possibly because several of our group took a wrong turn leaving the hut and had to bike an additional 3 miles because of this mistake, but we kept moving on. We ended up at a hut that is situated on a ranch, apparently a friend of the San Juan Hut System owner. The ranch owner was preparing for a huge party the following night, and although we wouldn’t be there for it, it was good to see other people after all this time.
Day 5 Day five took us down into John Brown Canyon. But before our descent, there was a single-track option on this day, which we took, and it was very doable even with all our gear including panniers. The single track was technical in some areas, but overall very enjoyable. After the single track rejoined the fire road, the descent into the canyon was breathtaking in more ways than one. First, it’s very steep. We stopped regularly to ensure our breaking systems remained intact and to be sure that we didn’t gain too much speed. Second, it’s beautiful and quite distracting because it’s beautiful. As you leave the somewhat lush areas up at higher elevations, you drop down into the orange and pink sparsely treed canyon. The hut at this stop was fantastic and the lower altitude certainly made us feel very much alive. There was even a rooster to greet us. Little did we know that this rooster would be our wakeup call in the very early morning the next day to help us start our day and get us motivated to bike out of the canyon.Day 6 Day six began with the rooster. It was far too early to be getting up, but the rooster was planted under the hut and was on queue to awaken us at the crack of dawn. Given the heat that we would later encounter, the rooster had the right idea. It was a brutal climb out of the canyon. Several (I assume) local vehicles pass by asking if you want a lift up the canyon, but we didn’t take them up on it. It was a series of biking and walking up the steep roads with many things along the way to be distracted by like abandoned vehicles that had fallen off the road, industrious squirrels, and the beautiful scenery. As we reached the top of the steep climb we noticed that wet weather wasn’t a problem on this day—dry, hot weather was though. If I recall correctly, the grade on this road at times was 25%, and the ascent was 4000 feet. When we reached the hut on this day, it was another well-stocked hut and we were happy to be there.Day 7 Day seven is still a blur. The total descent is 6200 feet and there is another 2000 feet of ascent mixed in there. It was a varied ride as far as landscape goes, and the riding was great. It is during this day that you will encounter the location of pictures taken of riders on a steep outcropping of earth, and it looks like they’re about to fall to their deaths. We took those photos too: click here. It is really simply beautiful country. We ended up in Moab after a wonderful adventure. It was strange to be back in civilization after all this time, and it was well worth the trip. For more information click here. Images |
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