One of our favorite places to plant the Dispersed van is Moab, Utah. It’s hard to wait for winter to end and spring to emerge before we head toward the mountain bike mecca and surrounding canyonlands.
The amazing riding and endless outdoor opportunities are no secret, and we often find friends to adventure with whenever we’re in Moab.
Recently, our friend Lindsay came to Moab for a few days of riding. She’s training for Pinyons and Pines, a bikepacking race in Flagstaff that we’ve done a few times.
Lindsay was excited to spend long days in the saddle and I was happy for an excuse to get out too. One of the rides we did was a 50-mile loop from our camp, down the scenic Spring Canyon down to the Green River. After a day of precepitation, the sand along the river was packed and fast.
Our route back up from the river was up Hey Joe Canyon. A challenging and scrambly hike-a-bike. I had gone up Hey Joe Canyon once before with Andrew. We were on a bikepacking overnighter and had loaded bikes. This time I wanted to do the same route, but with bikes just loaded for the day.
Lindsay and I pushed our bikes up the steep slickrock until we got to the first big ledge where you have to lift your bike overhead. We teamworked the difficult features by handing off bikes. One particularly steep section, I pushed my bike to Lindsay who was standing above me. Once she had a solid hold on the bike, I scrambled passed her, and she pushed the bike up to me. We did this a few times until my bike was on a flat ledge, then repeated the process with her bike. It was a fun and novel way to experience a route by (with?) bike!