sovereign trail system

Sometimes it feels like we've hiked everything in the greater Moab area, at least everything that we can access without a jeep or a shuttle car.  This isn't true, of course, as there are so many trails and dirt roads out there.  Case in point: on Saturday we drove north of town on 191 and turned right onto the Dalton Wells Road.  At first I thought we'd been out there before, forgetting that the Klonzo trail system is off the Willow Springs Road.  But when we pulled into the large-ish parking area at the Sovereign system trailhead, it was clear that this was new territory for us.

Boys in the desert

Apparently the Sovereign system was one of the first areas developed for dirt- and mountain-biking in Moab.  There are OHV-accessible trails and non-motorized-only trails, all crisscrossing each other.  Unfortunately, we didn't have any sort of map so we were just winging it, although we did manage to stick mostly to the Salt Wash singletrack.  I'd really like to go back with a good map, detailing all the linking trails.  But we did okay and the trails are all well-signed.

An excellent, sandy wash

We were literally the only ones out there (if you don't count the range cows).  That was amazing.  The trails were pretty amazing too, a mixture of packed dirt, sand, slickrock, loose chunks and some very steep downhills (hill-climbing not recommended so as not to damage the trail surface with spin-outs).  It's pretty much cross-country riding, with a couple of exciting pitches to keep things interesting.

Salt Wash singletrack

We left the parking lot heading south-ish on sandy doubletrack, crossing a couple of washes before finding a sign for the Salt Wash singletrack and turning north/northeast-ish onto it.  From there the terrain was much more varied than I had expected: I thought we were in for a day of tromping through flat, sandy desert but instead we alternated climbing over rocky ridges and traipsing through narrow, flat meadows and washes before coming out onto the slickrock at the eastern edge of the trail system.

Edge of the slickrock section

The skies were clear and temperatures got warm but never hot.  It even got warm enough that some lizards came out, much to Milton's delight.  Lizard-chasing is one of his favorite things ever.  Luckily, he's not very good at it.  Because of the sun, and because we hadn't gotten a very early start, we were cognizant of how long we were out; Milton can overheat because of his black coat.  When we were ready to head back to the car, we weren't sure that the trail we were on would take us there.  We were on top of one of those rocky ridges, however, with a clearly-defined wash heading in the right direction.  So we bushwhacked back to the trailhead, walking only on rock and in the wash, and managed to get back there in under a mile with only a few scratches on our legs from the thorny tumbleweeds.

Art shot

When we got back to the car, we were still the only ones there.  A lot of times, we will be the first people parked at a trailhead, only to have it filled up by the time we finish.  Not this time.  We still had the place to ourselves, under gorgeous blue April skies, with only a couple of range cows for company. 

Fancy graphics! 

Hike stats: 7.55 miles; moving 2:37 / 2.9 m.p.h.; overall 3:03 / 2.5 m.p.h; 1,010' elevation