My friend, Andre, took his last adventure a few weeks ago. Andre had life dialed, he truly valued the important things and lived one of the most complete lives of anyone I know. He was an inspiration to all of us. His friends and family are some of the highest caliber people I've met. My thoughts are with them everytime I think about Dre.
Dre used to tell me how much he enjoyed reading my blog, so I thought the best way to honor him would be to remember an adventure we had together. If Andre had kept a blog of his adventures it would take up half the Internet. Our adventure here was just a small diversion in a life of many for him, but an adventure none the less.
In the summer of 2002 after being relatively new to Utah we heard about the Kokopelli Trail. The Kokopelli trail goes from Moab, UT, to Fruita, CO. It's a 142 miles through some of the most beautiful desert in the country, starting on Moab Slickrock, climbing through the La Sals, and following the cliff's and ledges of the Colorado River into epic single track in Fruita. In September we all had 4 days off to make it happen. Andre, Doug, Doug's girlfriend Lisa, and I left Salt Lake City on a Wednesday morning with 2 trucks and Lisa volunteering to run shuttle for us. The plan was to start in Fruita and ride to Moab. We gave ourselves 3 days to ride the 142 miles at a recreational pace, plus 1 day to hang in Moab. It was late September and the Monsoonal Season was in full effect. We didn't know it, but our ride was going to be a wet one.
After the hourly road-side stops on the way down so Dre could pee (if you knew Dre you know what I'm talking about), we got to Fruita at about noon and hit on the trail right away. Lisa rode half way with us and then headed back to her truck to run the shuttle. That first day was a blast and was the first time any of us had exposure to the awesome riding Fruita has to offer. The single track was incredible! It picked super technical lines through the ledges of the cliffs on the North side of the Colorado River. Andre had the fitness to kill all of us off the couch while smoking an unfiltered Drum cigarette, but my tech skills kept me out in front on the single track. Fruita brought more smiles than anywhere else on the trip.
After a while we climbed out of the Colorado River basin into higher desert and the trail opened up a bit. I was in trouble. I wasted so much energy trying to clear (ride) every section of the single track that Doug and Dre were pulling away from me. As the sun set, the desert turned pink, then orange, then red, and then purple. It was one of the prettiest sunsets I've seen and the only thing that kept me going with Dre and Doug as we rode West. Little did we know that the clouds that gave us that beautiful sunset would soon turn to drizzle, rain, hail, thunderstorms, flash floods, squalls, and mud... ...more mud than I had ever experienced in my 25 years at the time.
As we got close to Rabbit Valley, I felt my second wind and wanted to ride through the night but that idea got shot down fast. My argument was that we had only ridden 40 miles, but everyone else's argument was that we had a full day tomorrow to make up time. Those 40 miles would be the extent of our riding on the Kokopelli trail.
Lisa met us in Rabbit Valley and took me back to get my truck while Doug and Dre cooked dinner. I had just got my Tacoma and was excited to use a new accessory called the Truck Tent. It was a tent that set up in the bed of a pick up truck. In theory it seemed like a great idea, but in function it was horrible and a total waste of money. It immobilizes the truck, you have to take everything out of the bed to use it, and because of the wheel wells it is smaller inside than some backpacking tents. Plus it took a ridiculous amount of time to set up. Dre hated that tent and heckled me about it for years later.
While Dre, Doug, and Lisa relaxed and had dinner I spent my post-ride hours setting up that stupid tent. I managed to finish just in time for the first of many rains. Dre would later describe that night in the Truck Tent as pure hell. I felt honored to contribute to such a description, because Dre had spent many nights in tents under seemingly much worse conditions without so much as a complaint. I would describe it as 2 sweaty dudes crammed in between the wheel wells of a small truck bed under a parade of deafening thunder and lightning. The Truck Tent acted like a sauna, trapping heat, humidity, and odor inside. No sleep was to be had that night between the thunder, fear of lighting strikes, and desert flash flooding going on around us.
We woke up to a river next to our campsite. The Kokopelli trail had been transformed by the monsoonal rains into a 3 foot deep river of muddy water. We would have to drive further west to pick the trial back up. We followed roads, trail, and open desert navigating by a photocopied topo map to the next trail junction avoiding flash floods and getting stuck in mud. It was a constant battle against mud and weather to find a rideable piece of trail.
We spent the next 2 days cold and wet. At one point we had both trucks stuck in 2 feet of clayish mud high in the La Sals. The only dry piece of trail after the monsoonal rains was The Slick Rock Trail, but even it had wet spots that honored it's name.
Finally blue skies as we arrive in Moab.
Not wanting to go near the Truck Tent, Dre built himself a shelter from a Tarp (background) and slept happily in the desert sand free of the horrors of that first night.
Loading up to ride Porcupine Rim.
Finally the weather cleared with one day left. We had long given up on the Kokopelli Trail and decided to spend our last day riding the Porcupine Rim Trail. It was a great end to the trip except Doug blew out a wheel and had to turn back at High Anxiety View Point (below).
Dre, Lisa, and I pushed on for miles of Moab's best technical singletrack. About half way down from High Anxiety I had an encounter with a collared lizard. He ran across the trail in front of me which scared me so badly I almost crashed hard. I'm used to seeing small lizards, but this one was 3 feet long. He was fast, but I followed him through the Junipers and got a good shot.
We didn't see a soul the whole ride until the last mile where we caught up to a tour group. At the end of Porcupine Rim the trail crosses a small 75 deep canyon with a wash at the bottom. As the trail descends into the rim of the canyon it becomes unrideable. Multiple 3-5 foot ledges lead up to huge boulder that you have to carry your bike up on. Then it leads into another series of 3-6 foot ledges leading down to the wash. These are rideable, but there is no good place to start.
Dre riding Slick Rock a day earlier.
As we descended below the rim of the canyon I caught sight of the tour group. The mere concept of a "tour group" disgusts me. I've always liked to go my own way and being in a tour group would be hell for me. If you have to ride with a tour group, you shouldn't be riding at all! Seeing such a group at the end of our trip deeply disturbed me, but I was tolerant and polite. It was when the group leader shouted at us from the bottom of the canyon to "dismount from our bikes" because the trail was "too dangerous" that my spirit of defiance overcame my fear.
The line up around the boulder was not a possibility, so I improvised and picked a line off the trail straight down the canyon wall. I looked the group leader right in the eye and dropped in off the ledge. The rest was a blur. I just kept my weight back and surfed the ledges of the canyon wall to the bottom. It was about 30 feet straight down the 60 degree slope. Before I could think about it I was at the bottom, face to face with the group leader. He tried to lecture me and the group about how dangerous what I just did was, but the group's clapping drowned him out. Drunk on satisfaction, I tried to complete my feat and bunny hop off the last 3 foot ledge. Unfortunately I picked a bad angle, caught a pedal, and fell into stagnant pool of lime green water below. The clapping suddenly stopped as I pulled myself out of the putrid water. I smelled so bad Dre and Lisa made me ride in the back of the truck on the way back to our campsite!
Cheers Dre,
Your spirit lives on in all of us.
