About 3 weeks ago somebody by the name of TK left a comment saying part of the TU route was gated, private land. There’s a sign pointing to Webster flat from the key intersection so i never imagined issues. Yesterday I had time to go check it out – and sure enough, it is a NO GO. Getting a bike from W to E with Zion in the middle is damn near impossible.
Time for a creative re-route. Trans Utah V1 just got a lot more epic.
To span that 2 mile section of private land, the course now bombs down to Cedar City via the C Trail, heads north to Summit, picks up a jeep road all the way to Brian Head, then follows the Marathon trail to it’s terminus at Navajo lake where it will pick up the VRRT.
Oh, did I mentionthe VRRT is closed west of Navajo? Fires…this kinda stuff all converges at the last minute – the Paunsaugunt section was even closed by the Forest service due to fires – but it was reopened 2 days ago. Whew.
Anyway, here’s a map showing the old and new routes compared: http://2-epic.com/transutahv2.html/.
The route just grew a bit. It’s now about 370 miles with 50-51k’ vert.
It scares me a bit.
scary is good I think?
Holy yikes!
I’m scared and I’m not even coming out for TU!
If this is what is in store for v2 in 2009, I’m in a bit of trouble.
I still feel disappointed that I’m not making it out for the inaugural year, so the seed is already firmly planted anyway. I’m going to start training tomorrow.
The Trans Utah looks like a great route. Best of luck for next year. Recently I have devised a different route you all might be interested in. The route roughly traces the Great Western Trail running north-south from Salt Lake to Boulder Utah, but could easily be extended via Hell’s Backbone road to terminate at Escalante, providing a massive link up of backcountry riding. The GWT SLC to Boulder largely stays out of the desert and in the high country along the spine of the Wasatch range and the southern Wasatch plateau.
Check it out at http://imbuildingarockwall.blogspot.com/2008/11/great-western-trail-salt-lake-to.html
Cheers,
Will