The “Price” Is Right

I actually spent over an hour Saturday night writing an insightful, thought-provoking, and hilarious article about spending Saturday on gloriously dry trails in Price.  Then I hit publish and half my text disappeared and all the pictures went to random sizes.  Couldn’t salvage it so I threw things and swore for a minute, and now two days later, I have finally calmed down enough to write an abbreviated version.

Mostly, I just wanted to rub it in to all the guys who said I was wasting my time driving to Price with a storm rolling in.  This one’s for you Cobes.

Joe Dirt, and Retro Bill drinking in the view.

You can always count on  Bill to be up for a ride, and he didn’t disappoint even with extremely short(night before) notice.  Bill and I drove through a blizzard on Soldier’s Summit which broke up nicely by the time we made it to Price.

We were meeting Scott Nelson, and his buddy Austin and Joe “Dirt” Dyer joined us to show us the work he recently completed on “Shamrock ‘n Roll”.  This is the trail I did a little digging on last year at TrailFest.  Joe is a bonafide soil scientist with the USDA.  Suffice it to say he knows his dirt and has done more than his fair share of digging down there in Carbon County.  If you went to St. George with us a few weeks ago, he’s the guy with the Coke bottle glasses that showed up with Fuzzy.

This new loop is in my opinion, the most rideable, and enjoyable singletrack in Price.  I may be a little biased because of my personal involvement, but I never claimed any journalistic integrity so shut up. (Full Disclosure: Joe named the trail in honor of my Irish heritage even though I just held up a shovel and shot the breeze while he dug,  but all bias aside, this is my favorite trail now.)

Scott and Austin blow by me on the climb.

We skipped Luke’s and instead drove up to a pump jack on the north end of the mesa where you could put onto the loop.  After a steep little grunt of a hundred yards or so, you settle into the climb in earnest.  As you can see in the picture above, this is an old 4X4 path that is winnowing away into a decent singletrack climb.  This takes you to the top of the Lollipop trail at the top of Floating Rocks.  From the overlook, you can jump on Shamrock ‘n Roll to descend the ridge to the road below.    Several features with ride around options including some rock gardens and enough slope to let go of the brakes and feel your baggies flap.  This is intermediate to advanced skill level stuff and is damn fun.  Once you reach the bottom, you cross the road and climb the other side.  The trail is still a little loose but should ride in nicely.  You head up to the top of  the ridge and roll along it for a little while before dropping back down to the road via more fun, technical trail.

More options are being discussed including the “Yoo-Hoo”  spur which is spoken of in hushed and reverent tones.  It is going to be an even more challenging ride with a transitioned drop of ten feet.  I might have to walk it.  Okay, yeah, I’ll be walking it.  We circled back to the truck which is where we lost Scott and Austin to an Easter Egg Hunt.   Joe, Bill, and I headed back up to Floating Rocks, and back down Mead’s Rim to complete the loop of the south end of the mesa.

Don't let those glasses and pants fool you, Joe shreds.

My big fat ass was challenging me to a duel, and so after spinning back up Luke’s to the bones and suffering back up to Floating Rocks, we bagged the second lap on S ‘n R in favor of some Chicken Nachos.

All in all an day well spent, and definitely worth the three hour round trip drive.

Interested in checking out the trails?  Head down to TrailFest ‘10 April 30-May 2.  I went last year and it changed my life forever.

Interested in helping to advance the singletrack cause in Price?  Contact the BLM field office in Price, and thank them for the roll-over gate they just installed on the east side of the mesa.  They are coming around to the idea of bike specific trails on the BLM land in the area, and hearing from enthusiastic cyclists who are happy they are on board will go a long way towards that end.

Thanks to Joe for all the hard work he put in on the Shamrock ‘n Roll trail.  He’s one of the guys that makes it all happen down there, plus he takes the edge off of Fuzzy’s Fascist Political leanings.

Thanks again to WordPress for lousing up my other post, it really was much better than this.