Cruising the Kokopelli Trail
By Doug Schnitzspahn
On the map, the Kokopelli Trail looks easy. It’s a 145-mile mountain bike ride across the empty stretch between Fruita, Colorado and Moab, Utah, mostly marked as doubletrack trail or jeep roads. The vertical profile doesn’t change much for the first 70 miles and its longest sustained climb is only about 2,500 vertical feet up (although there are several long climbs). A sag wagon can meet riders along the route with re-supplies of water and to set up camp. It’s just a long bike ride, right?
But like most things in the desert, the Kokopelli is far from what it seems. It is truly an epic ride — a trip that becomes part of your own personal mythology after you finish. My own three-day journey on the trail began in Fruita with nine friends: adventure racers, photographers, significant others, bike mechanics, bike junkies.
After days of planning, we hit the first 20 miles of Fruita singletrack at full force. The snowcapped peaks of the La Sals, where we’ll be riding on the third day, seem like a mirage on the horizon.
One of the beauties of the Kokopelli is that there is no one way to ride it. Some go Fruita to Moab, others Moab to Fruita. A three-day voyage with some type of caching or support vehicle is the standard for advanced riders, while most tour operators run a fairly leisurely five-day trek. Adventure racing’s reigning queen, Danelle Ballangee, has ticked it off in just over 24 hours as a training ride. It has been completed in three days, unsupported, on single-speed bikes. And endurance god Mike Curiak hammered it in 16 hours last May in the Kokopelli Mountain Bike Race. No matter, the Kokopelli is more than just a long ride. It’s far harder than it seems, but over and over on the trail you lose yourself in the landscape.
Late on the first day, after we have logged 30 miles with 30 to go, it’s past 3 p.m. and the group is starting to wear down. Then we’re in Ruby Canyon on a surprisingly delicious doubletrack. And suddenly the trail is alive under our tires again — we head downhill over rocks and short ledges, hugging the canyon walls with hundreds of feet of open air just a bike-length to our left. We barely have the strength to hoist a beer on the first night, but by the second day, it seems like we were born in the saddle.
Built by the Colorado Plateau Mountain Bike Trail Association, The Kokopelli Trail is a link between moutain biking’s past (the slickrock and scene of Moab) and future (the singletrack and pro-bike activism of Fruita). The trail’s namesake is a native fertility god, a freewheeling, flute-playing spirit who wandered the empty expanses of the Colorado Plateau. Moab — the most popular mountain bike destination on the planet — is named from the Old Testament and the conditions in the surrounding desert can certainly be Biblical. Patches of sand can make sections of the trail impassible in dry months. The sun and rocks can bake you like a convection oven. When it rains (or snows) the trail surface transforms into slick desert mud, mucking your wheels so badly that you can barely even push your bike.
But the Kokopelli doesn’t destroy you. You’re worn through after traversing rock and dust with your ass perched on a thin mountain bike saddle for three long days, but you don’t feel as if you finished the Leadville 100, or even a marathon. The trail just slowly tests your resolve. The singletrack gives way to long jeep-road spins to the Sisyphean climb up along Entrada Bluffs on a frustratingly loose road surface. And an epic ride like this will always surprise you: loose rocks on Rose Garden Hill prove challenging even for the most studly, a tight switchback that almost sends our support van into the abyss, numerous flat tires plague us all.
Every epic has its epiphany, the moment that can’t be translated into words when everything from the pump of your blood to the wind on your face to the smell of sagebrush seems to be harmonious. The moment when it turns epic. It never comes at the very end, but somewhere in the midst of it all.
For us, it’s on the afternoon of the third day when we see the first running water — besides the Colorado River — on the whole trip: It’s a gushing torrent, a stream up high in the La Sals where the still snow-covered peaks rise to one side and a redrock ravine opens up on the Technicolor spires of Castle Valley on the other. After a morning of endless climbs, we stick our heads in the water and scream and shoot photographs and then stand speechless. It’s primordial and sublime. For the rest of the day, it’s a descent and another slow climb until we can see Moab stretched out below us, then 15 miles of straight down into town.
Before we realize it, the ride is over, but we are different.
Trailhead: Kokopelli Trail
Getting There You can start a ride on the Kokopelli Trail from Fruita, Colorado or Moab, Utah, as well as several trailheads along the way. Fruita is 260 miles west of Denver, while Moab is 238 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. To reach the Fruita trailhead, Take I-70 west from Grand Junction five miles to the Loma Exit (No. 15). The Kokopelli Trail officially ends at the Slickrock Trail parking lot in Moab. But you came this far so you might as well ride straight to Eddie Mcstiff’s watering hole (435-259-2337; www.eddiemcstiffs.com) in town.
Weather The best times to ride the Kokopelli Trail are March through early May and September through November. Summer heat will drop you dead and winter snows and mud make the trail impassible. Even in spring and fall, prepare for extreme heat and/or snow. The average high temperature from June through August is 98 degrees, while the average low from November to February is below 30.
What to Bring A sag wagon, unless you’re going to ride it self-supported.
* A light, full suspension cross-country mountain bike that will be able to take all the drops and not wear you out. n Four quarts of water, meaning a full hydration bladder plus extra water in your pack. No joke. You will go through it and there are very few, if any places along the trail to even pump water.
* Enough food for the day and energy bars/gels to supplement.
* Layers including a base layer that sheds sweat, fleece mid layer, a wind/rain shell and leggings.
* Two-way radios.
* Extra tubes and patch kits. If you get stuck you’re stuck. Tubeless tires are a good bet. A combi bike tool. A chain tool. n Even though you may have a support vehicle with tons of food, bring things that are quick and easy to cook. You won’t feel like preparing a gourmet meal after 10 hours in the saddle.
* Wet wipes. Get out of that chamois as soon as you pull into camp and use them … your butt will be thankful.
* If you are going unsupported, bring a sturdy water filter that will be able to deal with the grit and sand of desert water sources.
* If you are attempting the trail in one shot, at least bring a small bivy or space blanket in case you bonk.
Camping The best spots to camp along the trail are at Rabbit Valley, Cisco Landing, Dewey Bridge, Fisher Valley and Rock Castle. All are accessible to a support vehicle. On a three-day trip, plan on camping at Westwater or Cisco and Fisher Valley. (Your sag wagon will need to be a high-clearance, 4-wheel drive vehicle to get there.) Also, Hideout Canyon, the official BLM camp, is difficult to find and the road up to it is beastly.)
Guides If you don’t want to tackle the trail on your own, you can charter a trip with Nichols Expeditions ($795 per person for give days; 800-648-8488; www.nicholsexpeditions.com) through Poison Spider Bicycles (800-635-1792; www.poisonspiderbicycles.com) in Moab.
More Info The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) publishes a free trail brochure available online at www.co.blm.gov/gjra/brochureorderform.htm. The BLM also has topo maps of the trail. Also, pick up a copy of Mountain Biking Grand Junction and Fruita by Bob D’Antonio ($10, Falcon Press, 2024). For more details, visit the Colorado Plateau Mountain Bike Trail Association web site (www.copmoba.com). Or call the BLM Grand Junction Field Office (970-244-3000; www.co.blm.gov/gjra/gjra.html) or BLM Moab Field Office (435-259-2100; www.ut.blm.gov/moab/).
