White Rim Preliminaries

I have had cycling the White Rim on the list of must do adventures for a number of years. The trail is in Canyonlands National Park south of Moab, Utah. It traverses a loop down the Colorado River valley and up the Green River Valley under Island in the Sky. The trail is a former mineral exploration road named for the sandstone cap rock that the route is mostly on. The version we did is about 75 miles long, starting from Shafer Overlook  near Canyonlands Visitor Center and ending where our truck picked us on top of plateau along Mineral Bottom Road. Logistics are difficult as there is no water available along the way and the climate can be extreme desert heat, as well as rain as we learned….

This year 6 of us, (let’s call us Dave, Heidi, Robert, Barb, Elaine and Brian) decided we could make this happen. Robert generously offered not to ride a bike and to bring his F150 complete with ‘Northern Lite’ camper as support vehicle. Much searching of internet blogs provided evidence that a camper such as Roberts could make this voyage. Although closer to the event Robert decided he would do an out and back to Potato Bottom, in order to avoid some tricky ledges after Hardscrabble…..

To camp on the trail, a group requires a Canyonlands Backcountry Permit. Apparently not a difficulty to obtain one in August as most folks think weather is too hot in summer and do this trip in shoulder months. Anyway for a couple reasons, we booked August 20 to 23. Our group  gathered in Moab on 19^th August 2012, completed the formal permit/indoctrination process with Gretchen at the Canyonlands visitors center and were ready to go. Map on right is decent cartoon of the area.