The Whole Enchilada 2010

The Whole Enchilada conjures up an image of an Epic ride at first, but then you start thinking that an enchilada is like a burrito but slathered in sauce. Wet slippery sauce.

The Whole Enchilada is a ride that starts out in the La Sals, a mountain range 20 or so miles south of Moab. The La Sals have 12 peaks higher than 12,000 feet which is amazing considering that Moab itself is just over 4,000 feet.

We started our ride at about 10,000 feet just south of Burro Pass and within a mile or so had to climb up to 11,200 feet over Burro pass. Right off the bat, a sprint to the top.


I don't know about everyone else, but at 11,000 feet with my heart working as hard as it could and the thin air, it was hard to keep the pedals moving.

Then came the Rain
We knew we were risking a wet ride earlier as we shuttled up in Jared's truck and saw the strange looking clouds blowing around Moab, but it appeared that they were not settled in the La Sals. Maybe they would just blow through. Wishful thinking.

But still we were excited to get on the trail...


Notice how clean and fresh we were before the rain and the mud. Yeah, the mud came after the rain, a prewash and then a protective coating was applied.


As we climbed up to Burro Pass it started sprinkling, then raining then raining harder, then sprinkling, etc. Eventually it was apparent that the clouds had settled in and our best option was to ride through the sauce and get off the mountain.

There were several cattle guards like this one that we rode through during the day.


The forest around Burro Pass and the La Sals in general was pretty thick and prestine. The trail was carpeted with either pine needles or rocks with an occasional sprinkling of tree roots.



Coming down the La Sals was challenging, the rocks were wet it was muddy and the stream crossings were running pretty high. But the forest was beautiful, the water was clear and fresh and hey, the trail was not dusty.

It was cold. If anyone got hurt up here, as remote as it is, hypothermia would be a risk. Fortunately our crew got down and started on the Kokopeli trail safely.

After the the trail leveled a bit and actually had a few climbs, we hit some mud.

That's where the enchilada sauce really started. The mud on the road was just as sticky as hot gum on the pavement. You know when you walk across a parking lot in the summer and step on gum that some slob has spit out earlier. That gum stick to your shoe and is really tough to get off. Yeah.

The mud caked our tires and then globbed on to the forks, rear triangles, chains and derailleurs until it seized up our wheels and we had to stop about every 20 to 100 feet and scrape the tires and forks clean enough to free the wheels. Several of us crashed as the mud seized the wheels and sent us mud skiing out of control into the sogginess.

After a couple of miles of this we climbed up out of it into the drier, slickrock part of the UPS trail. We rode the UPS trail, hoping that some mud would drop off of us but it clung like a tick to Rover's heine. That was annoying, but it also caused a nasty mechanical failure.

Jared was riding along on a slickrock section when you heard that metal twang and click medley that signals a possible mechanical failure. Because the mud had now dried into a thick pottery, it had seized the gears on his derailleur. If the gears wont turn, then the gears follow the chain on its journey around the cassette. This will break and twist some essential drive train parts.

Yeah, the derailleur hangar snapped and other parts bent. All the kings horses and all the kings men, couldn't put that derailleur back together again.

So Russ and others helped set the bike up as a single-speed non-derailleur bike. I think they pumped up the rear air shock to max also to make it as rigid as possible to prevent the chain from stretching too much as could happen when the suspension is active.

At the junction to the Notch, I tried to dry some of my clothes. The sun had come out and I was wet, waiting for the derailleur repair team to join me I took a picture from there of the expansive desert to the north...





The group soon rejoined me and we decided not to go see the notch and just head out since we were a little behind schedule.

We descended to the LPS, skipping the notch and riding on to the Porcupine Rim single track.

I had never been on the Porcupine Rim trail and it was quite a change from the earlier terrain of the day.

Ledges, ledges, ledges. Yeah, you might say it was a ledge fest. I was able to launch off of a few with good results but most of them I went around or just dropped off of because the landings looked sketchy. I know that the rest of our group was launching from ledge to ledge and I was envious, but my skill is not at that Jedi level yet, and I prefer to live to ride another day.

I did however try to ride one-handed for a bit to get some trail video...


Towards the end of the ride, I caught Terry and Matt riding some of the rim...

Finally out towards the Colorado River, the trail decended to the road and we finished the ride.

Terry and Russ drove up to the La Sals to pick up the shuttle and the rest of us rode along the Colorado River and into town, which was quite an effort in itself because of the headwind.

just hung out at the Community Center in downtown Moab, debriefing the ride and generally resting for the drive home.


Check out this Garmin GPS Link for more details of the ride.