Day 9 - Fillmore, Utah to Baker, Nevada

Our last day’s ride took us from Fillmore, Utah to Baker Nevada. The terrain did not change much along the 170 mile route. The terrain was mostly flat and consisted of sage brush and grass. The roads were graded gravel and fast due to the long straight stretches with good visibility. We took the hard loop, which was not hard at all, but was a fun mostly smooth jeep trail.

Our route took us past a dry lake bed so we took a detour to check it out. We did not set any land speed records, but had fun trying. Todd took the checkered flag on a series of rolling start drag races.

Overall our adventure this past week has been great. We enjoyed this segment of the Trans America Trail better than last year’s segment. We especially enjoyed the hard-splits that we did each day.

Many thanks to Paul Miller for taking time to join our adventure, for his excellent cooking, and for making sure we were comfortable and well provisioned. Thanks to Bill Wygal for providing the equipment (truck and trailer) to transport us out and back and keep us comfortable along the way. Thanks to Lance, Todd, and Bill for their adventurous spirits and advanced riding skills. Finally, thanks to GPS Kevin for the GPS tracks and logistical resources.

The following are pictures and video from the day:

Day 8 - Devils Canyon to Fillmore, Utah

We woke up this morning in the Devils Canyon staging area, which was a very nice dry campground. We had originally planned to run the Devil's Racetrack hard-loop yesterday, but due to the temperature and our condition toward the end of the day, we opted to run the Racetrack this morning.

We woke and 6:00 AM and were on the trail at 6:40. We ran the ~40 mile racetrack in 3.5 hours and were physically spent when we rolled back into camp for breakfast and a rest.

The racetrack was probably the second most challenging hard loop we have done this trip. Agate Creek would be the hardest, though this racetrack was plenty challenging. The racetrack consisted of numerous rock ledge step-up and step downs as well as miles of sand washes at the bottom of deep canyons. We had a blast on this hard loop, though it made for a very long day.

After Breakfast, we hit the trail with a destination of Fillmore, Utah. The trail took us from the desert type terrain of Utah to lush pine forests at 10,000 feet, back to the hot desert terrain of Utah.

Ed and Todd rode the entire Trans Am Trail from Devils Canyon to Fillmore, UT. This leg, including the Devils Racetrack totaled ~225 miles. We arrived at camp at 7:00 PM and extremely fatigued.

Bill and Lance rode about 70 miles of the Trans Am Trail, but opted for a quicker route back to camp. Unfortunately, their search for a faster route was inhibited by multiple dead ends and locked gates. After a frustrating ride, they finally made it back to camp just 30 minutes before Ed and Todd.

The weather today was warm with clear skies when we left Devils Canyon. The weather turned when we were in the pine forest and threatened rain. We were lucky in that we rode through areas that received rain, but we were only sprinkled on a little and hailed on just a little.

The ride consisted of mostly graded dirt rode, but we had some challenging rocky trails in the pine forest and had some fun two-track as we were approaching Richland.

The following are pictures from the day: