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Moab Rim Trail
The Moab Rim Trail is one of the "Must-Do" trails of the Moab area. But frankly, it isn't one of our favorites. It starts with a climb that's as brutal as anything you've ever done. If it's a weekend, you'll play "dodge-em" with a gazillion jeeps. This is a trail you ride mostly for chest-thumping purposes. But the views aren't bad. Gary Argyle crests a Navajo sandstone dome on the Moab Rim. April 16, 2000. |
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| This trail is definitely advanced technical and strenuous
aerobic. It's 10 miles as an out-and-back, and you'll climb around 1400 feet. From the trailhead, the route climbs 900 vertical feet in less than a mile. Near the top, the slope is an unrelenting 25% grade, pocked with fissures, ledges, and wheel-traps. Any biker who isn't crusted with sweaty salt probably rode the chairlift up. Chad Hunter grinds up from the Colorado River with Mad Scientist's boss Mike Engberson in pursuit. The rock is so rough and steep that bikers outride the jeeps, both uphill and downhill. April 16, 2000. |
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The grunt climb up the Rim is on uptilted ledges of Kayenta Sandstone. The Kayenta is a hard layer with lots of silt in the sandstone matrix -- a sandy mud-plain deposit where dinosaur tracks are common. The Kayenta protects the underlying Wingate Sandstone from breakdown, allowing the Wingate to form cliffs up to 400 feet in height. At the top, the familiar mounds of Navajo Sandstone sit on top of the Kayenta layer. On this western side of Moab, the Navajo lies hundreds of feet higher than to the east.
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After reaching the top, the trail rolls up and down some brutal rock outcroppings, with short pits of life-sucking sand between them. But the terrain is very pretty, and the views are good. Mike Engberson takes a break after the hard climb up from the Colorado. The La Sal mountains are in the background. April 16, 2000.
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If you're not up to the brutal climb to the ridgetop, you can take the Moab Rim chairlift, which you see on the way to the trailhead. If you plan to take the rest of the rim trail, you'll still have about 500 vertical feet of climbing, and a fair amount of technical rock to navigate. The Moab Rim chairlift. Send the wife and kiddies up in the chairs while you grind the brutal rim trail. |
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The trail splits a few miles out, with one section (Hidden Valley Trail)
continuing to a very technical singletrack descent, and the other (the official Moab Rim
trail) grinding up to the Moab Rim overlook. (Note: both of our biking guides -- Mountain
Biking Moab by David Crowell and Mountain Biking Utah by Gregg Bromka -- feature the
Hidden Valley Trail as a return route to the flatlands of Moab.)
Bitterbrush blossoms in the April sunshine. |
| Once you've made it out to the trail's end, the trip back to the chairlift is much easier, because it's downhill. |
The Moab Valley is a sunken area where fault lines disturbed an underlying dome of salt. (This salt was deposited by periodic flooding, then evaporation, of ocean water into a deep inland depression called the Paradox Basin during the Pennsylvanian Era, about 300 million years ago. It's over 1000 feet thick and is mined for salt and potash west of Moab.) As the salt was dissolved by seeping water, the valley floor subsided. Chad contemplates the meaning of life on a precariously perched slab of sandstone overlooking Moab. April 16, 2000. |
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The fault line also changed the height of the rocks on either side of Moab. To the west, younger rocks are exposed, with cliffs of Wingate Sandstone and Navajo Sandstone as a cap rock. To the east, Navajo Sandstone is nearer the valley floor, with Entrada Sandstone at the top. The displacement along the fault occurred before the present-day Colorado River began cutting into the rock, then the falling of the valley floor occurred later, resulting in the unusual topography where the valley lies at right angles to the river gorge.
| 0.0 Start grinding up the Rim 0.9 At the top, veer R on DT 1.1 Fork R (L = viewpoint) 1.8 Fork R 2.0 Climb slickrock |
3.5 DT joins on L, keep straight 3.7 Fork L for Rim (R = Hidden Valley) 4.5 Petroglyphs R fork to Rim 5.0 Viewpoint at Rim |
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Getting there: Head south on Moab's Main Street. When you reach the McDonald's on your right, turn right onto Kane Creek Blvd. After 1.5 miles, go straight at the "Yield" sign where the road seems to turn right. Go past the Moab Rim chairlift to 3.5 miles from McDonalds at GPS N 38° 33.541' W 109° 34.979'. The trailhead is on your left. |
| Riding resources: Single-page, printable riding guide Lodging, camping, shops: Links to Moab area resources |
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