We’re a little tardy … or just late in catching up but we’ve been on a dead run since we rode the trails that make up Utah’s Paiute Trail. So now we’re going to share a little from day two of our two-day Paiute Trail adventure with Dustin Sweeten of Powerhouse Motorsports (www.powerhouseusa.com/).
You might remember that on the first day of our ride, we left Beaver, UT, rode over the mountains and eventually made our way to Marysvale to spend the night at the famous (infamous?) Moore’s Old Pine Inn. Moore’s Old Pine Inn is the oldest running hotel in the state of Utah and has had as its guests the likes of Butch Cassidy and western writer Zane Grey.
Day two of our ride left from Moore’s Old Pine Inn where we headed east toward Monroe Peak (elevation 11,227 feet). On the way you go from high desert and then steadily climb into the mountains. We passed through Dry Creek Canyon, which was surprisingly chilly, rode next to Manning Meadow Reservoir and then made the climb up to Monroe Peak. The views from on top of the mountain were stunning to say the least as you could see in all directions.
We left Monroe Peak, headed down the mountain toward the town of Monroe (5,394 feet; a descent of nearly 6,000 feet) and then over to Big Rock Candy Mountain. Sorry we didn’t stop and take a few pictures of this scenic landmark but we were enduring a full-on thunderstorm at this point in the ride—and had been for several miles.
As we turned west at Hoovers and headed back up into the mountains, the rain stopped, at least until we got to where Trail 74 meets Trail 01. More rain (but NO dust) for a few miles as we made our way up to the top of the ridge near Mount Belknap (12,139 feet). Then back down and we eventually made our way back to Beaver for the drive home.
By the time we got back to the truck we had dialed up 109 miles of fun, memories and lots of photos.
We will give a full report of our ride in an upcoming issue of Dirt Toys Magazine.
