Flying From Parkersburg, WV

If you are buying tickets from Pittsburgh, I will take care of my own flight schedule since I will leave from Charleston, WV or Columbus (much closer for me). If that messes up the planning let me know.

Who wants to go to Denver?

OK, did some homework on plane tickets. Sample itineraries as follows...

Continental Airlines to Grand Junction:
9/17: Depart PIT 6:25AM, Arrive GJT 10:45AM
Layover in Chicago, travel time 6:55
9/25: Depart GJT 12:49 PM, Arrive PIT 7:26PM
Layover in Denver, travel time 4:37
Checked bags: $25 each way
Bike Fee: $100 each way
Ticket and taxes $2536 for 5

Assuming 1 checked bag and 1 bike per dude, total is $3786 or $757 pp

Southwest to Denver:

9/17: Depart PIT 6:15AM, Arrive DEN 7:15AM
NONSTOP FLIGHT, 3:20
9/25: Depart DEN 1:15PM, Arrive PIT 10:10PM
Layover in Chicago, travel time 6:55
Checked bags: FREE.99 for 2
Bike Fee: $50 each way
Ticket and taxes $1825 for 5

1 or 2 bags, 1 bike X 5 dudes: $2325 or $465 per dude.

In addition to how Southwest not only tolerated, but seemingly encouraged, our efforts to be obnoxious drunks and gamble openly on the plane across the United States; we get a nonstop outbound flight and a trip savings of $1460, which would pay for both rental vans AND a shit ton of beer.

I hereby make a motion to fly to Denver.

All those in favor?

Welcoming the Leavitts.....

Our little Moab mountainbiking family is growing.  We will now be accompanied by not one but two Leavitts.  Chuck and his brother, Jon, will be joining us on our sacred journey.  May I be the first to say "Welcome".

First order of business is to end all confusion due to having two "johns".  It has been suggested that from now on I will be referred to as "straitiff" relinquishing the honor of my given name to Mr. Leavitt who will be "jon".   Whew, glad we got the lawyerese out of the way.

Chuck and Jon are planning on following the same itinerary as GB/O'har/Straitiff which I have copied from a previous email and posted below.  My heart goes out for poor little stewie-2.....

9/17: fly from Pittsburgh to grand junction, assemble bikes, evening out on the town, sleep at clarion inn right next to airport
9/18: ride fruita, drive to moab, sleep at the moab valley inn
9/19: ride moab (amassa back or poison spider/portal or ups/lps/porcupine rim), sleep at the moab valley inn
9/20: ride moab (amassa back or poison spider/portal or ups/lps/porcupine rim), sleep at the moab valley inn
9/21: day off or ride slickrock training loop, sleep at the moab valley inn
9/22: ride moab (amassa back or poison spider/portal or ups/lps/porcupine rim) , sleep at the moab valley inn
9/23: check out of moab valley inn ride slickrock training loop and/or bartlett wash or drive to fruita and ride there, sleep at clarion inn
9/24: ride fruita/grand junction, sleep at the clarion inn
9/25: fly home (whew…)

Stewie-2

Now that is one sexy ride........

Car is reserved, reservation can be changed/cancelled if anyone finds a better deal.


Car: 8 DaysTotalPrice $468.83

Standard Passenger Van (Toyota Sienna or similar)
Unlimited miles
automatic with air conditioning

Alamo
Pick-up Location: Grand Junction (GJT)Vehicles At Terminal.
Pick up: Sat, Sep 17, 2011, 10:00am
Drop off: Sun, Sep 25, 2011, 12:00pm

Total Rental Time: 8 Days


Weekly rate
1 week(s) @ $269.00 $269.00
1 extra day(s) @ $44.83 $44.83
2 extra hour(s)@ $14.94 $29.88
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subtotal $343.71
Taxes and Fees $125.12
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total payment due: $468.83

DA PLANES!

OK, Continental has the best deal going right now on flights, and its just over $500/ticket. Bike fees are $100 each way. Bag fees are $25. Last year we bought in late July and paid $322. Perhaps we should wait a month or so?

Proposed Rides, Moab 2011

First two rides that would be new to us:

POISON SPIDER & PORTAL TRAIL- This is as extreme as Moab gets - "Death on the Left" has a serious meaning here. But first, Poison Spider has a fairly serious 1000' climb at the start and it doesn't get any easier after the climb. 8.2 miles of grinding over petrified sand dunes later, and you reach the Portal Trail. The Portal Trail is not safe to ride completely. There will be sections you have to walk. After the cliff edge section of the trail is completed, we'll bomb downhill to the road and ride the road back to the van.


 
AMASA BACK -The Amasa Back trail is one of the classic rides of Moab. It ascends from the Colorado River just west of Moab, climbing up onto an outcropping of rock surrounded on three sides by the Colorado. The trail is a rocky Jeep trail with ledges and drop-offs, and is for advanced riders. Intermediates can manage the ride, but will walk most of the rougher climbs. As an out-and-back, the trip is 10 miles. Vertical climb is 1050 feet.
 
 
Then some old favorites we may want to revisit:
 
PORCUPINE RIM Possibly connected with the Porcupine singletrack PORCUPINE SINGLETRACK and HAZARD COUNTY and kokopelli (I don't really want to do the WHOLE ENCHILADA again)
 

SLICKROCK I'm not saying I wanna ride the whole loop again (damn those climbs) but we may consider just doing the "training loop" so that mike can say "hell yeah I rode slickrock" and GB and Chris can hit their favorite slickrock-drop a few more times.

 
FRUITA rides and more FRUITA-2 rides (we rode 18 road last year) and of course there is always GRAND JUNCTION

Please feel free to edit this post to add more rides, I was just doing a brain dump.  I was just trying to get a feel for how many days we want to ride in Moab vs. Fruita.  Mike if you haven't figured it out from all the links..... the utah mountain biking website is a pretty good resource. 

Hotel suggestions...

I'm all for the John Wayne Suite (rrrrrrr....) at the Apache Motel but lets have some other suggestions

Rivercanyon Lodge
Big Horn Lodge (Giggity)
Moab Valley Inn

Red Stone

Silver Sage Inn (no pool or hottub)

Decision Time!!!

Ok, I looked up my old post from 6/8/2009 where I commented about how all the hotels were booked up and I made the reservation at the Moab Valley Inn.

Guess what...   June 8th ain't that far away.

We need to:
a) finalize the roster
b) finalize the agenda
c) reserve some hotel rooms
d) start thinking real hard about booking flights

Shall we hold a planning forum after a ride this weekend?

O-high-o-man-pile!!!!!

Guess what just creeped into view on my calendar???  I was thinking about calling and reserving our beloved site #217 and I realized that the ole 217 is only designated for 2 to 4 people.  Are we going to have more than 4?  #1-Straitiff, #2-O'har, #3-Rietscha(chris), #4-Wetzel, #5-Rietscha(scott)/"P"/etc.??????

Let me know

Riders!! (how many posts have this title?)

Ok, again I know it is almost 2 months away but.....  I was looking at campsites on the Raystown Lake Site in the Susquehannock campground for arrival on May 27 for 2 nights.  I thought we could get 2 sites beside one another on the water.  WRONG!!!!!!  Right now, if I'm looking this up correctly, there are only 8 sites available for that weekend (in the susquehannock campground).  Sites 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 and 32.  25 or 26 look to be about where we were last year.  See the MAP .

If we still want to go that weekend we need to get a head count and start reserving sites.  Remember only 2 "units" per site.  So unless we are sleeping more than 1 to a tent (I will be sleeping in my tent alone) we may need quite a few campsites ($12 per night).

Let me know what you think.