Hurricane, Utah
Our first big ride since Eli's recovery.
Our one splurge of the trip. The boys were begging...
Yesterday Eli and I finally convinced my mom and dad to rent a Polaris razor. We rented it for 5 hours. It was really, really fun. At first my dad just drove it but then we rotated around and everyone got to drive it. First we drove to dinosaur tracks and stopped there to look at the different kinds of Dino tracks. There were 3 different kinds of Dino tracks, some small, some big. The prints were embedded into the sandstone. Then we drove to the purple hills and spent some time drifting there. The purple hills are a bunch of hills that are purple and have tracks on them. Dad did some sweet drifts. After that we drove all the way back around the Mesa and turned to drive up a rocky hill to the look out. We could see for miles and miles. After we got to the top of the look out and had some rice cakes and lemonade. Then drove all the way over to the sand dunes. I think that the best part was the sand dunes because you could floor it and then drift really well in the sand. You could also go up and fish tail the side of the dune. Whenever we drifted the sand came flying up all over us. After that we drove all of the way down the dunes and back to the road where we drove back to the shop. The fastest I drove was 56 mph on the dirt road to get to the dunes. In total I think we drove around 75 miles in 5 hours. Although it was my first time driving, I thought I did really well!
-Asa
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| Purple Hills |
Yesterday we rented a Polaris RZR to go and drive around in the sand dunes in Hurricane, Utah. Originally, Asa wanted to ride a dirt bike and I wanted to drive a RZR. On our way to mountain bike at Gooseberry Mesa we drove past a shop with a bunch or dirt bikes and side by sides out front and the sign said "rentals and tours." When we were coming back from biking we stopped at the shop and got the prices and asked, "How old do you have to be to drive a side by side? Luckily the guy said you have to be 16 with a drives license BUT, when you get out to the trails and dunes it dose not matter. That is what made us want to do this rental more than one in Colorado or Moab- if we waited, we did not know what the age requirement was.
The next day we woke up at at 7:00 to get up and go to the tour, as usual it took us twice as long to get out then expected and we ended up getting to the rental shop at around 9:15. We ended up leaving the parking lot at 10:0 in a 900 cc Polaris RZR. Dad drove on the road until we got to the dirt road and from there I took over. I drove on a dirt road almost all the way to the purple hills. The Purple Hills are shaped like sand dunes but they are purple rocks. Then Asa took over and drove the rest of the way until the dinosaur tracks which were pretty cool. Then Asa and Mom drove back to the start of the dirt road where I took over and drove to the sand dunes. At the sand dunes Asa, dad and I took turns driving around on the dunes. On the dunes, you did not go that fast because the sand was so light and we did not take a lot of air out of the tires. On the dunes we were drifting but we could not drift too hard or else we would flip. We would also drive half way up the steep side of the dunes then turn and get a little "drifty" doing that. We noticed that we only had two bars of fuel left so we parked in the shade and had a snack and some water. From there we drove down the dunes and then I did some rock crawling down to the road. Then we returned the machine and got ourselves cleaned up because we were covered in sand.
Since we were only 15 minutes away from Virgin, Utah (the home of Red Bull Rampage and birth place of free-ride mountain biking), I had decided that we were going to try and find the Rampage sight. We ended the rental at 3:00 then hopped in the car to head towards Virgin. I knew the approximate location of Rampage but not exactly were it was or how to get there. We spent about a half hour driving around dirt roads that ended up to be long driveways to run down ranches and farms. Finally, we found a road that had a dead end sign on it and we gave it a try. We drove over a bridge that seemed out of place because it was surprisingly decorated with iron lamp posts, railings and designs. After the bridge, the road just turned into a dirt road with a rusty barbed wire fence and gate about 200 feet after the bridge. We opened the fence not knowing if it was private property and if we were going to get chased by some crazy farmer. We drove up the road a little and very shortly realized we needed four wheel drive. After slowly making our way up, down, and around steep hills and rocks we came to an intersection in the road and I said we needed to go left cause that pointed to where I thought the Rampage zone was. We drove a little bit until the road dropped off into a ditch that had been caused by the recent flash flooding. The only way we could have gotten through was on our bikes or if we had the side by side we had rented earlier that day. When we saw the wash we slowly backed out to the intersection and took the road to the right. The road was rough, slow and went on for a long time. Finally we decided we had to turn around and drive back down the road. When we had just come out of the gate and I was closing it back up, a man on a side by side cruised up with two huge containers of water on the back and a generator. We asked him if he knew were the rampage zone was and he said yes he did but the road was washed out and not accessible as he pointed back to the road we had tried first. I was disappointed that we did not get to go to the zone but that soon faded as I thought of all the fun we had had that day. I was also happy that we were able to find the right road. At least I will know how to get there when I compete next year😜!
Eli
After a five-hour Polaris tour and looking for the drops of Red Bull Rampage Eli, Brad and Asa took a ride on the side of the mesa right in front of the campground at Quail Creek Reservoir.
A view from the campground at sunset.
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