When I heard there were something like 100 people on this ride I cringed. I had this vision of a giant dust cloud and me bringin up the rear.
Not so.
We all met at the Richfiled city park and recieved directions to the rest area on highway 89 across the street from Hoovers Cafe in Marysvale canyon. We trailered to the rest area and unloaded.
The guides in their infinite wisdom decided that since the group was so large we would split in two and half would head up trail 74, due west of Hoovers and half would go along the Sevier river into Marysvale.
This effectively reversed the route for half the group.
My group rode into Marysvale first. We followed the old railroad bed along the river for a way south of Hoovers and then cut thought the hills. There is a very cool fence crossing/ cattle guard built specifically for ATV's. It allows the ATV to go through the fence by climbing over a grid of bars that act as a cattle guard.
We then entered Marysvael from the east side and proceeded thorugh town. When we had to cross the state highway the guides stopped traffic so we would not get seperated. We headed straigh though the middle of town and turned right at the top of town and headed up the canyon. The colors were just starting to turn and there is a lot of red leaves ont eh scrub oak as we climed the mountain. There are a bunch of fun switch backs. This is a well groomed dirt road. The road climed the north side of the canyon until we were looking of into a very steep canyon. The views are amazing. As we neared the top and approached the tree line you could see for many many miles. The trail tops out at teh highest point on the Paiute Trail system, around 12,000 feet. It got noticably colder near the top but still quite nice.
We dropped of the Beaver side of the mountain, across what looks like tundra for a ways and stopped at Big Johns flat for lunch.
Bombardier (what a smart vendor) provided us with a great lunch. Then they gave away free use of an ATV for year to the couple who had been married the longest. 51 years!! Sorry I forgot the names of the winners. I'm glad to see a couple out riding after 51 years. I hope ANYONE who has known me for 51 years will still speak to me, let alone ride with me
. Bombardier even had a huge wedding cake for us to share.
THEN we spent a couple of hours test riding all of the Bombardier ATV 's. They must have had a dozen ATV's up there. I rode them all and I think they are great bikes. I particularly liked the trailing arm suspension on the Outlander. The 400 cc is decievingly powerfull, faster than my Honda 450ES even with two of us on the bike.
When is was time to head back over the mountain we again split into two groups and my group went down trail 74 to hoovers while the other group went down to Marysvale on 02.
We got some great pictures of bright orange fall leaves forming a tunnel to ride through.
When we go to the bottom we hung around and loaded ATV's and chatted.
This was truly a great ride. All of the guides were a blast and trail was fairly easy with a few rocky spots on 74. I think this will easily be a favorite ride for lots of people so you better sign up early next year.
PS- There was hardly any dust. I didn't even wear my dust mask and had no problems.
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