New trails are always fun, and I'd been meaning to check out the Palisade Rim Trail for a few years now. Last Tuesday I headed over with a friend to give it a look and I was very impressed. Not a ton of mileage there, but there is an upper and lower loop that could be repeated as much as you want.
Unfortunately, I have some bruised ribs from a minor crash the week before that I had stubbornly refused to rest and allow to heal. I was pretty sore from wrestling the bike around the trail so I was not up for multiple laps on this day.
The trail starts with a stiff climb through a canyon and up onto the mid-level of the rim. It is a reasonably technical trail, but its not as crazy as I'd heard it described in some places. I was riding pretty conservatively because I couldn't afford to crash on my ribs again, but I still was able to climb over most obstacles.
After the initial mile of relentless climbing it levels off for a second and gives you a little break before resuming a second climb to the higher rim level on the upper loop. We took a left away from the rim because it looked like the best way to get to the high point as soon as possible.
We topped out after about 4.5 miles and about 1600' climb.
Going clockwise on the upper loop means you get to do a high speed descent along the rim with some extreme exposure. I don't really get freaked out by exposure, but it was intense. It was a bit more difficult because we had some serious wind gusts pushing us around as well.
The descent was a blast... good mix of fast & flowy with some chunky tech bits thrown in to keep you on your toes.
A very nice ride even though my ribs are pretty screwed from the whole deal. Forcing myself to back off and let the damn things heal now.
Here's some GPS:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/486183491
Oh yeah... don't miss the petroglyphs!
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