The Palisade Plunge Experience

#followcamfriday sampling the much anticipated Palisade Plunge trail with Noah Sears.

Last week I found myself on the Western Slope of Colorado as snow had moved into the high country, bringing an end to alpine season. This ride has been on my list all summer, I was basically waiting for moisture and cool temperatures to give it a go. As it turns out, I may have waited a bit too long as Grand Mesa took on a bit of snow earlier in the week, making the top section unrideable. And that is just fine because now I have an excuse to come back. 

Noah Sears and I decided to do this as an out and back from the bottom due to the current conditions. Most people regard this as the best section anyway, so a few thousand feet of climbing was in order. It actually makes for some pretty good climbing and is 99% rideable with a couple of short pushes up some steep rock work, if you are looking for a workout. Noah is into fitness and was taking it easy on me on the climb. 

This trail took an enormous amount of work to build and many years to execute. The amount of negativity surrounding this trail, both in online reviews, and from people I know was somewhat surprising to me. The top 12 miles of 33 are through a flat, rutted meadow and can be skipped, but the rest of the 6000ft descent is likely worth checking out. Did you really think that 6k down over 33 miles was not going to involve a bunch of pedaling? What did these negative Nancy's think they were getting into? I am excited to check out the middle section next summer and form my own opinion. The bottom is absolutely rad, that much I can confirm. People were complaining about "exposure". Perhaps these people are not very good at riding bicycles. Seemed pretty normal to me. This is far less exposed than Jackson or The Portal in Moab. Normal rules apply, don't ride off of a cliff and everything will be fine. If you can't noes-pick, maybe work on that.

The wash at the bottom is highly enjoyable. A tunnel of jank traversing down valley. A proper way to end the descent. The amount of work that went into making this section rideable is impressive to say the least. Kudos to the builders. Some serious rock work was going down in there. 

The view from the top of the mesa is definitely worth the effort. The wind was gusting to 50mph on this particular day, but we still couldn't find anything to complain about. My drone misbehaves wildly in the wind, but it didn't even crash, despite having to be retrieved from a cliff high above the section of trail that we were filming. Adversity just adds to the story and makes the ride that much sweeter. 

As is true for most things in life, if you keep your expectations low, you will never be disappointed. We worked hard for this one, would never think to complain, and had a wonderful descent back to the bottom. Mountain biking is hard. That is what makes it so sweet. Nothing worth doing is easy. Live for it.