Moab Fun Run ’02
ZUKIWORLD online conquers the Poison Spider Mesa trail
-Story and Photo: Eric Bewley
The group then motored along the Mesa part of the trail. This trail is so named after a young girl who was killed by a spider bite on this mesa. Her grave is marked at the north end of the flat.
Shortly after the mesa, the group stopped for lunch. As the group enjoyed their complimentary sandwiches and soda, ZUKIWORLD held a give-a-way. We were very fortunate to have extremely generous sponsorship this year. In addition to American Suzuki Motor Corporation, CALMINI, Reynold’s Automotive Machine, and Hawk Strictly Suzuki chipped in several great prizes. At the end of the raffle, all but 4 tickets had been pulled making at least one person in every car a winner!
After the lunch break, we all headed down the trail to a gorgeous arch that looked down onto the Colorado River and the start of the Moab Rim trail. This picture hardly does justice to the scale and magnitude of this rock formation.
Next was a ‘mini golden crack’ that all but two in the group traversed. Some had a little extra fun by adding people to the back of there vehicle to gain that little extra tire pick.
The middle part of Poison Spider Mesa trail is a loop that hits the scenic arch, a viewpoint that over looks the valley, and has a few fun spots including a sandy area that changes the pace of the trail and lets people ‘leg it out’ for awhile.
This is one of the last obstacles of the loop before we rejoined the trail to back track towards the trail head. This time we really opened it up on the mesa and was catching air on the rolling roller coaster like gravel section on the mesa.
Now its back to creepy crawly mode as we traverse the many steps and obstacles that we had climbed up earlier in the day. About the time we made it back to the ‘Wedgie’ obstacle, we heard over the radio that we “had one over.” Yep, it seems like every good run has one layover.
By the time we had walked back to the scene, the vehicle was righted and fluids were being check. The car sustained very minor damage to the door and targa bar. Once the car was check, the driver jumped back in and took a more sensible line to complete the obstacle.
As we moseyed back to the trail head passing motorcyclists, mountain bikers, hikers, and other 4wd offroaders on this multi-use trail, it was noted that a good day was had by all participants. We’d like to thank American Suzuki Motor Corporation, Calmini Manufacturing, Reynold’s Automotive Machine, and Hawk Strictly Suzuki for helping us put on an excellent event for the Suzuki enthusiast.
