Sierra Nevada Adventures Out Of State Rides

MOAB & BEYOND ADVENTURE 5-Days

Here’s your opportunity to explore world class desert landscape in Southern Utah by means of your dual sport adventure motorcycle. Moab & Beyond dual sport adventure ride provides the perfect combination of scenic paved roads and spectacular off-road adventure through some of the most amazing desert landscape imaginable. Off-Road terrain is rated “mild to moderate” including “challenging” sections with lots of adventure! “This epic adventure ride is for experienced off-road adventure riders only.”

You will explore some of southern Utah’s world class National Parks including some of Moab’s most iconic off-road routes past towering red rock faces, amazing natural rock arches and breathtaking cliff sides. Southern Utah is a land of vastness with stunning cliffs, incredible canyons and amazing natural arches including geological evidence of the power of water that once carved this unique landscape. If you love to ride and love to explore this is a must do ride for any true adventure rider.

TRIP HIGHLIGHTS: 5 Days over 1,000 miles of Adventure Trip highlights include the White Rim Trail, Canyon Lands National Park, Shafer Switchbacks, Arches National Park, Mineral Bottom Switchbacks, Dead Horse Point State Park, La Sal Mountains, Monument Valley Navajo National Park, Valley of the Gods, Glenn Canyon National Recreation Area, Historic Burr Trail, Capitol Reef National Park, Temple Mountain and Cathedral Valley.

Colorado River and Green River reveals the creation of the upper end of the Grand Canyon system as it carves through Canyon Lands National Park. The Grand Canyon and Moab area was formed millions of years ago by geologic activity and erosion by the mighty Colorado River, ancient seas and ancient massive lakes that once inhabited the landscape known as the Colorado Plateau. These ancient seas and massive lakes drained into the Colorado River creating catastrophic floods which sculpted the Colorado Plateau and created the Grand Canyon as we see it today.

These catastrophic floods along with the Colorado River sculpted the landscape leaving behind towering spires, amazing arches and the massive gorge known as the Grand Canyon which measures over 18 miles wide, over a mile in depth. The massive buttes, towering spires and rock temples in the canyon are in fact mountains looked down upon from the canyons rim. The horizontal layers in the earth's crust exposed in the canyon reveal geological history over 2 billion years and represent four major geologic areas making the Grand Canyon and surrounding area one of earth's greatest natural wonders of the world. You will experience true adventure while exploring on your 5 days and over 1,000 miles through southern Utah and the Colorado Plateau the Moab & Beyond Adventure ride.

Arches National Park is widely known for its amazing natural sandstone arches which the greatest concentration of rock arches in the world. This amazing national park is also home to an extraordinary collection of balanced rocks, salt dissolution structures, folds resulting from salt tectonics, petrified dune fields, and a maze of deep narrow canyons. Arches National Park lies above an underground evaporite layer or salt bed, which is the main cause of the formation of the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, and eroded monoliths in the area. This salt bed is thousands of feet thick in places and was deposited in the Paradox Basin of the Colorado Plateau some 300 million years ago when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated. Over millions of years, the salt bed was covered with debris eroded from the Uncompahgre Uplift to the northeast. During the early Jurassic period, desert conditions prevailed in the region and the vast Navajo Sandstone was deposited. An additional sequence of stream-laid and windblown sediments, the Entrada Sandstone period, was deposited on top of the Navajo. Over 5,000 feet of younger sediments were deposited and have been mostly eroded away. Remnants of the cover exist in the area including exposures of the Cretaceous Mancos Shale. The arches of the area are developed mostly within the Entrada formation. The weight of this cover caused the salt bed below it to liquefy and thrust up layers of rock into salt domes. The evaporites of the area formed more unusual "salt anticlines” or linear regions of uplift. Faulting occurred and whole sections of rock subsided into the areas between the domes. In some places, they turned almost on edge. The result of one such 2,500-foot displacement, the Moab Fault, is seen from the visitor center.

Canyonlands National Park is a sedimentary rock wonderland, a fabulous place to view thick sections of Mesozoic rocks, many of which are not covered by vegetation. Covering over 300,000 acres of the Colorado Plateau, Canyonlands contains four main distinct districts: Island in the Sky, The Needles, and The Maze, and the Green & Colorado rivers. Your off-road adventure explores this geological wonderland on the iconic White Rim Trail. Throughout the park, millions of years of geologic history are visible around every corner. Sediments such as sand and mud were originally deposited near sea level by ancient seas, lakes, marshes, salt flats, and sand dunes. As these sediments piled up over time, they lithified and turned to rock through compaction and cementation which created a layer cake of sedimentary rocks, each layer recording the buried record of time and life on Earth. Not all the sedimentary rock types are the same. If they were, the landscape would be significantly less dramatic. Instead, stronger sandstone forms steep cliffs and ledges, softer shale forms slopes, and the landscapes have been shaped over time into the interesting geological landforms for those who seek adventure.

Canyon Lands began its incredible transformation millions of years ago when the entire region of the Colorado Plateau was uplifted, or pushed upward, by tectonic activity. During this uplift, magma, or molten rock, also moved into the sedimentary rocks along cracks, hardening into the igneous rocks of the nearby La Sal, Abajo, and Henry Mountains. Today, these mountain ranges tower above the softer sedimentary rocks in the valleys below. As the Colorado Plateau continued to rise, rivers continued to carve deeply into the rock, revealing layer upon layer of ancient sediments deposited millions of years earlier, incising existing river meanders and exposing a treasure trove of Earth’s geologic history. Water, ice, and wind continue to shape the park today. This desert region averages over 5000 feet above sea level, where snow and ice are present during the winter months. Ice freezing within cracks widens the cracks even more, known as frost-wedging. Infrequent, yet heavy rains surge down the mountains, carrying sediment within its load. All these processes are ongoing, meaning that the stunning formations we see today will eventually be worn away by erosion.

Capitol Reef National Park is a hidden treasure filled with cliffs, canyons, domes, and natural arch bridges in the Waterpocket Fold, a geologic monocline (a wrinkle on the earth) extending almost 100 miles. Capitol Reef is best known for towering sandstone structures and impressive canyons, but it also holds many ancient petroglyphs, which are engraved etchings into rock walls. You will have the opportunity to see these ancient petroglyphs close-up on your Moab & Beyond Adventure ride. You will also have the opportunity to explore off-road in the spectacular Cathedral Valley in the remote northern section of Capitol Reef National Park. Few people travel out this way, to see this valley and its sandstone monoliths, colorful Bentonite hills, and vast desert scenery due to its rugged and remote location, but that’s part of its appeal. If you like the idea of leaving the crowds behind and exploring the backcountry, then the spectacular Cathedral Valley is the adventure you’ve been looking for.