Paiute Trail - Introduction and Day 1

We have explored the Flint Hills of Kansas on our ATV's for three years and decided it was time to take the machines to the mountains.

Labor Day weekend we headed out on a two-day trip to Richfield, Utah where we would set out on the Paiute Trail.

ATV's loaded and ready to go

Found one of the last available hotel rooms in Salida, Colorado on Saturday night.

Great view!

Monday morning we loaded the ATV's and set out on Trail 70 adjacent to the hotel.

This was our view as we left the parking lot.

Trail 70 took us to the Paiute Side Trail 04 that connects Richfield to the main Paiute ATV Trail 01.

We stopped at the end of Trail 04 to make a few adjustments to the bags and take our photo.

Heading out on Trail 01

I was hoping to see wildlife on the trail and wouldn't you know the first thing I saw slithering across the trail was a snake. Fortunately it was the only snake I saw on the trail.

We left Trail 01 for Side Trail 97. Trail 97 turned out to be a black diamond trail (most difficult) and our first black trail of the trip. It was a very steep,sandy and narrow trail but didn't have many rocks.

From Trail 97 we headed out on Trail 06 to Trail 15 and then to Trail 76.

Canyon views on Trail 76

We stopped at Fremont Indian State Park and Museum for a short break and then headed on to Joseph for gas. We then retraced our route a bit to Trail 15 and then to Trail 13. Trail 13 follows Mill Creek up to the old mining town of Kimberly (good name). Traffic picked up at this point and the trail was busy all the way to Marysvale. We saw everything from dirt bikes to Dodge Ram pickups. The trail in this area is a road but it is a narrow road with switchbacks and tight curves making it a challenge for the pickups.

We stopped at Winkler's Point to take a few photos of the spectacular view.

From Winkler's Point we made our way on Trail 01 to the Marysvale Loop 02 and headed on in to Marysvale.

We pulled in to the Weber's Piute Trails Inn parking lot and we were warmly greeted by the owner, Brad Millett.

Brad's grill wasn't open that evening so we drove to the other end of town to The Garage for authentic hand tossed pizza. The pizza was very good and yes, the building really is a converted garage.

Back at the motel we decided to relax and have a little coffee. Since the grill wasn't open I made use of the Coleman stove and coffee pot I packed in one of the gear bags.

Joel jokingly told people along the way that they could ask me for just about anything and I could probably pull it out of one of the bags.

View outside motel room