Travel

Paiute Trail | Fillmore, Utah

“Hot summer nights and my radio”… (if you guess correctly who sings it in the comments you will have my utmost respect) That was the song that was playing in my truck the day I headed down to Fillmore Utah for my annual ride on the Paiute trail. Fillmore, Utah is one of many cities that access this enormous trail system.

This is on of the first signs you see to access the Paiute Trails

One of my favorite things about most of the  cities that access the Paiute is most of them offer their sidestreets to the atv riders as a path to services like gasoline, snacks, eating joints, hotels etc…

To start this adventure we start on the ride to Chalk creek road where you will cross 6-8 water crossings (depending on the amount of rain for the season). For our trip this year the water was considerably higher than I remembered from years past (no jokes about me being wet behind the ears). Being prepared for the water is sometimes deceiving to me, especially when I am used to riding in the desert; the only water I think to prepare for is what I need to drink.

Chalk Creek water crossing

Once you cross the water you are on your way to climbing at a pretty good pace. What I find interesting as I ride this trail is how quickly the terrain changes. Scrub oak, rocks, high desert terrain to all of a sudden aspens and pine trees take over. It is quite impressive and there are a couple of places that you get to stop and take in some great scenery.

Once you arrive at what seems to be the top top of the state of Utah I start imagining myself  in some great epic western movie ( I will spare you with my imaginings). Once you get to the top of this trail, signs will give you options to to some of the other areas/cities it connects to. We decided to head back down the loop using the White pine trail and did this loop easily in a half day and that includes stopping a few times for pictures a snack or drink. A few more pictures below for your viewing pleasure:

Rec UTVs: We Test, You Decide

After the release of Can-Am’s much-anticipated and outrageously powerful Commander 1000, the idea to test it against the fastest, coolest looking, most off-road capable UTVs on the market was a natural one. Needless to say, we were all pretty excited about it.

Testing the UTVs with weight in the back is key to determining stability and performance in work situations.

Our fleet of smile-inducing machines included the Yamaha Rhino 700 Sport Edition, Arctic Cat Prowler XTZ 1000, Polaris RZR 800, Polaris Ranger XP, KYMCO UXV 500, Kawasaki Teryx Sport and the Can-Am Commander 1000 XT. Regrettably, John Deere was not able to get us their new three-cylinder Gator XUV 825i in time for the test.

We assembled an eight-person crew of evaluators, varying in age, body size, UTV experience and riding style, and gathered at Minnesota’s spectacular Iron Range OHV Park, a former iron ore mine converted into a DNR-funded off-road ride park. With opaque, crimson puddles stained by iron dust, massive hills made of tailings (a sharp, rocky mining byproduct), aggressive rock crawls, deep mud bogs and high-speed trails, we had all the terrain needed for a full, thorough test.

Day 1
After three and a half hours in the trucks, we made it up to the Iron Range and unloaded our machines. We explored the park’s trails, and quickly got to work strapping 400 (and in some cases, 800) pounds of salt bags in the cargo beds for a test of suspension, stability, ease-of-use, power and traction in very uneven terrain. This was an ideal way to see how well each of these vehicles can work, and the results were very illuminating.

No Photoshoppin' - this is what the mud looks like at the Iron Range OHV Park.

Some machines crashed their undercarriages brutally on rocks, while others bounded over the course like it was hauling a weightless load of feathers. That’s a nice analogy there isn’t it? Good thing this is a blog.

We also used our first day for time-consuming stuff like detail photography, figuring out the labyrinthian trails of the park and choosing testing loops that we could drive with our photographer and video guy the next day. It was fun, and crisp mid 60s temperatures gave us a nice taste of autumn. I’m ready. It’s time.

That evening we grabbed dinner at a restaurant in Gilbert, and then explored the nightlife in nearby Virginia, Minnesota – one of the largest cities on the Iron Range — population of approximately 8,500. The culture up there is thoroughly reminiscent of my childhood home in northern Wisconsin — beautiful scenery, friendly people, small towns that could use an economic boost and entertaining pubs on nearly every corner.

Read the rest of Rec UTVs: We Test, You Decide »