Eclipse over the Paiute trail

crewcabrob

crewcabrob

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Hi all,

I'm sharing some travel plans my wife and I have just finished setting up for later this year.

October 14th of 2023 there will be an Annular Eclipse that will be visible over many western states. For those of you that are not familiar with an Annular Eclipse, it varies from a total solar eclipse in the respect that the moon is a little further away from the Earth in relation to the sun. Instead of blocking the entire sun out, you get a ring of fire that is visible.
2 Partial Annular Partial RTF scaled1


The reason I am so excited about this happening has many reasons:
  1. It happens to pass right over an amazing trail system in Central Utah. Which basically takes me close to where I grew up.
    Annular20231
  2. The Paiute Trail is a spectacular trail system that has so much to offer. There are abundant 50" trails for the P500/520 crowd, but the main trail can easily accommodate machines of all sizes. For those that are interested in the trail look here Paiute For an extensive look at the trail, I have followed the adventures of Jason over at MyATVlife on YouTube. His channel is here MyATVlife
  3. When my wife and I are in the area, we plan to hit 3 of the 5 National Parks in the area: Bryce Canyon, Zion and Capitol Reef. I grew up in Moab, so we have already been to Arches and Canyonlands. All of these parks are within an hour and a half of where we plan to stay.
  4. October is just about a perfect time to be in this area. The Aspens should be a blaze with color and my wife has never been witness to a grove of Aspen trees when they are changing from green to yellow. Every once in a while, you get to see a red or orange one.
Our intended site to watch this natural spectacle is Monroe Peak. Sitting at 11,227 above sea level, we should be able to watch the shadow approach. To this end, I wanted to pick a place to stay that was close enough to facilitate getting there fairly quickly in the morning of the 14th. The town of Monroe does have some lodging and should only take 20-25 minutes to get to the peak. We are staying just west of Monroe in Joseph at a new (ish) resort that tailors to the SXS/ATV types. The resort, is made up of tiny houses that are new. I know nothing more than that other than we were able to get the place at $70-80 a night. I can't remember which price we paid. I can send details if anyone is interested.
Here is the area in greater detail:
1673707061669

1673707141194

For those that are interested, the blue line represents the center line or optimum place to view this type of eclipse. The red lines are the boundaries of the maximum darkness. The event is still viewable beyond the red lines, it just looks more relative to a partial eclipse.

So far, my wife and I have landed on visiting a national park each day starting on Oct 10th, We may hit two parks in one day to leave more time for the trail system. We are staying through the 16th. I plan on riding the trail system Friday-Sunday and driving back to Omaha on Monday.

I thought about posting this in the P500/520 area because so much of the trail system is 50". I reached out to Jason at MyATVlife and he said the gates allow for a couple of inches of wiggle room. I'm Counting no more than 52-52.5" wide. Please take this information as hear/say, I have not been there and measured the gates and Jason rides a Maverick Trail and not a Pioneer. The main Paiute trail is much wider than some of the smaller trails. If you have access to GAIAGPS, you can pull up the area and add the National Geographic maps that will show you trails with width restrictions. Here is a sample:
1673708578464


I'm by no means an expert, but feel free to send me a private message or post up. Maybe nobody cares, but I know I only have a couple more eclipses I will get to witness before I am no longer here.

Rob

2 Partial Annular Partial RTF scaled1 Annular20231
 
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