Recap: Skull Fork Gravel
There’s no way around it. Skull fork is a complete and utter bastard. It’s packed with steep climbs and chunky gravel that will stop you dead in your tracks (even going downhill). You will spend an inordinate amount of time baking in the sun while riding the saddles of the biggest hills around. Did you expect this to be easy? Did you expect this to be fun? It’s called skull fork! Of course, none of that really gets to the heart of what makes Skull fork manically evil. So, what’s the secret sauce? You will love every second of it! It will call to you to come back and discover its treasure (clearly a pirate thing going on here). Skull fork is like that friend that you should quit because they are no good for you, but you can’t because they are always fun to be around in the moment. Let’s call them Karl. I imagine there is a single word in the German language for that, but I’m not sure what it is, so I will simply say, you probably know what I mean.
So here is why I am I dreaming of my next search for pirate treasure less than a week after visiting Skull fork. First and foremost, it’s wildly beautiful. The lush grasses, and bubbling knolls will have you confusing your ride with a Peter Jackson set from the Fellowship of the Ring. You will have the best view of them around because unlike many gravel rides, while you are on super remote roads, you will not be in the woods all that often. Spending your time on the hilltops has its cost (e.g. scorching death sun), but the views are well worth it and they never stop coming. What really set this route apart for me, however, was the structure of the descents.
We’ve all been on rides where you work your legs off to get to the top of hill after hill, only to have a tight windy loose descent kill the vibe. There are certain places that manage to do this in a way that’s almost magical. Skull fork is the complete opposite. It will beg you to let loose and see just how fast you can go before the road vibrations outpace the joy you are getting from the wind on your face. It’s filled with exceptionally long runouts that have just the right amount of turning on them for high speeds and just enough visibility to make those speeds feel safe. This is literal shout for joy territory, and I did plenty of that. Put another way, my ride partner for the day, Chris Boyle, mentioned that “it feels like we are only going downhill!” Spoiler…… We went up plenty (wahoo says 6,342 ups). It really did feel that way though. The garnish atop this absolutely beautiful monster was the gravel.
“Oh what fresh hell is this?”
Our conservative estimate is that this route has greater than 85% gravel roads. That’s more than any route I’ve ever been on. With the exception of a hand full of fresh tarmac entering the Salt Fork state park and a few miles of “dirty road” just before that, each section of paved surface is just a short transfer back to gravel (<0.25 miles). That’s not to say that it was all spring tulips. Some of this gravel was NASTY. There are several miles of in the middle of the route that seem to have been filled with deep chunky gravel to facilitate oil trucks, and more inside the park where there is fresh cobble size gravel piled on thick (see pic). If it wasn’t steep enough, this gravel would stop you from rolling downhill, and it certainly wasn’t any easier to climb on. The section in the photo inspired the phrase “oh what fresh hell is this?” The freshest hell indeed. Like any good gravel route skull fork will kick you in the pants on your way out too.
The last couple of climbs are probably the hardest. They are shorter than some mid ride, but they are punchy, twisty, and unrelenting. They exist purely to see if you are worthy of the full blast dive back to the lot. It almost pains me to say this, but Skull fork is now my favorite OGG route of all time. If you are anything like me, you will drive away, slightly irritated, but also planning when you can get back. You also know it should be soon. That’s Karl for you.
The detailed bits:
We had two riders along for this ride. Ride time was just over 5 hours. Data say the average temperature was 77, but I’ll just say it felt HOT. This route is at least 85% gravel and is exceptionally remote. Some of that gravel is just awful to ride on but the rest more than makes up for it. In our 5 hours, we were passed by fewer than 6 cars with most of them near the mid-point which is an exit off of I70. Speaking of which, at mile 30 there is not one, but two gas stations (BP as a POI in RWGPS)that providing a much needed opportunity for wary riders to restock. We had very few run-ins with loose dogs (one, non-chaser).
