amasa back

A couple weekends ago I went down to Moab with a roommate who was running the Moab Red Hot trail run. It was awesome to spend time with family and friends and the outdoor temperatures couldn't have been better! The morning before I headed back north for Logan my brother Joseph and friend Kerri and I rode the Amasa Back trail. The last time I attempted that one was about four years ago when I got sick! I was ascending the long uphill at the beginning when I was coughing and spitting out bloody mucus, and then my derailleur broke. So.... I figured it was a good idea to turn around and coast back to the trailhead. Little did I know at the time that a broken bike part was the least of my worries, but alls well that ends well right?

I've been experimenting with different angles and techniques with this little camera. This is a fun two minute video that I put together from the ride, and ends with a wreck and a broken GoPro mount.

Gemini to Baby Lion's

Here's a few pictures from the weekend. We rode Gemini Bridges in the morning with snow at the trailhead, and rappelled in the afternoon with bitter winds. Never a bad day for adventure!

The crew at the bridges - Mick, Tyler, Arlee, Sterling, Jed, Mike, Chris, Chris.

Where are we? 

Jed was our shuttle driver, and at the trailhead he just decided to follow us. We had truck support on Gemini Bridges! At the end I suggested we ride with Jed through the flat and uphill. He dropped us off at the top and we bombed down to the parking. Sweet!

Chris just got a new static rope so we can go canyoneering. So Mick took us to the top of Baby Lion's Back in his Jeep to test out the new rope on the rappel up there.

Crotch shot

That night we were too tired to do anything, so we let Dumb and Dumber play while we napped on the couches.

Klondike Bluffs

Sterling and I wanted an afternoon ride the other day, so we threw on the bikes and sped off to Klondike Bluffs. After saying goodbye to the trailhead, we began the 4.5 mile ascent to the lookout on the top, which views Arches Nat'l Park. Uphill wasn't too bad; just pop your bike into granny gear and cruise up. We stopped to check out the dinosaur tracks on the left of the trail and then helped out a couple who had bent a derailleur (helping others = good trail karma). After a nice hike at the overlook, we jumped back on and just bombed downhill. It made all that up really worth it! Klondike Bluffs is an awesome trail, and I'll definitely ride it again.

One Big Mexican Serving

Last weekend my buddy Chris Allen and two of his friends came to ride The Whole Enchilada from the LaSals down to the Colorado River. Not just a part, not a couple bites, but The WHOLE Enchilada. It's a big strenuous ride. With this ride you get everything: the cool air (in between cow pies) in the green mountains while you duck around aspens to big air over scrub oak to dodging cliff sides on the red rock. Not to mention the breathtaking view the entire trail! (or maybe I was just out of shape and breath)

We started out at 10:30 am after driving to the trailhead and began an ascent of 800 ft in one mile to get to Burro Pass, the first section of our ride. That was a lot of hike-a-biking. As soon as we got to the top, it was just crazy fast downhill singletrack through the trees and streams and over rocks and roots. Every time we stopped we had to move off the trail because there were so many riders! We cruised down to Warner Lake and were surprised by a wedding facing the lake. Oops.

The trail crossed through the creek several times. It was pretty, but the water made my feet smell like wet dog at the end of the day.

Chris, Clint, Matt, and Chris at the top of Hazard County.

After Warner came Hazard County. This trail starts out with half a mile uphill but it's worth the view up top. Overlooking the Moab Valley, we began the descent into the sage and scrub oak and then hit some big man-made jumps and dusty burms along the trail. We crossed the LaSal road and began the Kokopelli section of the trail, which was my favorite. Wide open DT with big whoop-de-dos and it was easy to ride.



Changing the first of three flat tires.



The Kokopelli blended right into the next part of the trail - The Porcupine Rim. The first part of this ST was fun; it flirted with the cliff edge overlooking Castle Valley and Castleton Rock and had some fun drop-offs. The lower section of Porcupine was killer, we had several flat tires and we had run out of water (I drank all 3 liters of my Camelbak and hadn't peed once!) and we were just exhausted. It was all I could do to stay on the bike. When we finally got down to the truck at the Colorado River, it was 7:15 and we had ridden 28 miles. We threw the bikes in and sped to Matrimony Springs, the first water source we could find. After we had satiated our thirst, we went to City Market to get some Gatorades and energy foods.

The Whole Enchilada was definitely the hardest and most technical ride I've ever done. It was also by far the funnest too. I want to do it again, except maybe next time I'll take a smaller bite of this Mexican delight.

Search & Rescue

The other week I was hanging out in the World Wide warehouse when John, one of my guide friends, came up and asked if anybody was familiar with the Gemini Bridges trail. I've ridden the trail quite a few times so I followed John as he told me that someone was lost out there without any flashlights (this was at 9:30 pm and the moon wasn't out). We met up with Randy, a guy from the single's branch, and we headed out in his Silverado pickup after a quick prayer. The people that were lost were from Canada along with a new river guide from Tag-a-long. They had lost their way in the dark after riding their bikes for five hours. Finally they found a place on the trail where they could barely get service on their phones. So the guide called the only other local that she knew, Randy, whom she had fortunately met just the day before. So, somehow they found their coordinates and we were able to find out that they were on a jeeping trail called "Metal Masher." In our Chevy Silverado we found out why it's called Metal Masher, even on the bypasses. After we had gone up the trail quite a ways and almost given up, we bumped into some jeepers that said they were out there looking for "three lost people." So we kept going and we later got a call from our lost friends saying they just saw our lights from the truck and to turn around! Finally we found them and took them back to their truck at the trailhead. We rolled back into town at about 3:30 am, but it was worth it! The next day John bought Randy a sticker that says "Metal Masher" to put on his truck as a joke.

The White Rim Trail

Last Thursday the guys from the priest's and teacher's quorums in my ward started a mountain bike trip on the White Rim trail in Canyonlands National Park. It's a three-day, 100 mile off-road hard ride. Joe Heywood, Bryan Hays and I planned this trip for spring break in March, but it ended up being rescheduled to May 20-22, 'cuz I guess they missed me too much while I was in the hospital. Ironically, neither of them where able to go after it was rescheduled! Lame.

                              

The crew at the at the beginning of Mineral Bottom road: Joseph, Kory, leader Merrill, Jake, me, Aaron, Zak, Tyler, and Wiley. Not pictured: leader Ken.

On the trail with the Green River behind me. Because I'm still so out of shape, I drove the support truck most of the trail. I was able to get in 10-15 miles a day on my bike though!

Because we changed the campsite permits late, we had a short ride Thursday, a long ride Friday, and an average ride Saturday. The first day we weren't in a hurry to get to camp, so along the trail we hiked to Fort Bottom Ruin, an old Anasazi Indian ruin. 

Relaxing at camp Potato Bottom.

After 21 miles on Friday and another 30 to look forward to, we didn't feel like struggling up Murphy Hogback, a grueling 5-mile hill. So we loaded up seven guys in the truck, four bikes on the rack, and six bikes on top of our gear with three guys to hold it all on.

Our second night it was so windy that to cook dinner we had to use the table and a tarp to keep the propane stove on. Good times. We were able to get a camp at the Airport site instead of the Shafer campsite, which took 12 miles off the ~65 mile day.

Some of us in a small slot canyon along the way.