Hikes and Bikes

 Yes, went hiking.  Weird.  But it was great fun and adventurous.  I thought I'd do some hiking because my coworker wants me to climb Mt. Nebo with him sometime this summer so I am trying to get ready for it.  I went on a few hikes and the first one I hiked a little up Pioneer Trail.  I started from the bottom.

I took Jeri and Duke with me and they were having a time of their lives.  As I was hiking, I was kicking all the rocks off the trail, this a bike trail I like to ride on.  Before this hike, I haven't ridden my bike on it yet but I just barely did yesterday.  It's pretty packed down and I was amazed that it was.  I guess a lot of dirt bikers have been riding on it.  It's a great trail and it's all cleared up.

 I turned around at the swamp area and walked back down, it was really nice in the canyon since it was very windy down the valley with gusts up to 40 mph if I remember it right.

A couple days later, I went on another hike, this time I parked my truck up above Taylor's Flat and started walking along the top part of the Flume.  I started to plan just to walk along the top part then I decided to walk further down towards the bottom.  I turned around at the top of the very steep section down close to the bottom where the jumps were.  Then I hiked back up and it was quite a workout.  After I got back to the truck, I decided to hike up to Virgil's Yeart from there, but first I took the dogs to some stream so they can get a drink.

The Backbone Trail was very steep but it gave me a good workout.  It was a fun one and I enjoyed it very much.  Duke was very tired but still chased a few squirrels along the way.

This weekend, I decided to get back on biking.  Last Thursday night, I did the West Mountains loop on my mountain bike and it was a great ride, no wind.  Also, the West Mountains gave me shade along the way as the sun went down.  I tried to avoid the pageant crowd in Manti but I made it.
Then I went on another ride Saturday morning.  I parked the car at Major's Flat and decided to climb up the road a little ways and go down the Pioneer Trail.  I was struggling on the climb and took it easy most of the way.  It was hot and tiring though but it felt great.  The Pioneer was a blast and it was the first time this year.  I remember mostly of the view and Haystack Mountain and Ephraim Canyon when I got up top.  I forgot my phone at home so I couldn't take pictures, wish I did though.  It was beautiful.
Today, I went on another ride, I actually missed church because I didn't really care much.  I just wanted to ride.  I went up the Flume this time and took it easy again.  It was also hot but great!  Loved the downhill.  It was a beautiful day and hardly anybody up the mountain.  Got to love summer!

I Killed My Television....Literally.

 I have got to do some awesome rides here at home in Sanpete Valley.  I enjoyed some great evening rides and had a great one last Thursday night and I felt great so I rode hard.  I happened to take some pictures.

This is the Flume Trail and it is the most packed down I have ever seen in all of the 15 years of the trail life, especially this early of the year.  There's been a lot of riders this year!

Great map of Flume and Pioneer trails, I haven't gone on the Pioneer yet and I hear it's great this year.

I have been riding on more flat roads because I haven't been feeling good most of the hard rides in the past first of the year.  I wanted to do more endurance kind of riding and it helped.  I rode a lot on the dirt roads in the west.  The ride I like is to take the dirt road from town and through west of the Manti/Ephraim airport and to the houses on halfway through Highway 89 and ride on the 4 wheeler doubletrack off the side of the highway until Manti.
Then from Manti, I take the dirt road down west passing by the radio station and ride north along the dirt road by the West Mountains all the way to Ephraim.  The ride is 25 miles and takes about 1.6 to 2 hours for me.  I like this ride and I am trying to ride my mountain bike more than my road bike.  I haven't ridden my road bike for like 3 months now.  I don't like the cars on the highway when I ride my road bike.  Never did.

Also, I had more time to redo my parent's main bath.  Just tore everything apart and put in new cabinets, countertop, sink, floor, toilet, bath hardware, and put in new trim.  It looks great!  The new toilet is awesome, it actually flushes poop without using the toilet plunger every time!

Memorial Day Weekend Ride

 I went up on a little trip with my parents to Tooele to put flowers on graves and see some cousins and also to spend time with my sister up in the Ogden area.  I took my bike with me to tuck in a ride during the weekend.  My family decided to come with me and have a picnic while they were waiting for me while I ride my bike a little.  Luckily they found a perfect spot with a picnic table but about when I was done with my ride, we were kicked out because we didn't pay a fee.  But still we all had fun while we enjoyed it.   

 We went to the North Fork Park campground near Eden, UT which was up in Ogden Canyon.  There are some sweet bike trails I wanted to try out.  Plus the campground is where one of the Ben Lomond trailheads are.  The trails I wanted to try out were Mule Ear and Mule Shoe trails.  Great trails except I didn't feel good that day but I took it easy on the climb and walked up the steep sections.

At the top was a beautiful view of Ben Lomond Peak in a distance in front of me(look at the top picture).  I climbed about probably maybe around 500 to 1,000 feet of elevation.  Maybe less though.  Then after that was all downhill until I reached the bottom of Mule Shoe Trail.  Mule shoe was the lower elevation part of the loop and below the campground.  The downhill was awesome though.  Enjoyed it.  Lot's of shade and trees with a bunch of berms at the turns.

It was great how there were no people on the trail, and I was surprised, because it was Memorial Day weekend.

 Down at Mule Shoe, I ran into two moose.  The first one I ran into was just sitting there off the side of the trail for a Sunday rest.  I stopped and looked at it, she didn't move.  Until I got on my bike again, she ran off.  I even got a good picture.  Later, I continued on some more trail and all the sudden a bull moose was in front of me and I startled him.  He started running down the trail through the turns and everything.  I slowed down a lot to let him run away from me.  Then finally there was an open area where he can escape from the trail.  It was pretty cool to have a moose do some biking with me for a while there.  I called him Bullwinkle the Moose.

I was this close to the first moose I ran into, don't see that in Sanpete.  There are no moose in Sanpete so that's why it's so cool to me.

This is after the bottom of Mule Shoe right after the trail goes right along the side of a stream and this where you start climbing again to get back to the campground.

These trails are probably my favorite trails in the Ogden Canyon area besides Green Pond Trail in Snowbasin.  I would like to go there again and make sure I feel good and wired next time because I would like to experience these trails going fast.  It was very fun still.