Miraculous

These are the before and after pictures of my finger I cut with a utility knife at work not too long ago.  It's amazing how the body heals in a matter of 3 weeks.  It really got me this time.

No bike? No ploblem.

My family planned a Park City trip to see some Lego art and celebrate my nephew's birthday at Mcdonald's.  Usually every time I think "Park City", I think, "bike".  That is sometimes a problem for me.  It's all psychology, pretty much all my whole life going to Park City, it has to be mountain bike related.  This weekend when we went, I figured it was too early in the season to bike because I thought there was still snow.  So, I decided to not take my mountain bike.  For the first time!

 But when we got there, I was seeing there were a few places I can still ride, like on the south face low elevation rides.  I think the only trail you can ride in the middle of April is part of Glenwild Trail.  I felt disappointed that I didn't take my bike and there was like three hours of free time when we got there.  But I had fun just relaxing and staying in the motel and shop for a few things anyway.  I bought some hiking shorts and cycling tights at the outlet stores.  The next morning, when everybody was in the motel room after a while, I was getting claustrophobic and I decided to go drive around and see if there were skiers jumping I can watch at the Olympic Park.  But there was no one there, it was dead silent.  Then I drove around for a while and I saw like a group of 100 road cyclists on this back road I was on.  I don't know if they were doing a race or a group ride, but whatever.  It was cool.  Then I decided to do a little walk.  The walk turned out to be a 2 hour hike, I was enjoying myself.  I hiked up on Glenwild Trail and I got a little rain on me and enjoyed being out for a while.  See?  Who needs a bike?  You can always go for a fun hike.  I saw a quite of few bikers on the trail and they looked like they were having fun, but anyways, it was fun hiking too.  I was like trying to tell them, "Hey, hiking is fun too!"  I was trying to get my mind off of bikes, oh well.

Later that day, we went to Mcdonald's and to Kimball Art's Center for a family thing and mostly for my nephew's birthday party.  At the Art center, there were quite a few Lego displays this guy made, they were pretty cool.  Here's a few of my favorites.

I had a good weekend and next time I will take my bike no matter what.  Unless I don't have 3 hours to spare or there's a blizzard out there, or I'd just rather go hiking.

Magnificent Ride

Last weekend, since my older brother and his family were in the Moab area, I decided to go down too.  To do some mountain biking and camp a night.  I left really early that morning and got to Moab around 10:00 AM after 3.5 hours of driving.  It was really nice, beautiful weather.  Up in central Utah where I am from, was really chilly and cloudy but when I got to Moab, it was delightful.

 I was really stoked to go for a ride and I wanted to do a long one since it was a perfect day and I haven't done a ride like in a week.  I decided to do some of the Maginificent Seven.  First, I started at the top and rode down Bull Run with lots of rocks and technical kind of stuff.  It was very fun and all downhill, I enjoyed it so much.  Then I went down on Arth's Corner which was the same as Bull Run and all the other trails I did that day.

After riding on Little Canyon Singletrack, I turned onto Great Escape Trail and met some other bike riders and talked to them for a while.  They were nice.  Great Escape is one of my favorites, I did it before like last year or so.  It had real good climbing and a lot of obstacles to go over.  Also great views!

 Great Escape

 At the end of the Great Escape Trail, I stopped to look at Gemini Bridges.  Then I did a return ride on Getaway Trail which was the least technical trail.  It was more sandy a little faster to ride on because it's been packed down to ride on.  It was a climb all the way up and you know how I like climbing?  Because it gives me an awesome workout.  At the end of Getaway, the ride got technical again.  I was planning to take a shortcut to Seven Up to finish the ride but I was so worn out and it has been about 3 hours.  I drank all of my water and ate all my food by then and I was really tired.  So I took the Gemini Bridges Road back to the trailhead  just to shorten the ride by 2 miles.  I am glad I did that because I probably wouldn't make it up on Seven Up.  I wanted to do part of Seven Up but I got to listen to my body.  Oh well.

According to the map, I did the figure 8 ride and loved it.  It was great riding.  That night, I went to my brother's camp and pitched my tent and had good time with my niece and nephews and sat by the fire under the stars.  Moab always make a good trip.

Canyonlands

 Here's some random pictures of Canyonland's Island in the Sky my parents and I went to go check out.  Beautiful country.  We were in awe.

 Mesa Arch

 Wow.

 Awesome.

 Upheaval Dome.  Either a metoer crashed in or something else happened.

 Awesome switchbacks.  No, we didn't drive on this road, not part of the Island of the Sky tour drive.  My parents would have a heart attack anyway.

 Dad lovcd every minute of the tour, he even started remembering his river raft trip in Cateract Canyon when he was 14 or 15.  The following Sunday, he talked to his old leader on the phone to Tooele to talk about the memories.  I even had to look for the phone number on the internet.  It was awesome.  Also, how his leader is still alive.

 These cliffs were amazing.

To those who have never been there, you are missing out!  Even my parents were glad to see this before they die.

Early Spring Moab Biking

 I wanted to go to Moab so badly in a long time, it was finally time.  After a harsh winter, I was definitely getting spring fever.  My parents butted along, I paid for the motel room and they paid for gas and food.  When we got there, it was windy and the temperature was ok.  Warm enough, but the wind was gusty.  I still went that night to do a short ride.  I went to the Klonzo Trail System and they were just newly built last fall. 

 These trails are mostly designated as intermediate trails but ya, they were intermediate.  They were also short but you can get a good workout if you fly by.  These trails were mostly dirt singletrack with a little dash of slickrock.  I still liked these trails because they were windy and twisty in most places.  You won't get a real hardcore technical Moab ride out of these trails, but hey, the Klonzo trails are way better than the trails at my home or even Park City I thought.  Because it was still all in Moab.  I think they made these trails not too technical on purpose because they needed some trails in the area for beginners and intermediates also.

 I still had a blast and the scenery was awesome for a Moab arrival late afternoon ride.

 The next day, on Saturday, Moab was cold and windy.  Mom and dad and I decided to go to the Island of the Sky in Canyonlands.  My parents never been there and I have once when I was a teenager when I was with my older brother and sister.  I remember very little of it.  Probably only Upheavel Dome, but not the lookouts.  Anyway, we went there that morning and after that, I decided to go on another bike ride while my parents went into town to eat lunch.  I rode on the Brand Trails, I've ridden there before and wanted to ride there again because they were so fun.  I rode on EZ Trail, Deadman's Ridge, Bar B, and Rockin' A.  These trails were very fun.  Deadman's Ridge was definitely my favorite, it was so technical and challenging and I cleaned most of the trail.  I haven't ridden that good in a long time.

 I'm definitely going back to Moab in a couple of weeks, and hopefully it won't be as cold or windy.

-fun part of Deadman's Ridge.

New biking designation close by: Price, UT

 One weekend when my parents went away to do some grandkid sitting, I was left home alone.  I was going to go up with them thinking I can take my bike with me and do some biking where they were going to be which was Antelope Island.  I called the people at Antelope Island and they said the trails there were still muddy.  So I stayed home anyway.  That Friday night, I felt like going someplace for the weekend to bike where there was no snow or mud.  I browsed all through the internet and found about Price which was right over the other side my mountain, it still was a 2 hour drive though, but less than Moab or St. George, even Antelope Island.  Like places with low elevations and desert environment.

 When I got there at the trailhead, the weather was decent and good enough for jacket weather.  Later on, I was in shorts and a thermal jersey, it was perfect weather.  The trails I did was Luke's and S'mo Joes.  They were awesome trails.  They looked like they weren't ridden much because of early of the year.  I think all the snow just barely melted off like a week before.  These trails had a lot of turns and twists and this system of trails reminded me a lot of a trail I used to love in Farmington, NM.  They both have trails on a mesa and goes in a loop like this.  The trail in New Mexico was the Road Apple Trail.

 At halfway of the loop, at the top, was a fork out of some more trails that go further north, I guess I've read that they are awesome too and adds like 1,500 of vertical climbing.  There were no tracks at all on these trails, so I figured don't do them yet and wait like a few weeks later after a few people have ridden them so I would know where I would go.

 The total miles in the loop was like around 8 or 9 miles, when I got back to the trailhead, I wanted to do more.  So I did Luke's again and did it an out and back, and also rode Alan's Alley.  So the total miles I did that was 15 miles.  It was a blast.  I am planning to go back again and do this loop plus the northern trails, since it's so close to where I live.

Here's a sweet map of all the mountain bike trails near Price.

Fat bike up the canyon

Pretty much the whole winter before going up the canyon road was not really in my agenda, I decided one weekend to give it a shot.  The first day I went, I parked the car at the bottom of Ephraim Canyon by the hydroplant, there was maybe a couple inches of packed down snow on the road.  First, I planned to climb up to Major's Flat where mostly the plowed up road ended and a big parking area for snowmobilers.  The continous road was only open for snowmobilers and was packed down pretty much by snowmobiles.  While I had some energy leftover, I decided to try out the roadwide packed down snowmobile trail.  It was great and I really enjoyed climbing up more on it.  I climbed up and stopped right below Ponderosa Pine Plantation.  I put on my jacket and headed down, it was a blast.  This road is the funnest downhill I've ridden my fat bike on so far because the road was wide and packed down which felt safer.  Duke kept up with me and had fun going down too.  The wide low pressured tires had so much traction on this road and I was impressed. 
I went another ride up the canyon road about 3 days later which was on Presidents Day.  That time, I started from Major's Flat and made it up to Willow Creek Road and rode on that road for a little bit until I got really cold.  It was cold that morning because it was early.  The ride down was also cold.  I had some pretty good rides on the fat bike up the canyon road.