"Update Dan"

This past week has been marvelous.  Great weather, great biking, and fun times.  I had the privilege to go biking while the weather was great.  On Wednesday, I went up the Flume Trail.  Thursday, a moderate intensity ride along the base of Bald Mountain, through the farms and around the base of Black Hill, all on the roads, then Sunday after church, I went on the Flume again.  In the nice weather.  Probably the last time when I go out with no jacket or arm warmers but it was great while it lasted.  Now tonight, it's pouring rain and it's going to be cold.  Also snow in the mountains. 

That's means I got my fat bike ready.  I had a good winter last winter on it, and hopefully a better one this year.  The only changes I did on my Moonlander was new red water bottle cages and nylon Fyxation pedals.  These pedals should be a lot better.  I also bought a Pearl Izumi thermal jacket last Saturday at a Trek store.  It fits really good but I am worried about how warm it is when I go out in single digits in January.  My XC ski jacket works really good for it but I'm hoping its the same thing though.  I am asking for a frame bag for fat bikes and winter hiking boots for Christmas, then I am all set for a few rides this winter.  It might be until middle of December until I actually go fat biking when the snow is better.  If it's an early winter, great!  I get to go fat biking.  If it's a late winter, then great too!  I'll just keep riding my mountain bike.  Either way, I'm happy.  As long as I keep pedaling.

Good Water Rim Take 3

This is the third year in a row I do this trail called Good Water Rim Trail near the San Rafael.  Otherwise, called the Wedge Overlook, or Little Grand Canyon.  I love this trail because it's very unique and scenic.  There are no major climbs or anything and you can just go really fast through a maze of turns following along the rim.  And it goes on forever.

This is same self-portrait I do every year right in the same spot.  Hopefully many years to come!

I like this trail because it's 15 miles singletrack one way then 5 miles on the road on the return trip.  This time I parked right at the kiosk halfway right on the road so I wouldn't have to do the climb on the way back to the car, I did the climb first on the first couple of miles on the road then did the trail, then did the 3 miles back all downhill to the car.  It's nicer.

After my ride, which took 2.5 hours to complete, I decided to drive down to Buckhorn Draw to see the pictograph panel there.  They were amazing.  I had a good alone time trip and a great way to enjoy a fall ride this time of the year.  The trail is getting easier every year though, probably a good sign!

Arches

My brother and his family invited my mom and I to go to Moab, UT last weekend.  My dad was invited too but he didn't want to go.  So we went on a Saturday morning to meet them to go to Arches National Park.  I've been to Arches many times before but there were a few things I haven't done there before.  Was to hike up to Delicate Arch and Landscape Arch.  The great wonders.  Hiking up to Delicate Arch took faster than we thought, it took us 2 hours instead of three, pretty good with a bunch of kids.  I carried my 3 year old niece on my shoulders most of the way.  Then we were done for the day and we went back to camp. 

 The next day, we walked around the visitor's center for awhile, watched a movie, and had the kids earn their Junior Ranger badges.  Then we hiked up to Landscape arch and some other arches on the way.  Landscape is amazing.  So was Delicate Arch.  So unique.  I carried my niece again and she had a blast while I was hiking.

There's my brother's family.  They ran out of battery on their camera so I took this picture of them with my cell phone.

This is the little thing I carried with me on my hikes.  Her parents call her Thing Three and I call her Little Thing.  She's too cute.  My brother carried Thing 2 and Thing 4 sometimes, maybe Thing 3 while I was taking breaks from Thing 3.

The only thing I didn't like about the park was the people, a lot of them.  So I had to deal with it.

After 2 days wandering around the park, I barely had enough time to go for a 2 hour bike ride.  I decided on the Moab Brand Trails just north of Moab because it's more convenient for me and for everybody else.  Plenty of fun trails with all different kinds of terrain for all levels.  Also the parking is so convenient to get to from the highway for my mom.

While riding, everybody else went to Dead Horse State Park.  I always wanted to go to Dead Horse State Park again but I wanted to ride instead still.  I took my bike with me all the way to Moab so I had to ride.  My mom was going to go to Dead Horse State Park and she was waiting for my brother and his family but I guess there was some miscommunication going on and I guess she ended up going to Moab to get a drink and gas and waited for me at the parking lot enjoying herself.  Speaking of the ride, I had a very good, fun ride.  I did North 40 Trail, the EZ Trail, then Deadman's Ridge, after that was some other trails in the south of the Brand area like the Bar B and Bar M trails and then the Lazy Trail back to the parking lot.  Great, great riding.  Made me want to go back.  I rode for a good 2 hours and the weather was very perfect.  Couldn't ask better than that.  Well, that was it, what a great weekend, saw Delicate and Landscape Arches, camped, and biked hard.  Especially with my family.

Strawberry Narrows

I wanted to try out the Strawberry Narrows bike trail for a long time.  I finally went and it was better than I expected.  The trail is right by Strawberry Reservoir which is close to Heber City.  My dad and I took off and we took the short cut from Spanish Fork Canyon instead of driving through Provo and Heber City.  Way faster.  We stayed the night at the Lodge at Strawberry Bay and it wasn't so bad and they even had a restaurant there.  I did some fishing also that night and had some great luck.

The next morning, I took off at the other side of the lake and started riding my bike from the eastern side of the lake by Aspen Grove campground.  I started there and rode about 11 miles through the twisting trails, through the woods and by the lake.
 

I was in for a real treat, the trail was really smooth, flowy, and awesome.  It was a little chilly though but I guess a light jacket and arm warmers made the morning bearable. 

I was kind of struggling during the first half of the ride, I was bonking and such so I decided to not do the longer ride.  I decided to turn around at the 5 mile mark which was at Broad Hollow.  Broad Hollow is a little past at the View Point which is halfway of the trail.  I wanted to do the whole thing until Poison Ridge or close to that but I was bonking and didn't want my dad to wait that long for me either.

Fishermen.  I was one of them the day before, except on shore.

Before I turning around on my ride, I sucked up a lot of energy gel and after that on the way back, I wasn't bonking anymore and had a lot more energy.  I felt pretty good and I felt bad that I turned around soon enough.  It was getting warmer too.  I could have gone maybe another couple miles or maybe all the way to Poison Ridge.  Plus my dad said to me when I got back that he wouldn't mind that I would take all day.  Oh well, maybe next time I will go on a longer ride.  But it was great while it lasted.

I caught this 20 inch cutthroat trout the night before my ride.  And another big fish but it was smaller than this one but still big.

This is in Indian Creek on during the drive home.  It was a very good gravel road from Strawberry Reservoir to Rays Valley Road.  It was a very good drive.

I would go there again another time and do the whole trail next time.  I loved it, it was scenic, electrifying, and awesome!  And the fishing was fabulous. 

Little Wild Horse slot canyon and caught in a flashflood

My brother invited my parents and I to check out this slot canyon in the San Rafael Swell area called Little Wild Horse during Labor Day Weekend.  We were amazed and it was beautiful.

The hike wasn't that bad and pretty easy and my niece and nephews did it just fine and we even had a dog.
I think it was 3 miles out and back so the total was 6 miles or so.  Even my 69 year old mother could hike it.  My dad waited for us at the beginning of the hike so he didn't really see any of this stuff.

I thought the canyons were cool and I enjoyed it.

 This was the end of all the slot parts and it started rain just a little bit. 

And this is what a little bit of rain can do.  My brother, his two boys, and I were at the top part of the trail while the girls and the dog already turned around before we did.  We started walking in a foot deep of water and the water was rushing from everywhere.  Lot's of waterfalls and such.  It was scary.  People die from these things.  After the first couple of slots, we found the girls with some other groups of people sitting at high ground in a more open area.  We waited a couple hours for the water to settle down but we all still walked through 2 feet deep of water back out of all the slots.  We all got soaking wet and good thing the water was very warm.  What an experience!

Here is a video my brother recorded of myself and my nephews having a joy of experience through the slots in a flash flood.  Enjoy!

Three Forks Ride

Well, since I have been feeling pretty good lately to ride, I've been doing some riding when I could.  I spent last Saturday doing some more exploring on trails I haven't ridden on before.  I decided on the Three Forks area, which is in Diamond Fork in Spanish Fork Canyon.  I've  heard of this area from a friend on Facebook from last spring and I wanted to try it out sometime this year. 

This trail area is about a one hour drive from house and it's not that bad of a drive.  The day was nice but pretty humid because it rained a lot the day before.  So the trails were in good shape, cleared from dust, and  kind of tacky.

I wanted to do the "Three Forks Loop", so I started climbing up Cottonwood Creek Trail which had a lot of stand and grunt climbs with quite of few mellow spaces for spinning and recovery.  It was a great climb up all the way to the top where Ray's Valley Road is.  I did walk up a few steep hills. 

I wanted to do the loop, by climbing up Cottonwood Creek Trail, ride 5 miles on Ray's Valley paved road, then go down 5th Water and 6th Water trails.  But when I got to Ray's Valley, I was spent.  There was maybe some climbing on the highway but I couldn't tell there was but there was 5 miles of pavement I had to ride to get to 5th water trail and that trail is all downhill.  I didn't know if the highway was all downhill or had some climbing but just in case I turned around and went back down Cottonwood Creek Trail to finish my ride just to be safe.  Because I was really totally spent, way spent.  Couldn't turn the cranks anymore.

Well, it was after about an hour and 15 minutes after of climbing until I got spent.   When I was riding on Ray's Valley Road, I felt like I was pedaling with bricks on my feet, I just didn't know what the next 5 miles of paved road would be, downhill or uphill, so I guess it was smart to turn around anyway.  The downhill of Cottonwood Creek was great and it was LONG.  I loved it.  The trail was very flowy and twisty. 

The trail was very pretty going up and down, you could see that the leaves were barely turning.  That's bad news, winter is coming!  Dang it.

It's a great ride which is only an hour drive from my home.  I'm hoping in September I can go back and try 5th Water going up or do the upper 5th Water and go up 5th Water Ridge.  One or the other.  5th Water Trail is usually crowded with hikers because 2.5 miles up is a waterfall and some hot springs so anyway, I don't know.  Maybe it's not so bad but I might do 5th Water Ridge(upper) to be safe.  I never know.  There are plenty of other options!  I can ride great now, and I am hoping to have a good of the rest the year.

St. George Tuacahn and Eagle Point Biking

My mom, sister, and I went on a little trip before school starts.  First, we went all the way down to St. George to watch a musical at the Tuacahn Theater which was pretty entertaining.  We watched Mary Poppins and I enjoyed it.  I thought I wasn't going to enjoy it because I thought it was going to be some sort of play but this was a musical and it was cool.  We stayed a night in St. George and we left at around noon and went to Eagle Point Ski Resort.  I wanted to try out some newly built trails there which I found out on their facebook page.
 

 When we got there at the lodge at the top, there was NO ONE there.  I didn't know where the trails started and I wanted a map.  So we drove back down to the bottom lodge and there was one guy there.  He explained to me about the trails and told me I was like the 5th visitor/tourist all year long since the trails opened which was about 2 months ago.  But he did say that they had about a thousand boy scouts riding on the trails though. 

They have a 3.5 mile XC loop trail which is called the Monarch Loop and a flow trail called the Swoop Trail.  So I did two laps on the Monarch Loop and then went down the Swoop.

It was great climbing on the XC loop and fun downhills but nothing too hard or technical, they were basically beginner trails but hey, a great workout and I had the whole mountain to myself.  I can't believe how desolate this ski resort is.  I also heard that there's never anybody there during the ski seasons too.  I think I've found my new skiing and bike destination!  Instead of traveling 2.5 hours north to Park City, I could travel 2.5 hours south to Eagle Point.  No crowds and more convenient.

The trails had awesome switchbacks and I love switchbacks.

Cool section.

   Map of the cross country Monarch Loop.  3.5 miles.  Did two laps.  Great fun!

Map of the downhill flow trail called the Swoop Trail.  I had my mom and sister drive down and pick me up at the bottom and then we left.  While I was riding 2 laps on the Monarch Loop for an hour, my mom and sister relaxed in the upstairs of the lodge, reading and sleeping and they said they were so relaxed.  Next time, I will go uphill on the Swoop Trail and then do the Monarch Loop and back down the Swoop.  I don't think Eagle Point care if I go uphill on their flow trail really, there's never anybody else there anyway.. 
While I was riding down the Swoop Trail, halfway on the trail, there started to be lightning close by and loud thunder, it was really loud that it scared me.  But it didn't scare the cows that were there when I passed by them.  The the last half mile, it rained and it felt really good after the 109 degree temperature in St. George the day before.  I got wet and I loved it.  The trails were at 10,000 feet elevation too so it was really cool up there.  It also rained and hailed a little bit while I was riding the Monarch Loop.  I needed it.
  

This is how close we were to the Tuacahn theater stage, almost to the front.  It was very entertaining.  I had a really fun trip.  My mom said to me that I plan a lot fun things for the family.  If it wasn't for me, they wouldn't do all these things.   Well gosh, maybe.  I am trying to plan fun things for myself and I am just inviting everybody. .