2016 Summer Happenings 2- Summer is almost over version

When visiting family in Ogden area, I got to ride on the funnest trail ever.

It is called, Britain's Ribbon and Brim Trail, and Hidden Trail.  Talk about pure blast.  Very nice singletrack and spectacular scenery.

These meadows are usually covered with flowers during June and July, I guess I missed it.

There's a really cool paper airplane metal sculpture on the trail but you have to either hike or ride a bike to it and that's my favorite part of the ride.

These trails were barely built and they are already getting ridden on a lot.  Because these are fun.  It's probably my favorite ride in Northern Utah.  It is located in Powder Mountain Ski Resort.

I did ride around 18 miles with 1,800 feet elevation gain.  Sweet ride.

My little sister got married so I built this wedding arbor for her.

She and her husband got married under it and now I have to take it up to their new backyard and set it up.  Another excuse to go up to Ogden to ride my bike!

I did my Skyline ride again this summer and it may be the last time for this year.  It's going to start get cold up there now.

Looking down on Manti Canyon.  It was a great view to end my ride with a climb to it.

I rode from the GBEEC on the canyon road past Bluebell and Fred's Flat.  After that, I rode on Philadelphia Flat and climbed from there to Middle Mountain and to the view.  I love this ride...one of my favorites near home.

Very spectacular high mountain scenery and nice air with beautiful green grass and trees.  And lot's of wild flowers!

I had family to come to my little sister's wedding and we all went to the mountains to have a picnic one day.  It was a very nice thing to do on a Sunday.  My older sister and her husband were there.  They didn't like the dry air here, because they were so used to the humidity in North Carolina.

I got close to a 3 or 4 point buck and took a picture.  He was eating some mountain berries.

My mom feeding the ducks.  We all had fun.

Another picture of the buck.

This past week, I haven't been feeling like riding my bike, so I didn't ride.  But I did go on a hike in Maple Canyon again during the weekend.

This time, my dog and I hiked up Left Fork Trail.  I never hiked up Left Fork Trail to the top before so this time I did.  It's a cool hike with no one around.  I loved it.  And it was a tough climb all the way to the top.

Some cool rock formations.

After hiking Left Fork, we hiked up the Middle Fork to the arch.  I haven't been to the arch in so long, but it was cool to see it again.

Duke loves to hike.  And I got him a cool water bottle just for him.  I need to take a picture of it sometime.  It has a little dish bowl at the spout, cool.

Later that night, I went to Yuba to see my brothers and their families.  We swam at the beach and I brought my canoe.  Nobody canoed that night but they did the next morning.  So I stayed the night.

A typical Utah beach: not at an ocean, no Marriott motel next to it, no waves...instead, it's at a lake, the water is super cold, you can camp right next to it and have campfires, you can have dogs, dirt bikes, canoes, water ski boats, and there's a herd of cows next to it.  So, that's the Utah beach compared to the east coast beach.

2016 Summer Happenings

Another typical summer just working and biking, etc.

On this ride, I went up to the Skyline, I started going up from the GBEEC and rode up to the top.  I remember it was really cool temperature wise and it felt really nice.

I went up again on another weekend.  This time it was hotter but I did ride up better than the other time.  I felt really good.

With me in it.  I also rode on Philadelphia Flat a little bit after I rode up to the top.

Then on the weekend after that one.  We met my sister and her fiance in Park City and I also did a ride there.

This time I rode on the new trail in Utah Winter Sports Park.  It was wild because of a lot of switchbacks.  I really liked it.  I wanted to ride a lot more but because of the worn down brake pads, I had to shorten my ride.  But I got new brake pads.  They were worn down all the way to the metal!

Then on a Tuesday night, I did an awesome road ride near Spring City while my mountain bike was in the shop getting new brake pads replaced.  I really like the Canal Road climb above Spring City.  I ran into an old friend I used to work with up there in Horseshoe Mtn Estates, so I stopped and talked to him.  It was a nice evening ride, but hard because I had the headwind on the climb.

On the following Thursday, Duke and I went on a hike on the old Race Loop I used to ride on during the 1990s.  It used to be a popular atv trail loop mountain bikers used to ride on all the time.  I loved that trail, I would love to get a time machine and ride on it again.  The landowner closed it down about 15 years ago and now it's just faded.  

The Race Loop is now a good hiking trail...if you know where you are going.  The landowners are ok with people hiking or pedal biking on their land but not with making new trails.  They are not ok with people driving atvs or trucks in the land though.

Duke loves to hike but he is getting more old and tired now days.

Another typical weeknight mountain bike ride and I happened to take a picture of a rainbow in the canyon.

Another weekend, I went camping and fishing with a friend up at Snow Lake.

It was beautiful up there.  It was on Pioneer Day weekend and there was a lot of people so we just dealt with it.

Tom

                                     

We started fishing at 8:00 in the morning but the fish didn't bite until 9:30 and that is when we caught about 11 fish.  I took 9 fish home to eat and it was delicious.

There's a lot of forest fires around and I took this picture when I was in Gunnison visiting family.

I took a walk on the Sanpitch Dragon trail in Gunnison with Jeri.

This weekend, I went on a hike in Maple Canyon.  It was a hot day but the trail was mostly in the shade which made it real nice.

Duke was tired but had fun.  I gave him water to drink a few times.  There's no streams anywhere.

We went up all the way to the top on Middle Fork Trail, then back down halfway and went up to the View Point Trail and then down Right Fork.

Viewpoint

Duke found a little bit of water in a dead stream down at the campground.  But like usual, a lot of rock climbers from all over the world come to camp and climb in Maple Canyon.  But if you just go hiking on the trails and hike out of there, you are the only one way out there.  It was fun, I like to do a big hike once in awhile.

Park City 2016

My family got together to do a Park City trip.  I went biking while we were at it.  When I got there, I biked in Park City Resort.  Up Armstrong Trail, then along Midmountain, and down on Jenni's.

It was a good ride and I had fun.  A nice summer day like this.

My family swam in the pool at the motel after we ate.  I swam before we ate though.

Everyone had fun swimming.

My nephews and niece went skiing while we were at the Olympic Sports Park.

At the top at Olympic Sports Park there was a ninja warrior course we wanted to try out that it didn't cost us a dime.

We had so much fun on this course and it was challenging.  We all had time competitions and challenged each other.

We want to build one of these in our local parks.  Good Eagle Scout project for the boys.

After everyone left and ate at Arby's, I went on one last ride before I left.  I did the Flying Dog Loop.

I was tired from the previous ride so I figured I just go up a little bit and pedal at an easy to moderate pace.  But I kept going and going before I realized I was at the top at the mountain.  So I figured that I'd do the whole 18 mile Flying Dog Loop.  It was fun.

About right here almost to the end, I was so tired that I was literally crawling with my bike, but it's a good view!

Then that night, I went to stay in Syracuse and Clinton at my sister's place and watched a firework show with my brother's family.

On that Sunday, I finished the trip by riding the Syracuse paved trail and then we ate and went home.