Spring Break and Such

I went camping and hiking with my brother and his family in Caineville, UT during their spring break.

That's the campground, probably the only most uncrowded place in southern Utah during spring break.

My niece, Hannah, and her dog, Deegan.

We did a hike one day to North Caineville Mesa.  This cement truck near the highway is where we started.

Deegan can do this hike!  Easy.

Started hiking up along these weird gray fins.

Then started up this very steepish wall-like mountain.  Yes, a mountain.

The nephews starting writing memoriams just in case we died.

The views were just starting as we got higher and higher.

Beautiful!  Looking east.  The campground is below.  But we are not done yet.

Then we went though a squeeze and a mini slot canyon to get to the very top.

There it is, the top!  Looking west.

Everyone enjoyed the views at the top and we all walked around.

Then we skied down, no...hiked down.  It felt like skiing.

Playing in the cement truck.

After we were done with the hike, we sat around camp for a while then it was time for me to go.  I stopped in Capitol Reef on the way home and I rode my road bike for a little bit.  My mountain bike was broke down so I had my road bike.

I was tired from the hike but I barely had enough energy to go a little more.  I rode on the Capitol Reef Scenic Drive.

It was about 20 something miles....I think.  A good ride.  And beautiful.

Someone suggested me last March that I should do long low-intensity rides until summer, then do short high intensity mountain bike rides in the summer.  So, I try to follow this schedule and see if I can become a better rider.  The plan has been kind of changing a lot because of the rainy weather we have getting this spring.  I don't do any riding on Sunday, just a big one on Saturday.  I've been riding my road bike more on rides that has little climbing.

I bought a heart rate monitor for my Garmin bike computer that I strap around my chest to watch my heart rate to make sure I don't go over about 80% of max heart rate.  But I try to keep it at 70% during the whole ride.  But don't go below 60%.  Then keep it at this pace for 1.5 to 3 hours.  I have been doing quite a few 3 hour rides lately and it feels great.

Here's one ride I did on the weekend after Caineville, while I was at my little sister's to help her do a garden project for the weekend, I did a long 40 mile ride to Plain City and back.  Good ride!

On Easter day, I took Duke on a hike to the waterfall in the west mountains.

I haven't been to this waterfall since I was a kid.  I needed to check it out.  We walked along a wash for a mile to the waterfall.

The water only goes down during early to mid spring as long there is still snow at the top of the west mountains.

Pretty!  Perfect for a Sanpete cowboy to undress and take a shower while camping for the night.  I wanted to get under to cool down but I had hearing aids on and my Garmin Forerunner on my wrist so I didn't want to ruin them and bother to take them off.

Duke liked this hike because there was a lot of water for him to drink during the whole time.

A few more little waterfalls along the hike.

Last night, I went to Supercross in Salt Lake City with my brothers and sister and their families.  It was fun and this was the first time I've been to a dirt bike race.  It was loud.  But it was fun to see Eli Tomac come from 10th spot to beat Ryan Dungey in the finals.  Everybody was cheering.

The next day, which was this morning, I went on another local hike in the west mountains.  I pasted gps coordinates I got from a ksl article from 2008 to find the center of Utah.  I followed a road to this gate and drove more.  Then started hiking up a hill by following cairns.  Some cairns were knocked down so I fixed them.

I went 1/2 mile up the hill and found the marker!  Pretty cool.  I can't believe that we have this in Sanpete.  Fun to see and a very fun activity for the kids if you have them.

It is about 5 miles west of Ephraim.  The center of Utah is not in Levan, UT, where everybody thought where it was.  Levan is "navel" spelled backwards and that's how that town got it's name.  The navel of Utah.  Well, they were wrong.  Thanks to an Eagle Scout from Mount Pleasant from 2008.

Then Duke, Jeri, and I went for a drive later in the afternoon in Ephraim canyon and checked out the snow and the big water in Lake Hill.

Saint George Take 2

Last weekend, I went back to St. George and did some more riding.  This time, I did some trails that were low intensity friendly.  Because I have an injury on my foot, I wanted to take it easy.  Plantar fasciitis or called "policeman's heel", that's what I have and it sucks.  I never went to the doctor but I know that's what I have.

I did some of Hurricane Rim, Cryptobionic, Dead Ringer, More Cowbell, some of JEM, and Goosebumps.  I took it easy and it ended up taking 3 hours which is what I needed.  It was probably good for me.

JEM

Dead Ringer

Goosebumps(if you do the whole thing, not turn onto Crytobionic, the last part of Gooseberry is the funnest)

Then the next day, I tried out a new trail called Wire Mesa.  It was a long drive to get there and the road to it was not good either but doable though.

Wire Mesa was technical and fun but not as technical as Gooseberry Mesa.  That's good, because I think Gooseberry is very technical.

Because it's a new trail, it had more flowy singletrack than the old trails around.  That's the way the new trails are now days.  They just keep getting better every day.  And more fun.

 Fun!

And awesome views of Zion National Park to the north!

Since I am doing more low intensity rides, I have been giving my new road bike more attention.  This week I rode a total of 125 miles!  I have been trying to do more 2.5 to 3 hour rides to get some more endurance training in.

And here's proof from my Strava profile that I got 125.1 miles this week.  The most I ever got in a long time.

Now I get to wear this shirt, laugh out loud.  I wonder where I can buy it?  Thank goodness for Google!

More pictures of the animals in my life.  Lily Tiger.

And Lou chewing on a cow afterbirth part.  Probably an umbilical cord.  You see those laying around during calving season around the farm.

I had the chance to restore a 200 year old table for a friend.  It was a lot of fun and it looks pretty.

And what you can do with extra cabinet doors laying around the shop?  Build coat hanger racks!