Remember when I said I'd fill in the details of this trip? Back in October? Yeah, the post with all the maps. Well here it is, a few months late, but still pretty fresh in my mind.
Day 1
Van and I agreed to meet at his place in Midvale. I packed my stuff and rode the bike down to Trax. My fully loaded bike and the ensuing struggle to lift and push it into the train earned me the title "most stared at person in the car." I was honored to wrest this title from the man who thought he would converse with everyone and nobody in the car simultaneously, even for just a few minutes. He does good work, that man.
Van and I met up and headed over to Sportsman's Warehouse for some last minute shopping. That place is odd. It feels like REI or Kirkham's, but with a higher BMI and everything is either orange or camo colored. They did have some good peach rings though, which I purchased, and which lasted a few days. After the supply stop, we were off towards big cottonwood canyon.
I've ridden up this canyon several times on a road bike. It is completely different when you have a heavy bike, and heavy gear. Slower and harder, obviously, but also more interesting. The slower you go, the more you tend to notice. That canyon is beautiful!
Probably around 3 o'clock, we arrived at the Silver Fork Lodge and had lunch. This turned out to be good timing, because it began to rain shortly after we arrived. The food was good, and we got to sit next to the fireplace and warm up a bit.
Guardsman's Pass is really steep. I was standing up in my easiest gear and eventually caved in and walked my bike. When we reached the top, the sun was just setting and a cloud was coming into the valley on the eastern side. We rode down through it. It was thick and we could only see 20 yards ahead until we came up out of the small valley at the top and started heading down towards Park City. This road was fun. By this time it was dark and I was using my headlamp to light the way. About halfway down, we came upon a humongous construction site. It was completely lit, you could probably see this thing from space. It was a gigantic resort complex built into the side of the mountain.
We stopped at the Albertson's in PC for some food and then found a flat "campground" just outside the city next to the rail trail and a swamp.
Day 1 was a total victory. I was a bit worried about the pass - I thought we might not have made it. I was worried about my bike, and our fading daylight. Both turned out to be non-issues. After doing that, I think we could get over anything.
Day 2
On day 1 we covered very little ground, but climbed a huge mountain. Day 2 was very flat, which was a welcome relief. We rode from PC to Morgan on the rail trail, stopping at the Spring Chicken Inn for lunch. We stopped for some fishing on the Weber river and at Echo lake. Van had some luck on the Weber, Echo lake pretty much sucked.
Close to evening, we stopped in Henefer at a gas station to fuel up. This meant Pepsi for me, and Mountain Dew for Van. The clerk at the gas station started talking to us about our trip and said that he was interested in bike touring as well. He came out to look at our bikes and we chatted for a bit. He invited us to sleep in his living room, and we accepted. The invite came out of the blue, but his house was only a bit farther than East Canyon, or original destination, and he seemed like a really genuine person. Willard White is his name, and we were correct about him.
We then rode from Henefer to East Canyon and then past the dam into the morgan valley. The road from Henefer to East Canyon was the most desolate road we'd been on. Not a single car in either direction - all we heard were cows. Awesome.
We found Willard's home and were treated to a great dinner by his wife, Laura. They let us shower and set up an air mattress in the living room. We stayed up and talked for a long time about bikes, bike touring and Willard's aspiration to ride cross-country. Inspirationroad.blogspot.com is the address for his blog about his planned adventure to raise money for the Shriner's Hospital.
Day 3
Laura cooked another wonderful meal for us and we took off. I spent about an hour fixing my front brake, which fell apart first thing in the morning. Eventually, I gave up and we headed into town. Fortunately, there was an Ace Hardware just before we left town. I felt like it was a longshot for them to have bike parts, but we went in anyways. There it was, an entire isle of Bell bike accessories, including new brake pads and cables! As much as I poke fun at Bell and their lower quality stuff which is usually sold at supermarkets and Wal Mart, I am forever in their debt because that brake cable I bought probably saved my life sometime in the next two days.
From Morgan to the bottom of Trapper's loop looks pretty flat, but it's kind of rolly. Up and down, up and down we rode, past group after group of newly developed homes with silly names like "Evergreen Meadows" or "Tuscan Estates" or some other such crap. They're cookie cutter homes. Might as well call them Ivory Homes development # 378 or Rainey Homes Morgan Valley Project. Anyways, they did provide a mild amount of amusement as we rode.
We stopped at the gas station at the bottom of the hill to refuel. Van bought his customary Mountain Dew. I bought my customary Pepsi. It was during the next 45 minutes or so that I discovered something incredible - 20 oz of Pepsi followed by Muse's Hullabaloo Disc 2 is extremely energizing. Despite carrying 50lbs of bike and gear over Trapper's loop, that was one of the most envigorating rides I've been on. The reward for the climb was amazing as well. Ogden valley looks like heaven on earth sometimes. I say sometimes, because sometimes Pine View reservoir is filled to the brim with speedboats and personal watercraft, which are loud and just ruin the picturesque scenery. Sometimes I am among them. I admit it. This day it was nearly empty, however. It was a bit on the cold side and a weekday.
We fished awhile at Pine View. I didn't catch anything. Van had a few bites. It was still fun and relaxing.
We left Pine View late and it was getting cold. We weren't really sure where to camp for the night. We stopped at a pizza restaurant and asked our waitress where the good camping places in Eden are. Some people at the next table overheard us and suggested we just camp out at the middle school or a business park across the street since we were several miles and downhill from any good camping.
So after finishing our pizza, we set up camp at "Elk Run," a vacant group of newly-built shops just off the main road.
Day 4
Another awesome day.
We started out for the road to Avon. It's a dirt road that hunters use to get up into the hills. This was hunting season, so there were a fair amount of trucks and four-wheelers traveling up and down. This was some tough climbing. Every pedal stroke I was fighting to keep my extremely heavy bike balanced and moving forward. I stood on the pedals and focused a few feet ahead. We stopped for rest every hundred yards or so, but were making solid progress.
Maybe just past the halfway point, I experienced my mechanical failure of the day. My bike was saving the best for last day as it turned out.
This left me with a big chain ring in the front. Could I make it the rest of the way? YES! It was really hard. It was really hard earlier. This was really harder.
The climb was worth the extra effort. We arrived at the top to find some campers, some guys shooting at targets with their super loud rifles and some kids who were stalking us like lions.
If you look closely at the picture in the right, you can see them. They are naturally camouflaged to avoid notice by their prey.
We decided it was best to leave the area before they attacked and so we headed down the dirt road to Avon.
'Twas a fun descent. A bit rough without suspension, our hands started to ache a bit.
We came to a small bridge over a stream and met some folks who had driven up to take in the scenery. We took a picture for them, and they took a picture for us. Here is that picture.
Well, then we kept heading down, eventually found pavement and more and more homes and farms and eventually saw some shops and here's one of the signs from one of the shops that we passed.
That's probably an old slogan for Mountain Dew. Neat eh?
(Note: I'm not really sure why the text is blue now. I'm tired of fiddling with the formatting options in blogger, so it is blue text from here on out. Enjoy.)
(Second note (1/19/10): the text is no longer blue. people complained. apparently it was burning retinas.)
Well, Cache valley is really pretty in the fall. Rolling hills and farms and green and yellow and picturesque little homes and barns and such dot the landscape. And we didn't even have to go into Logan. We rode to Hyrum and then headed west toward Sardine Canyon.
Our plan was to go over the canyon, ride south to Ogden, and catch a train home. Sardine canyon seemed like a pleasant canyon. I had driven through it a few times in the past and didn't really pay much attention to it. Turns out it is the canyon of deception.
We thought we hit the summit at least three times. We were sorely disappointed when we just saw another small valley followed by another climb. But we survived. We were hot and tired and my bike was not being friendly with its lack of small chain ring, but we survived.
The rest of the story is as follows:
- We at lunch at Maddox in Brigham City
- We made it to Ogden.
- Ogden isn't very scenic.
- Downtown ogden needs more street lights.
- Frontrunner is great for carrying bicycles.
- Our last day was the longest of all (70 ish miles!)
And now I have a new bike.
