Midnight Canyon/Elk Meadows

This weeks bike trip not only involved a little biking but also some jeeping to get the bikes to the trail. We scouted this trail last week and decided that it would be better to jeep the bikes to the top of the mountain and then ride down. The trail going to the top was about 5 miles and steep in many places. It took us 45 mins just to get the bikes to the top in the jeep. When we got to the top we unloaded the bikes, got the gear ready, and locked my keys in the jeep. Not a problem though because I had a spare set of keys in my backpack. The problem was that the backpack was also locked in the jeep. So here we are sitting on top of a mountain with both sets of keys locked in my jeep and the windows rolled up. As we sat there wondering which would be less expensive, breaking a window or bringing up a locksmith, an elderly gentleman on his four wheeler stopped by to see what we were doing. He was up there that morning taking pictures and just happened to ride by. We told him what had happened and after a brief laugh he decdied to help ponder some ideas of how to get my keys out. We had been working on prying open the back window and trying to break the latch but it wasn't working. The guy told us of a barbed wire fence that he had past and so we went to go snag some wire. We broke off a couple of pieces and strung them together to make a long hook. From there my buddy and the guy pried open the back window far enough for me to get the wire in and start fishing for my backpack. After a while I finally snagged it and was able to bring it to the window. The trick now was trying to position the backpack just right so I could get the keys with my fingertips. They keys were sitting in a little side pocket so they were reachable if I could just position it right. The whole time I felt like a surgeon working on a patient through laparoscopy. After about an hour of work we finally got the keys out and didn't have to break anything.

Now the bike ride can begin! The trail is wide enough for a four wheeler most of the way and rides along the ridge of the mountain until it drops down into Midnight canyon. The trails follows the stream down the canyon and crosses over it two or three times so both the bikes and us got a little muddy. It's all downhill in the canyon.

We eventually came to a fork in the road and had to climb out of the canyon to meet up with the trail to Elk Meadows. This was a difficult little climb. I'd say we were able to bike half and walk the other half of the trail out of the canyon. Coming out though was beautiful because it was all through pines and aspens, all uphill.

We got out an continued along the trail that eventually would take us to Elk Meadows. There was still a little climbing involved but it was all bikable. We came to this spot in a forest of aspens where the trail looks like it just disappears into the forest.

After climbing a few more ridges we finally came to the end of the uphills and we able to drop into Elk Meadows and downhill the rest of the way. The scenery at the top of this ridges was amazing and all encompassing.

After a short break at the top we dropped down into Elk Meadows. The trail runs through a valley full of tall green grass and wildflowers. The ride was a good ride except for the amount of insects out flying around. I could've used a windshield on my bike that day. For those of you familiar with the Ogden area it felt like driving past Willard Bay at sundown. Disregarding all the bugs the trail was still enjoyable.

The trail continues through the meadows to the main highway. However, me being the expert map reader I am, made a wrong turn and double backed to the West Fork trail that we had done two weeks earlier while at Gibson Jack instead of heading to Corral Creek which was our original endpoint. Even though we had previously ridden this trail we, weren't the least bit disappointed with this unimaginable mistake because it is a fun single track downhill with many turns weaving in and out of the forest.
This has been the longest trail distance wise that I've done up here so far. If you've been looking at the maps the majority of the rides have all been focused around the same region: The Gibson/Slate mountain areas. On the west side of these mountains lies a dozen or so different trails that all interconnect together that make for some great biking. If only I had gotten my orientation merit badge in scouting I might have been able to avoid the mishap of doubling back and we would've been able to go explore a different trail. Oh well, I guess that's what the following weekends are for.

I haven't been able to post in my blogs many of the pictures I've taken on the various bike trips because of sheer quantity. However, I do upload them onto Google's Picasa web storage and if you want to see the complete collection of pics and videos then just visit this site

http://picasaweb.google.com/tjdhulst

To Double Back?

On Saturday a friend and I took his '67 Toyota Land Cruiser out in the mountain to scout a bike trail that I've been mapping out for the upcoming holiday. It's a fairly long trail and climbs up a mountain so we decided to check it out to see if the first, and most difficult, part was ridable. We climbed the mountain with the Land Cruiser and decided that it would be too difficult to bike up. However, since we were at the top of the mountain we decided to explore some four wheeling tracks. I had a general understanding of where we would be going because of maps and google earth so we felt pretty comfortable exploring around. Going down the backside of the mountain was a little more difficult than we could've planned. We came to this one spot on the trail where the decent was around a 60 - 70 degree drop, loose gravel, a narrow trail, and a long, long roll down the hill on both sides if we were to screw up. We had no choice but to go down because there was no room to turn back around. As we headed down and the backend started to fishtail we both had the though of impending doom in the front of our minds. We made it down unscathed and continued along the trail. The rest of the trail was less techinical and not as dangerous. We finaly came to a fork in the trail and had to make a decision on which to travel. I knew that the left would take us safely back to a paved road , while I right one, well I had no clue on the right one. We decided to take Robert Frost's advice and "take the one less traveled," (the right). We putted along and enjoyed the decent of the trail. After a while we came to the final decent. From the top we could see the end and the road. The final decent couldn't have been more than 200-300 ft and didn't look as dangerous as the first part we came down, but still looked like it had it's risks. However, this time we had a choice to turn around if needed. We both questioned if we should attempt the risk with the end in clear sight, or double back to the safer trail which would take significantly more time. As we stood at the top estimating the risks vs benefits I was reminded how many times we were faced with these kinds of decisions in our spiritual lives. How many times can we see "the end (goal)" in sight and rush down the quicker, and possibly more dangerous, path? When faced with these decisions how often do we listen to that initial prompting of "turn back"? Even though we judged that final decent less dangerous than the first we decided to double back to that fork in the road and take the safer route. That increased our time spent getting back by 45 minutes because we had to climb back up the mountain and circumvent around it. We both felt both felt more comfortable with the decision that we made. Sometimes in our lives we don't have a choice to avoid the danger and must continue on but there will be many more times where we will have to make the choice of "risking it" or "double backing".

Valve House Biking

So this week's trip was on an easy trail titled Valve House. It's located within Caribou National Forrest just south of the the trails that I've previously blogged about. At the beginning the trail doesn't look like it has much to offer. The trail begins at the highway and heads up a four wheeler trail with a gradual incline. The scenery isn't very appealing at first because it heads up a canyon with a wide open. There was actually times when we passed some cattle grazing along the trail sides. However, once you get farther along the trail the forest begins to thicken and it becomes aesthetically pleasing. The trail doesn't take much time and its a very easy climb. After a while you come to a fork in the road and have the option to continue up the trail towards some ponds or to head down a canyon wash through some beautiful valleys of wildflowers and eventually loop back around to the highway beginning point. This is a quick easy ride that doesn't take much time at all; with all the stopping we did for photography the trail took a little around two hours. The downhill ride through the wash is single track and not to complicated. The scenery is beautiful with some amazing wildflowers along the way.