Yesterday Joe and I came home from a 3 day bike camping adventure up Emigration Canyon. Monday, we took off around 4pm with fully loaded trailer and set up towards the U where we then got onto the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. This was all very difficult because its all uphill and we were having 100 degree temperature out in the late afternoon sun.
Here are a few pics of the BST trail.
While most of the trail was fairly easy, it was still difficult to get up some of the hills carrying the heavy trailers. There was no way I could make it up this crazy hill, so I had to push.
"This is the Place" part of the trail, complete with handcarts.
You could see the whole valley from the trail.
It was exhausting, but fun.
From the BST, we jumped intoEmigration Canyon, which is a steady incline of about 7.8 miles to the summit. Elevation gain is 1478 feet, making it about 1974 feet total from our house to the summit.
This canyon is a hot spot for roadies and we were the only ones carrying trailers. I had to say it made me feel pretty tough to be out there sweating it with my mountain bike and heavy load while everyone else went up on their super nice road bikes.
Almost to the summit!
Looking down into Emigration at dusk.
We probably gained another 415 feet after that riding to our campground at Affleck Park. I think we arrived at the campground around 11pm.
This year I found a great way to utilize the extra receipt that you get at restaurants. I present to you one of many in the "Table Top" Series.
This all started around the beginning of the snowboarding season and has become a habit when dining out. The pictures usually depict Joe and sometimes myself, eating the meal we just enjoyed and expressing our gratitude for it. As you can see, I'm utilizing pretty much all of my artistic abilities. ;)
I always leave them on the table for the server (yes, they get a real tip, too!) but I will try to take a snapshot of each drawing and upload them when I can.
Today we loaded up the trailers and headed up 200 S. taking our usual route up State Street, into Memory Grove Memorial Park and up into City Creek Canyon. The ride began at 2 pm.
Once we hit State Street, our route was one continuous, gradual climb. This is quite difficult with a trailer that weighs about 30 lbs. We had to take a few quick breaks.
After about 1 1/2 miles into the gated road, we turned back and got onto N Bonneville Dr and turned left onto 11th Avenue. Here is the view from N Bonneville Dr looking back into City Creek Canyon:
The view was spectacular from this point. You feel as if you can almost touch the Capital Building.
Here is a nice shot of the rigs:
Finally we were able to rest a bit as that stretch of the Avenues is relatively flat and we also played around for a few minutes in the Cemetery. While we were resting, I looked at the headstone right in front of us, and all it said was "Gardner". Joe and I had a bit of fun envisioning our VERY distant future, even if it was in a rather irreverent way.
Next, we enjoyed a nice break going down the long hill that is Virginia St down out of the Aves. until it turned into 1300 E. This took us through a small section of the University District until we turned back down 200 S. This was a nice easy ride back home except for one incident.
From the University, 200 S. is a long, steep hill for 3 blocks or so. Near the end of the hill the bike lane merges into a one way street for one block. When we reached the bottom, some clever person had decided to drive up the one way street going in the opposite direction. There was practically no room for us to squeeze around and we had to slow down much too soon, which caused our heavy backloads to make us wobble treacherously about.
Fortunately the Einstein driver stayed still so we could get around him without any further conflict. The incident left us a bit annoyed, but unharmed. Check out about 3/4 into the video, you can view this bit of disturbance to your hearts content.
I must have had a premonition of something irritating to come:
By the time we got home, it was 4:15. With our breaks accounted for we probably did about 2 hours total bicycling and grand total of 15.7 miles. My fitday says I burned 975 calories, but I think it was a bit more because it isn't counting for hills climbed or the extra weight from the trailers.
Here are a couple of shots of the route from roadmob:
I was a bit tired by the end of it and it was quite warm out, but all in all it was a great ride!
Be sure to check out the ride video that Joe arranged and stay tuned for tomorrow's ride report of the North Salt Lake Loop!
We have a tough regime ahead of us for the next two weeks. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we are to complete a long distance ride. The distance of the rides will steadily increase up to 100 miles on the last day of the month.
Our first ride will be the North Salt Lake Loop ride. It's a nice little stretch that goes from the loft to Woods Cross. To make us even stronger, we will be towing our weight filled trailers behind us.
Joe, my mother and I are all set to leave for our flight tomorrow! We are very excited to show my mom around all the places we have been and let her see our future home site.
This year has been moving by so fast, its hard to believe that it is already half over. Pretty soon it will be December and Joe and I will be down in Costa Rica once again learning Spanish. After that, we plan to start building sometime around March. After the Spring Belly Dance Festival, that is. I need to get at least one solo in before our move!
Sorry for the lack of posts lately, training for our upcoming Great Divide ride is a lot more time consuming then one would expect. Its not just the 3 - 4 hour long rides each day, its the 3 hours mid-day nap and time it takes to eat 3000+ calories a day!
We have come up with a rather simple training plan, on even number days we ride the Bonivile Shoreline Trail, and on odd number days we rack up the road mileage in City Creek Canyon. Today was a BST day, we jump on the Trax train in front of the Gateway Mall and take it to the end of the line just above the University of Utah, but below IHC. A quick 5 minute ride takes us from the train to the singletrack haven that is the BST. The section of the BST starts off with a punishing 800 foot climb around the back of the "U" mountain, from there we climb higher with amazing views of the city below. The trail heads north, then west above the Avenues, and then dumps us out at the mouth of City Creek Canyon. From there, its a quick ride to Memory Grove & Downtown.
Tomorrow will be a City Creek day, we ride from our front door back up to Memory Grove and then straight up the Canyon. City Creek has car days and bike days, on bike days, hundreds of cyclists hit the road, and what a road it is! Non stop for 7 miles, we have read that the last three miles are harder then hell, with a sustained 10% grade. We have not yet made it up to that point, hopefully tomorrow will be our day to hit the top. The last time we tried we ran out of water and time.
Other then riding, we have another Costa Rica trip coming up. We are about a week away from taking off, I'm really excited for this trip. We are renting a car and a vacation house right on Lake Arenal. On Sunday Brian sat down with us and hammered out some more concrete plans for our house. I'll try to get some sketches of it on the blog soon, its going to be an amazing house to live in... I'm also taking my nice camera along with me this time, I'm hoping to return with some amazing images of our future home site.
