canyon adventures

The other night Zach expressed a desire to shoot his guns.  We weren't sure where to go, but decided to go into the canyon with some rice and shoot some dinner (Zach was to shoot the dinner).  Chris came over, and, despite a foot injury from bike jousting, decided to come along.  I brought the air rifle.

We parked at the end of teton canyon road, and the lot was crammed.  A bride walked by, and we asked where they intended to be wed.  As if they were afraid we might try to join them, the wedding goers replied "up the trail somewhere."

Chris, Zach, and Indica.  

We walked in a couple of miles, found a suitable marmot hunting ground (far enough away from the wedding) and a suitable campsite, and then saw something big moving on the far hillside.  It was brown, and appeared quite large.  We all believed it to be moving.  Chris declared, "Damn, that's a big bear."  I thought it looked like a moose.  Zach didn't have his glasses and couldn't really weigh in, but he strapped his .45 to his belt regardless.

Filled with excitement of the possibility of a good large animal sighting, we hugged the creek to move out of the wind path to the creature, then came up the hill to get a visual.  It was a rather large stump.

Disappointed, we went back to camp, set up, and went hunting.  Zach walked silently ahead of me as I jumped around on rocks.  I heard no marmots, but something was squeaking uphill--likely a ground squirrel.  We were not opposed to eating such small rodents (I need to build on my chipmunk story anyway).  Zach, hearing the squeaks, carefully unholstered his revolver and took aim at an opening in the rock pile.

He motioned to me that there was a critter, and stood silently for some time.  Eventually, something squeaked above him, and he relocated.  This time he was quick to the draw, and took one shot before collecting his prey--a squirrel.

Zach headed down to clean the squirrel in the creek, and Chris and I followed at our own pace.  We reached Zach to learn that the squirrel had weird white specks on his abdomen--a diseased squirrel would not make a healthy snack.  We buried the squirrel, and moved on to fishing.

I have always wondered if Teton Creek had fish this high up in the mountains.  Today we found out that it does!  Chris spotted fish, I saw them too, and Zach took aim.  He missed a couple of times, missed again with the .45, and Chris and I left to build a fire.  As we walked away we heard him unload three rounds into the creek.  Despite semi-automatic weaponry, Zach came back empty handed from fishing.

We had a nice fire, ate lots of rice, and crammed into a tent when it started to rain at 3 in the morning.  I was pleased that there were no rangers waiting for us at the trailhead.  I felt conspicuous with an air rifle strapped on my pack after a night of shooting handguns in a wilderness area.  I'll be sure to check the wilderness regulations before we go shooting in the canyon again...

downhill race!

Before I agreed to work trail crew this summer, I told Andy (my boss) that it would mean a lot to have the day off for the downhill race planned for the end of the season.  As it was, I had to work for Targhee's first ever downhill race, but it was pretty relaxed and Andy let me get my race runs in (thanks!).

The downhill course starts at the top of our advanced trail, Buffalo Drop, where the expert riders have the option of hitting the "big" drop on the mountain--a 6 to 15 foot drop depending on how you hit it.  The landing is great, and there's no gap to clear, so it's a pretty safe drop, I've been hitting it all year, even on the hard tail once.  Buffalo drop ends at a mid-mountain junction of all the trails.  It used to continue, but the lower section was and remains closed by the forest service due to nothing in particular except a power grabbing forest representative.  Technically it's a drainage, but there's no water (ever) and the trail surface is rock (most durable surface out there).  So at the juncture you hop on the lower section of Sticks 'n Stones, about half of which we built this season.  The lower section is very rocky, has some great off camber rocky sections, good slow technical spots, some fun gaps, and finishes with a fast jumpy section.  It's a great trail.  Then you have about a mile of fast drifty road to crank out before you hit the finish.

My hands have been hurting, and I tried to take it easy as best I could before the race.  They didn't feel great but were good enough to hold on.  I took a pre-race run for course inspection after practice was done, and i was riding well even with 30 pounds on my back.  

I intended to set a solid first run without crashing.  Ride the way I always do, pedal when I can and be smooth.  Buffalo drop was smooth.  I started losing my front tire coming into the drop (never come in so fast or had such a loose entrance), but managed to get the bike under me before I went off.  On Sticks I dropped my chain a couple of times, but recovered without losing more than a couple of pedal strokes.  Kept it together, pounded out the road as best I could, finished, and lay down.  On the loudspeaker Andy announced the fastest time so far-- 7:19.

My fastest time held up through all the first laps in my category.  Ed posted a faster time in his category (older) and really good bicycle designer Lance Canfield posted a 7:10 in his category which would remain as the fastest time of the day.  My second run was not so good.  I blew one corner and dropped a chain in a major way (I really need a chainguide to race...).  I posted a 7:25, and was edged to third by a 7:15 and a 7:10.  It's my best result ever, and I'm stoked just to have avoided crashing.  I'm historically quite bad at not crashing in dh races, but managed two crash free runs!  I got a summer season pass for my efforts.

epic xc ride

So a few weeks ago Michael from Peaked Sports (pronounced Peak-id) told me he was going for an epic xc ride from pole canyon to Mike Harris campground.  I said I was down, but I ended up missing their start from the Victor Velopark.  I decided to go do my own ride, starting at Mike Harris, meandering around, going over to and up Pole Canyon, and then back to Mike Harris via a trail on my map.  I wasn't planning more than three or four hours.  

Near the top of Pole Canyon I was coming around a corner after climbing for 45 minutes, saw a steep, rocky, loose ascent, and loudly exclaimed "aw, shit!"  To which Mike responded, "that's right you caught us!"  We finished up the climb and stopped at the top to get ready for the next leg.  Mike proposed we take this "other trail" on the map, one that he hasn't taken before.  He told us about the sheep herders out here in the Snake River range, and how he's run into them before and they are always happy to see people, because they herd their sheep into the middle of the range and don't see many folks...

So after a little more prep for the downhill we started on the "other" trail.  It was rough, but fun, and we descended for a half an hour or so.  Other trails split off, we passed horse and stock camps that were empty, and the trail began to degrade.  We hiked more, and soon enough our only trail indicators were an intermittent singletrack and yellow forest service signs that said "Stock driveway boundary" on either side of us.  We were on the sheep herder trails.  

We kept following the stock driveway, going in kind of the right direction we thought.  Mike admitted he wasn't really sure where we were...but we decided to get to a high spot, look at the map, and figure things out.  

The Snake River range, is composed primarily of stacked, well forested steep peaks with small open canyons.  Here's a picture from a different part of the range (this looks like the beginning of the ride but with no snow and taller grasses).  the picture is a lot more open than where we were when we got lost.  

So we got to our high spot around 4, and it is dark at 9.  No one has camping gear, lights, or a compass.  The sun isn't quite in a spot where we can use it for navigation.  Mike thinks we are here, pointing to the map, and that we need to go this way.  I take a look at the map, trying to fit the landscape to some contours, but it's a pretty rough map.  I do my best, and come up with the same conclusion as Mike.  We continue on.  

We reach the top of one of the ridgelines, and see nothing but more stacked ridgelines.  I think I see the Gros Ventre range in the distance, but Mike says that's unlikely.  No road, no trails, no water.  Mark is starting to get nervous, but Mike remains confident and that's enough for me to be pretty calm about the whole thing.  It's probably 5:30.  

We get to the next ridgeline following the intermittent trail of the stock driveway.  When there is trail we feel ok, when there isn't Mark gets real nervous.  By 6 Mark is convinced we need to turn around (we're 5 or 6 miles into the range following intermittent trail at this point, have no lights, no gear, so if we turn around we'll end up crazy lost deep in the Snake River range).  He proposes we stop here and get ready to spend the night.  uh...no thanks, Mike and I agree.  It gets cold at night, and if we have to we could camp, but with three more hours of daylight I sure wasn't about to stop and get ready to cuddle up around a fire with two other dudes.  Mark's parents are in town (he may be 30), and he calls them, tells them not to call Search and Rescue YET but we're lost and we'll probably spend the night.  Mike scoffs.

So Mark is losing his cool, Mike says we go that way, and I say OK.  We get the next ridgeline.  From here I see mountains that look a whole lot like the Gros Ventre range which surrounds Jackson.  We see a town (must be Wilson at the base of the pass on the Jackson side), and a big U shaped valley that looks like it drains down to Mosquito creek.  For sure we have gone way too far East.  From here we know where we need to go.  We turn a little more North, and continue.  By 7:30 we hit a trail, we pass a sign for the Mike Harris trail (we are in the clear).  We book it West along the ridge trail that parallels the pass road from trail creek to mike harris ( a ride I've done before).  We make it to Mike Harris by 8:30, down in very dim light by 9.

What an adventure!  Next time I'll have a compass, more water, more food, and an emergency blanket.  

and now I'm riding my bike to Victor to hand out some resumes and get myself a job.  My buddy from school, Colin, visited this weekend from Salt Lake.  He had two good days of riding at Targhee despite some mechanical issues, and we got to ride the pass yesterday.  I had some folks over on Saturday night (landlord was out of town, but I think I should have folks over more often anyway).  I cooked hamburgers on my camping grill, everyone had a good time.