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.  

im alive

Wow it's been nearly a month? I'm a flake.

I'm alive, although I almost spent an unplanned night in the woods yesterday. fun! no time now...

aint over till its over

I'll keep updating irregularly.  Inga had this to say about not blogging:

Please don't stop writing blog entries.  How am I going to know where the

hell you are and if you broke both of your legs in a biking accident?

Fair enough.

Rebecca is in town as I write.  We're at the coffee shop because she has some work to do, and then it's off to the pass to ride Black Canyon.  We've had one good ride, one bad ride, and one good hike.  The bad ride was an epic hike-a-bike followed by a mediocre descent where we got caught in a thunderstorm only to climb back up some more and descend a ridiculously muddy double track to the truck.  Poor planning on my part.  It was a ride I've wanted to do but I think I should have saved it for another time.  I thought my crew-mate, Dave, recommended it, but it turns out he was talking about something else...

We hiked yesterday up to the top of Table Mountain.  It was about a 9 mile hike with 4100 feet of elevation gain and a gorgeous view of the tetons from the top.  Total time was about 8 hours I think.  Rebecca has some pictures, I'll steal some and post them.  We saw a total of three moose, lots of marmots, and a snake.  No bears. :(

Weather is good, more rain than we've had for a little while which is great.  Dryness is bad for trails and trail building.

is this the end?

living without internet may be the end of the blog.  it's hard to say.  Perhaps I'll take initiative, write blog entries offline and upload them later.  however, after 10 hours of trailwork I dont have much initiative, and on my days off I usually just want to go fishing and biking.

Rebecca is coming soon.  I'm excited to see her and I think I can shift my work schedule so I don't miss too many days.  I can't exactly afford to miss out on 10 or 20 hours of work for a week, so it's important that I can shift my schedule.  I have been thinking about where we will ride...hopefully the weather cooperates and we can play outside, but I think we'll manage regardless.  

I'm trying to use my oven more.  I had a fantastic meal last night after playing frisbee golf until late.  I covered a thawed frozen salmon filet with lime juice, lemon juice, onions, a chopped tomato, some generic poultry/fish seasoning, and tossed it in the oven.  Then I started a rice side dish (like backpacker food), jumped in the shower, then (after the shower) sauteed mushrooms, garlic, and onions to top it all off.  Everything finished at about the same time, it didnt take long to prepare, and it was delicious.  I finished it off with a bowl of cereal with a nectarine.  Tonight I'm cooking some chicken drumsticks, but probably not in the oven because I did that two nights ago.

Tonight is the Tetonia Rodeo, which I'd like to go to but I have to eat and I stayed up late last night talking with my neighbor Hailey and a visiting friend of hers.  I'd like to have some energy after work tomorrow for whatever comes my way.  I think I have plans for frisbee golf and then I've heard some rumors of cheap food somewhere and fireworks.  I get to work a cross country bike race tomorrow.  It will be interesting to be on the other side of the event...

Hunger wins, later!

fishing and sunshine

Work this week was pretty good.  We got to work on some more trails, and started building the skills park on Saturday.  We have shifted to a Wed-Sat schedule, and working on Saturday feels weird, but having Monday and Tuesday off means that the trails and the rivers are much more empty!

The skills park is going to be super fun and flowy.  It won't be dangerous, but I think we'll be able to incorporate some great challenge with low, skinny skinnies and fun long log ride/skinny/ladder/rock combos.  I took some pictures of the big entrance boardwalk we started on Saturday, but I forgot to bring my camera to the coffee shop.

I dig not having internet.  It's been such a big part of my life for the past five years, and it's nice to be disconnected.  If only I didn't have a TV...  Fortunately I'm too busy to watch it much, and I despise television for how easy it is to burn time.

I had to send a fork back to the manufacturer for some service, so I only have my rigid and my road bike that are rideable right now.  I may try to ride my big bike on the pass today, but I'm missing a front derailleur so if my chain falls off I have to stop to put it back on...which may be too much of a hassle to make riding it any fun, but I miss riding the pass.  

Soon my parts will come in, and I'll try to sell my perp so I can tear apart my Bitch to build up a full suspension: the Transition Bottlerocket.  This will be a fun, low, jumpy bike with six inches of travel in the back.  BUT I gotta sell my perp first...which may be hard in these times.

The weather has turned!  It's supposed to be warm and sunny ALL WEEK!!  CRAP!  We may be able to ride DH trails at the 'ghee next weekend!!  SWEEET!  free riding!

On Saturday we got stormed off the mountain with very close lightning and hail.  Nellie (my (family) little dog) and I share a healthy respect for thunderstorms.  The difference being that she shows it by hiding under the couch when it rains, while I simply get anxious and try not to get caught in an exposed place or anywhere outside when there's frequent close cloud to ground lightning.  I don't understand people who are willing to be exposed in thunderstorms.  It's reckless and unnecessary.

Pete and I went fishing yesterday.  We drove 50 miles to Warm River, up near Ashton, ID.  It was great.  I pulled a bunch of nice browns on a massive stonefly nymph thanks to advice from a local fly shop.  The nice ones (16") were hiding under undercut banks.  Around 6 pm a Caddis hatch started, and fish started to rise, but I kept fishing my nymph.  Soon after, a storm rolled in and we left.  I was wet wading and surprised I didn't get unbearably cold.  Pete is new to fly fishing, and has a lot to learn.  The first is to practice casting on a grassy yard, then learning about bugs and trout water will help a lot.  I'll loan him my Fly Fishing for Dummies which is a good, simple resource.

Oh and my mom was nice enough to overnight my fiddle to me!  Thanks again!!!  It sounds great with new strings, and is so much nicer to play than the electric.

It's so nice outside I don't know what to do with myself...not sit in here anymore thats for sure!

catching up....

Here are some pictures from my drive through Colorado.  

The bear:

This is the view from the entrance to Teton Canyon, the place where I camped for a couple of weeks:

Work is going well.  About half the mountain has melted so we have been able to do some trailwork--mostly rebuilding berms, buffing trail, etc.  The black (difficult) trail should melt out fairly soon and I'm pretty excited to see what that's like.  I hear good things from the local riders I've met.

In addition to trailwork at the 'ghee, I've been getting involved with the trailwork up on Teton Pass.  Surely I've mentioned it...this is where folks are building legal trails with big jumps and such.  A few days ago I got Harlan's number, who I found out later is basically "the man" when it comes to trailbuilding.  He, I think, got the ball rolling on the stuff out on the pass.  

So yesterday I joined Harlan and some other folks to continue working on a big jump line off of the Parallel trail.  We worked on cutting the lip for a step up after a 35 foot gap/step up jump.  Some folks hit it, and it looked great.  

From the lip:

Airborne:

I've had a bunch of days off as we switch from Mon-Thurs schedule to Wed-Sat.  I thought maybe I'd skip out of town (constantly raining) for Moab, but decided that I ought to save the money.  I got a bunch of riding in on Friday and Saturday, got caught in hail and lightning on Sunday, did trailwork yesterday, played a bunch of fiddle, and today I'm using the internet!

I am now living in employee housing.  I pay $175 a month and get a brand new fully furnished really nice apartment to myself.  I dig it.  I bought a slow cooker at the thrift store for 4 bucks, which I am enjoying immensely.

There's a fiddle contest on July 5th.  I think I'll enter if I can get off from work.  I've been practicing for it, cranking my way through a book of Cajun tunes, and working through all the old classics.  I look forward to playing my acoustic!

I'll try to stay better updated...it's tough to catch up on a weeks worth...

vandalism?

Yesterday I parked on Kelly St, in front of my buddy's place in Jackson around 4.  I went for a road ride, 'cause the weather cleared up nicely.  I had a cool ride up this switchbacked road that went on for way longer than I thought.  I raced the rain to the top, bombed back down, and cleaned myself up.  Then, while packing up my truck, I noticed that one of my cap windows was shattered all over.  There was a small hole, and a tear in the upholstery of the cap on the inside.  Someone shot out my window!  

I'm annoyed at the expense and primarily the trouble that it will cause me to get it fixed, but I'm a little miffed at who would run around taking pleasure in causing other people hassle and expense.  Weird.  I'm not totally surprised...it's an expensive truck, and has Georgia plates...but I did think Jackson was a pretty safe place.  The neighbor said that it's not the first car on that street to have a window shot out.  So now I get to ride around with cardboard over it.  sweet.  Fortunately it was during the daytime and I wasn't sleeping in it!

Today we got to work on trails!  We started at the bottom of the beginner dh trail, called Sidewinder.  It needed some drainage work, some snow shoveling, lots of general raking and smoothing, and I did a little "extra" work--made a rock roller feature, and built a little tiny high speed hip jump (shhhh).  I was stoked to work on trails, but nasty weather (hail/snow) rolled in after lunch and we called it a day at 1.  I suggested we wait it out, but folks were eager to bail, I guess.  I'm eager to get these trails in good shape so we can build some more.  I hope the rest of the crew catches my excitement...they didn't seem too excited about working on trails, but I know what I'm doing.  I tried to teach/show folks proper ways to make trails, how to use the dirt, etc.  I think Mike thought I was being an ass, which I tried really hard not to.  We need to talk over trail construction BEFORE we go out into the field, else I'll just teach by correcting mistakes, which of course makes me feel like an ass.

Fellow crewman Dave has an extra room in his house, rented by his fellow housemate Dave.  If I were to take it, three Daves could live under one roof.  The room was tiny and didn't have a bed, but other than that it was ok.  The garage was spacious and had a bike stand, a tool that holds the bike so you can work on it.  The house is also next door to a city park, where, rumor has it, a pump track and dirt jump park will soon be built.  That's the kind of backyard I want.  If the landlord goes down on rent (from $400) I may consider it.  Aside from that there's a place in Drictor (the space between Driggs and Victor) that is cheap (300) and the housemates want a musician.

Off to the grocery store (exciting!).  Fellow crewman Pete just walked by the coffee shop, and I think I'll join him, Sarah, and Jackie to watch a hockey game.  I'll probably use their kitchen too...