Silver Creek

     Our first night in the tent was interrupted by the sound of steady rain. Shannon and I both woke up in the early morning hours to hear the rain pounding overhead. I was very grateful to have sealed the tent before this trip. We had no leaking unlike the Fontana weekend back in the summer.

An interesting sign at the campground. Hula hoopers crossing ahead!

     The rain continued as the sun came up. It was obvious that riding was not going to happen this morning, so we decided to go shopping instead. I wanted to go to the Pearl Izumi Factory Store and Shannon had a few places she wanted to browse. We had breakfast at Kneaders Bakery, where Shannon had one of her favorite meals. Kneaders makes Chunky Cinnamon French Toast. I will have to say that it was pretty dang good!

     I scored some good deals at Pearl, then stopped in at the Nike Factory Outlet to see what they had. There were some good deals there too and I left with some new running gear. I had printed out the SkidMap images for the entire Park City area. There was one spot on the north side of town that looked interesting, but I couldn't quite tell where the trailhead was. So we went exploring as the drizzly rain continued. We found the trailhead and then hiked a little piece of the trail along Silver Creek. The rain had stopped, but the air was still damp and cold. I was surprised to see a damp trail that had drained well, showing almost no mud. The trail conditions got us excited, as did the sky which was looking better with less dark clouds coming from the west. We hurried back to the campsite to change and grab bikes. It was time to ride!

Silver Creek

Shannon leads the way on a mostly dry trail

Foggy mountains in the distance

     The soil at Silver Creek was much different than that of Deer Valley. It was sandy instead of the thick black dirt I saw yesterday. The terrain and landscape was different too. There were still mountains, but they were much smaller than those around the ski resorts. The Silver Creek area also features few trees and more of a desert-type look to the landscape.

    After looking at the trail distances on the map, we decided to try an 18-mile loop. I knew we would have some climbing at first, but then I thought the trail would be rolling and tame enough that Shannon could handle 18 miles. That would be her longest ride ever on a mountain bike. We had all day to ride it so we weren't worried.

    The initial climb was a monster, but then the trail got fast and fun. There were some awesome views of the Park City area, of the mountains and of the Olympic Park, which features a bobsled track, ski long-jump and freestyle area and an indoor speed skating rink. Those events were all hosted here in Park City during the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002. The trail was really fast in some spots, but also very slick as I found out the hard way. About 2 miles into the ride I face-planted after sliding my front wheel over the top of a berm. I was wearing the chest cam, but didn't have it turned on. Instead of a great crash shot, I just got the wind knocked out of me as the camera was driven into my chest. Other than a cut on my knee and torn leg warmer, I was fine and the ride resumed.

Silver Creek snakes it way along behind some apartments

The ski area at the Olympic Park was visible from the top of the first climb

Snow on a distant peak that wasn't there yesterday

    The initial part of the loop was fun, but the desert look was sort of ugly, especially on such a gloomy day. The temp was only about 50 degrees, but it wasn't raining so we were happy and dry. Well I was happy. Shannon wasn't real happy once we started climbing again. Turns out the first hill was just a warm-up for the main climb. This climb began with a slow false-flat, then gradually got steeper. We topped out on sort of a plateau. The climb was over, but there was no descent. We did some filming in some of the more visually-stunning areas. The leaves were crazy bright in some places.

Riding the trail with cloudy mountains in the distance

Swampy/marshy area along the trail

More singletrack ahead

Singletrack climbing

Getting air through the maples

     Shannon was getting tired once we reached the Flying Dog trail. I was thinking flying meant fast, but we quickly found out that it was referring more to elevation. We climbed and climbed and climbed some more. It wasn't steep, but it never let up. Some of the sections were very rocky too. We climbed up to 7,600 feet in elevation before reaching the summit. We then decided to take a short cut in order to not fully destroy Shannon's legs on her first day of riding. From the top of Flying Dog, it was mostly downhill back to the trailhead. The descent was muddy in spots and we had to take our time more than we would've liked. There was also a lot of hiker traffic, especially people walking their dogs.

Climbing up the Flying Dog Trail

Red maple leaves covered the trail in places

     We stopped for a few minutes with about 3 miles to go in the ride. There was an area off the side of the main trail called Bob's Basin Freeride area. I just had to go check it out. There were several downhill-only trails in this area. I rode a few of the them. They had some small jumps and wooden features, but they were not worth the climb you had to make to get out of the basin.

Following Shannon down a descent under clearing skies

The trail passed by a few neighborhoods that were made up of HUGE houses

GPS route of our ride from Silver Creek. We went counter-clockwise.

The elevation profile for our ride shows that the first climb was a mere molehill compared to the real climb that awaited on Flying Dog.

     Here's a short highlight video of our day of riding, shot using the GoPro by hand and on chest mount.

Video highlights of our ride at Silver Creek

    We made it back to the car after over 12 miles of wet riding. I got in a few extra miles with my excursion down into Bob's Basin. We were both tired and hungry. I'm glad we decided to opt out of doing the full 18 miles. We changed clothes and then drove a few miles south to Ruby Tuesday for dinner on a gift card we have had for some time. It was a great meal for our ravenous bellies. Our server was awesome and hooked us up with a free piece of cheescake for dessert. We ended the day lying on the air mattress listening to more rain pound on the tent. At least the weather gave us a break long enough for a ride!