DNR at RMR

     We made our way out to West Jordan, UT after our stops at Curt Gowdy and Green River in Wyoming. Our home base for the rest of the trip would be at Gma's house, my usual home away from home when in Utah. I am so, so grateful for Gma's generosity in letting us come out. Without being able to stay with her we could not have afforded this trip.

Echo Reservoir entering Utah

     Upon arrival, Gma was ready with a list of things for me to fix. Since it has only been seven months since I was last here, the list was a bit shorter than usual. I got through it pretty quick and moved out to the yard which has become my domain over the past few years. It needed some work, so Dina and I spent the first afternoon mowing the lawn and trimming trees. As I was mowing the backyard, I noticed what appeared to be a big rock in the neighbor's backyard. After a few rounds, the rock had moved. I stopped and took a closer look. It was a huge tortoise! Not what I was expecting in the middle of the neighborhood, but the neighbor does have quite the array of animals so I wasn't completely surprised. He was out there grazing on the grass and paid no attention to me at all. I need some neighbor's like this at home!

Gma's backyard needed some attention

After a little clean up

The tortoise next door

     After our yard work, we dodged some rain showers to get in a quick ride on the Jordan River Parkway Trail, which is the local greenway that stretches for nearly 40 miles. We had nice mountain views for our easy spin and even caught a partial rainbow over the mountain above Draper.

Jordan River Parkway with the Wasatch Mountains to the left and a bit of a rainbow over Draper in the middle of the shot.

Rainbow forming over Draper

Bridge on the greenway over the Jordan River

Pelicans in the river

     On Tuesday, I took Dina into downtown Salt Lake City to show her Temple Square. To me, that is one of the coolest places I have ever seen in any city. I'm not much for visiting cities. I'd rather be out exploring the rural areas outside of the city. But I will never pass on a trip to downtown Salt Lake to show someone Temple Square. Everything is free to visit and most places downtown give tours. Whether you are an LDS church member or not, you will enjoy this place. There are some great exhibits about not only the church, but also the early settlers in the area and the history of the city. The buildings are all very historic and feature some pretty cool architecture. The Conference Center in particular will leaving you scratching your head on its size statistics and the amount of brains it took to design some of the features in the building like the sky lights and the massive pipe organ. It even has a garden on the roof that is designed like the state of Utah with mountain plants on the east side and desert plants on the west. They had to make their own dirt mix for the garden as normal dirt would have been too heavy to be on the roof. The Salt Lake Temple is definitely the centerpiece as it is beyond beautiful and covered with symbolic features. The landscaping around the grounds is beyond immaculate, maybe better than any place I have ever been to.

Salt Lake LDS Temple, the jewel of Temple Square

Downtown SLC from the top of the Conference Center

     The LDS Church History Museum has opened since the last time I was here so we checked it out. There was a lot of cool things inside including some cool stained glass features of significant Christian events throughout history, a painting tour of the areas the settlers went through on their journey West, and info on all the church presidents. They also had some artifacts in there that made many church stories feel a lot more real. I really enjoyed the museum. It was a good experience that only could have been made better by having Shannon there with me. I hope Dina enjoyed the tours and felt the spirit that is all around that area.

One of the paintings depicting the Ayres Natural Bridge in Wyoming that settlers on the Mormon Trail passed by

Another painting depicting the Devil's Backbone area of Wyoming

     In all the years of coming out to the Salt Lake area, I have always been out too late in the year to catch the weeknight Utah Crit Series that takes place all summer on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. I had not even thought about it this year until I happened to look on the USA Cycling page to look up Pro XCT info for the weekend. The series had begun and it was Tuesday night which means race night at Rocky Mountain Raceway in West Valley City! I brought my road bike on the trip. It was set up for gravel with big tires and my heaviest set of wheels, but at least I could get out there. I felt like I needed a good effort or two to get the lungs ready for the effort they were going to have to make at elevation come the weekend.

     After we got back from Temple Square, we loaded up the van and headed over to RMR to make the race. Normally, there are A, B and C groups in sort of the "training race" format, but tonight was a full USA Cycling event with all categories racing. It also featured double points for the series so turnout was a bit bigger than usual. We had around 35 riders for the Pro/1/2 race on a loop that was about a mile long through the grounds of RMR. The start/finish straight was on the drag strip. It was flat, but sticky with all the traction additive laid down for the cars. It also was straight into a stiff headwind. A sweeping left turn took you onto the backside of the property through the parking and staging area for the paved oval that is also on the property. The backside of the course was all on the staging roads with some potholes to dodge and one gentle chicane before a hairpin left turn took you back onto the drag strip for a straight sprint to the line. You had great views of the mountains as you came down the backstretch, though I didn't have much time to enjoy that view during the race.

Crit. course at Rocky Mountain Raceway

     Our Pro/1/2 group started a minute ahead of the Cat. 3/4 group, so we were both out on course at the same time. We were racing for 60 minutes, while the Cat. 3/4s were going for 45 minutes. We were a bit late getting there after getting stuck in some SLC traffic so I did not get in a good warm-up, which was not a good thing for an effort this hard at elevation. I paid dearly right from the start.

Pro/1/2 group on the start line

Pro/1/2 race underway

Cat. 3/4 start

    The start itself was not all that fast. I had a front row start and was able to slot in second in line by turn 1 and settle in. One guy was off the front right form the whistle. Once we got on the backside of the course and picked up the tailwind things got crazy with some really fast attacks on the left side of the road. I fell pretty far back in the group immediately, trying not to go too hard too early. The first time off the hairpin and up the drag strip was very fast and it hurt me a lot. By the time we reached turn 1 on lap 2, guys were letting gaps go and I found myself behind one. I had to chase all the way down the backstretch and was able to rejoin after the chicane. I had the legs to close the gap at high speed, but my heart was about to explode. I was at 185 heart rate entering the drag strip, which is the highest I have seen all year. The pace was on and it stayed single-file through the finish line. There was not a lot of place to hide into the stiff wind and I started to fall off the main group along with a few others. They eventually came around me and I couldn't even get on their wheel. I was off the back alone early in lap 3.

One rider off the front of the Pro/1/2 group on lap 1

Pro/1/2 group on the drag strip

Cat. 3/4 group on the strip to end lap 1

      There was one slow moment the next lap and I gave what I had to get across to the group, but I didn't make it into the stiff headwind. I was blown up. The heart was no longer giving me over 175 bpm and I couldn't breathe. All I could do was watch them ride away while I hyperventilated. I really felt like I hadn't given that much effort in those first few laps, but the lungs and heart said that was enough. I can only assume this is from the elevation. It has never really bothered me this much before.

     After a few laps, the Cat. 3/4 group caught me. I moved out of the way and they sailed on by. I was expecting to get pulled, but the official and promoter let me stay in. After another lap or two, a group of four chasers from the Cat. 3/4 group caught me and I was able to tag onto the back just as we were getting lapped by the Pro/1/2 field which was considerably smaller now. I sat on the back of this small chase group for a lap, then started rotating through. The five of us worked well together for about 25 minutes before their race ended and I was left out on my own for what became a solo 15-minute time trial effort. I got lapped again just as I separated from my chase companions and ended up getting caught one more time at one lap to go. I jumped on the back and finished at the end of the lead group after a little over an hour of hard racing. In all, I got lapped three times, but I didn't quit and that gave me a decent finish position of 25th. It really is amazing how many guys will quit races. But you know me, I'm not quitting unless something is seriously wrong. It was a good test tonight. I see I have good legs, but I need some more time to adjust to the elevation and now I know a solid warm-up will be critical come the weekend.

I finally tagged onto the back of a little chase group

Cat. 3/4 group near the end of the drag strip

Doing my TT effort to end the race

Another group starting in the next wave of races

The paved oval is right next to the drag strip. They also have a motocross track at RMR.

     Thanks to Dina, we have some great pictures to look at and some video to watch. Her video is posted below, followed by highlights from my handlebar cam. I think she got some cool shots of the snow-capped mountains. There was a lot of nice scenery in the distance here.

Video: Race clips from the Pro/1/2 and Cat. 3/4 races

Video: Highlights from my handlebar cam at RMR

      There's more racing to come this week. Wednesday night brings another crit. in West Valley City, this time around the training facility used by the Driver's License Division of Utah. Then Thursday night is a time trial in Magna. I do not plan to do the time trial, but another crit. will happen for sure!

Rocks and Rivers

     Our Curt Gowdy riding extended into the weekend. Saturday was our third day in the park. This time we focused on the east side, the area filled with rocks and steep canyons. This side has a totally different landscape as compared to the west side. I went out alone for some hard efforts early in the morning, riding both sides of the park before meeting up with Dina and heading onto the Canyons trail. I put in another good effort on Stone Temple to go for the KOM, but there was way too much traffic out there to hit the rock sections like I needed. I felt so much slower, but my time was just a single second off the previous day's PR.

Granite Reservoir Dam from the Canyons trail

     Dina is riding well enough now that she enjoyed the technical descents on Canyons. There are some nasty rock gardens and a few very tight turns that you must get right or pay a big penalty for going off the trail. Most of the trail is on the edge of the canyon and going off the trail to the left is not an option. She may have been scared, but I couldn't tell. We climbed up Middle Kingdom in search of a different view of Granite Reservoir and we got it.

Me on Middle Kingdom

Dina on the big rock slab

Granite Reservoir from the opposite side than all my other pictures

We found bones lying around everywhere in the park. Dina was fascinated by these vertebrae and ended up carrying them out in her Camelbak. I asked her if she wanted to do a night ride and she said "Heck no! Did you see all the bodies laying around here?!"

A rider on Middle Kingdom

Two more riders climbing by our lookout point

Middle Kingdom play area

     We played around on the trails at the bottom of Middle Kingdom. I hit a few jumps, but really you need a bigger bike than an Epic to enjoy all of the Middle Kingdom features. Then it was off on Crystal Ridge for more climbing and some good views of the other lake in the park, Crystal Lake Reservoir.

The Crystal Ridge trail crosses the main road through the park and provides a few views of the Crystal Lake Reservoir. There's also plenty of prairie dog holes to dodge on this trail.

Crystal Lake Reservoir

     We also did the Highline trail as I couldn't allow Dina to miss the big canyon behind the reservoir. Highline takes you around the edge of big rock hill with plenty of views of the canyon and reservoir, but it isn't quite as deadly as the Canyons trail could be. You can get hurt bad in several spots on Highline, but you can die on Canyons if you make a wrong move. Dina survived the climb to Highline and again rode bravely around the edge. We stopped for lunch at the mouth of the canyon with one awesome view of the Crystal Lake Reservoir and Dam.

Highline takes you to the edge of the canyon

Dina on Highline. Love this shot!

Crystal Lake Reservoir and Dam

     After lunch, we finished the Highline loop, then cruised back down to the shore of the reservoir and through the lower campground before heading back up to the upper campground where we were staying. We took Cliffhanger and Mahogany to the top and then spun the easy Shoreline trail right to our tent. We ran into an angry goose along Shoreline. At first I couldn't tell from it's crazy look if it was injured or protecting something. I figured it must be protecting eggs or babies. As I am checking out the goose, this kid comes running up and tells us the goose is indeed sitting on a nest full of eggs. He then tells us this story about how he and his sister were playing with a ball earlier and the goose took their ball and put it with the eggs in the nest. The two kids were probably about 10 years old. They got their ball back all by themselves without harming the goose or eggs. The sister distracted the goose with some bread while the brother took the ball back. They were funny kids and obviously pretty smart too.

Kayaks in the Crystal Lake Reservoir as we ride Cliffhanger

Granite Reservoir from Shoreline

Video: Footage of our riding and waterfall exploring at Curt Gowdy State Park

     I only had 3 1/2 hours in for the day, but I was really tired. I think the elevation was starting to catch up with me. I opted to stop for the day. We decided to go back to Vedauwoo and do some hiking in the afternoon. We wanted to get up onto the rock ledges we had seen people walking on the day before. When we started the hike, you could go to the left or right side of the huge rock formation. We chose to go left first. We found some beautiful trails, but they all ended without going up to the actual rocks we wanted to climb on.

Stopped by the Lincoln Monument on the way to Vedauwoo. Those black specks inside the fence are pennies, you know because every Lincoln Monument needs more Lincolns.

Vedauwoo trails

Rock climbers on the cliff wall

Duck!

Back out to the split after our failed attempt to get on the rocks

     Next we took the right side and found a lot of trails leading to the rock formation, but everything we found on the main formation required climbing gear to get up to the level spot we wanted to get to. We searched the entire east side of the formation and came up empty. Then we started to explore the smaller rock piles near the main formation, which are still huge. We finally found our way up onto one. It was a bit sketchy with some gap jumps to get to the good spot, but we came out with only a few scrapes from climbing the rough rocks. It thundered most of the afternoon, but the dark clouds seemed to split around us, half going through Laramie and the other half going over the mountains to the south, coating them with a fresh blanket of snow.

Storm dumping snow to the south

Bright pine cones on that tree

Nice view to our north

Got up on this one

Those cracks look small, but we were about 15 feet above the bottom of those cracks

     On the drive back to the campground, we took a dirt road detour to see the North Crow Reservoir. It was a nice little place. The views at the marshes along the dirt road were nice as well.

North Crow Reservoir

Back of the reservoir

Marsh along the road leading to North Crow Reservoir

Nice campfire on our final night at Curt Gowdy. It was a warmer night staying in the 40s. Can't believe I'm celebrating 40s on a night in the middle of May.

     We were up early on Sunday morning to hit the road for Gma's. We had hoped to spend a full Sunday with her, but delaying the start of the trip for a day ended those hopes. We still had a long drive ahead of us. We broke up the car time with a stop at the Wilkins Peak Trails in Green River, WY. I rode here with my Dad in 2014 and really enjoyed it. Green River is truly green in the spring. They have had a lot of rain recently and it showed with a green tint to the normally brown hillsides. The trail was rutted up and washed in many places so you know it has been wet for a while. Today it was dry with the exception of a few stream crossings. We did a long climb to start the ride on Nomojo and Brent & Mike's trail, then gradually working our way back down the mountain on a variety of flowing trails. We had a good time in a totally different landscape from what we rode at Curt Gowdy.

Sunrise on our final morning at Curt Gowdy

Dina climbing up Nomojo at the Wilkins Peak Trails

The Green River in the distance

Distinct striations on the hillside

One of few places in this area with trees

Down by the river at the end of the ride