Eagle Mountain

     After a beautiful day on the road bike, I was ready to hit the trails on the mountain bike, but a rainy morning kept me at home. The clouds finally parted later in the day and we were able to get out for another hike. We went back over to the Temple Quarry trailhead, this time walking up the canyon on the Little Cottonwood Canyon Trail. This hike is a continuous climb and goes in and out of the forest along Little Cottonwood Creek. It has been a local teenage hangout, so there is quite a bit of graffiti in some areas. You are still walking through the boulder field used for the temple stones. Some of the boulders have holes punched in them from where the temple builders were splitting the boulders into square shapes. It was a nice climb for 2.25 miles out. The trail continued up the canyon, but we turned around and started our descent back to the car. This wasn’t as steep of a trail as Rocky Mouth, but it was still a good warm-up and boot break-in hike to get ready for our Mount Olympus hike we planned for later in the week.

Little Cottonwood Creek

Bridge over the creek

Boulder that was prepared for splitting

Pipe graffiti

     The following day was rain again over at Park City where I wanted to go mountain bike, so we opted for a different area. I was dying to get on the mountain bike and managed to persuade Shannon to go with me to check out the Eagle Mountain Ranch Bike Park near the town of Saratoga Springs, which is about 20 miles south of West Jordan. Shannon is not a fan of checking out new places as she is afraid of getting into something really hard. She likes me to go ride the trails first and then tell her which trails are best for her skill level so she can have fun. We had lunch with Amber first, meeting her at the Serving Time Cafe in Draper. The cafe is run by the women’s prison inmates and has some tasty food with fun names. You can order things like Wake Up Call, Misdemeanor and Chain of Command. The food was great and very inexpensive. If you ever go through Utah on I-15, stop by the cafe for a unique experience. And make sure to get a cinnamon roll for dessert.

Food from Serving Time

     After lunch, it was off to Eagle Mountain to check out the trails. The bike park contains a bit of everything. There are several miles of XC trails, a few dirt jump lines, a pump track, some short downhill runs and a skills area with skinnies and drops. It is located at the back of a really nice neighborhood so you actually feel safe riding there and leaving your car unattended. From the main trailhead, it is a decent climb up to the skills park, dirt jumps and pump track. They are located in a big open area under some massive powerlines. Shannon's aluminum-framed Superlight actually got a bit of a charge from the powerlines and touching it while we were under the lines would give you a bit of a static shock. I have ridden bikes for 17+ years and never felt anything like that.

     More climbing was necessary to get up onto the top of the ridge where the XC trails began. We had a small map I found online and went with the easy and moderate trails. The first trail we picked flowed up and down the hillside through the open desert. Other than shrubs and the occasional dwarfed tree, there was nothing to see out there except more shrubs and more dwarfed trees. I looked up the trail at one point to see something crossing the trail about 30 yards ahead. I could tell right away by its movement pattern that it was a spider. Nothing else walks like that. We got a little closer and I could see that it was huge! Any spider you can see from 30 yards away would have to be. It looked like a tarantula and stopped in the middle of the trail when I rolled up to it. After we took pictures and Shannon got creeped out, I tried to shoo it off the trail, but it reared back and wanted to fight. I wasn’t sure about how far a spider the size of your open hand could jump, so we walked on by off the side of the trail. If you are camping here, you better make sure that tent is zipped all the way up!

You could see this guy from a long way off.

     We continued on through much of the same landscape for a few miles before doing more climbing up to the back of a small, open canyon. You could tell there had been a fire in this area in the past few years. The ground was still blackened and all the trees were bare and also blackened. We finally got in some good descending on the appropriately named Deadwood trail. It was like no trail I have ever been on as far as scenery goes. The singletrack weaved through clumps of five-foot-tall bare trees that appeared dead from fire. It was creepy and beautiful at the same time. Looking to the right brought nice views of the snow-capped mountains on the eastern side of the valley. There were storm clouds hanging around the mountains so they looked even more spectacular at times. The descent was long and fun, but you always have to pay for those free rides down. We had another long climbing section through the low shrubs on Treadstone to take us back to the main ridge. With my love of everything Jason Bourne, riding Treadstone was mandatory. It wasn’t the toughest climb, but it was long and did take its toll on the legs. We saw yet another giant spider in the trail as we climbed.

Starting into Deadwood

Mountain views behind us

Lots of dead wood on Deadwood

Shannon climbing on Treadstone

     We had another fun descent followed by a steep climb to the ridge top. Then it was downhill back to the park area. We stopped for a few runs on the pump track and dirt jumps. Then I hit a few of the wooden features on our way down to the car. It was a lot of fun on my Epic, but I would love to come back sometime with a bigger bike. I will definitely come back as we only rode about 1/3 of the XC trails available on the ranch.

On the dirt jumps

     On the way back to Gma’s house, Shannon recognized a cemetery as the one where Gpa Mad Dog was buried. She had flown out in May 2015 for his funeral and I had not been able to come. So we stopped by the Utah Veterans Cemetery in Bluffdale and managed to find his grave. I enjoyed getting to see it since I couldn’t be at the funeral. Gma was excited that we stopped by and enjoyed the picture we took of his headstone. It was a pretty cool way to end the day. Mad Dog!

Temple Quarry

     After a day of rest and catching up with the family, we were ready to get out and do some exploring in Utah. This year we wanted to check out some of the local trails and natural features in the Salt Lake Valley, rather than just spending all of our time up in the mountains. We were hoping to be able to hike up Mount Olympus on this trip, so we figured we should do some shorter hikes with a lot of climbing to help prepare us for that challenge. I bought a new pair of hiking boots at Sierra Trading Post when we passed through Cheyenne on our way to Glendo. I had only spent one day in them while we hiked the various stops along the Oregon Trail as we drove across Wyoming, so they still needed to be broken in before a long, tough hike.

     We spent the morning doing our usual clean-up of Gma's yard. With me and Dina being there in May, there was not as much to do this time. We cut the grass and trimmed the trees and were done just after lunch. That gave us time to look up a short hike. We found an uphill hike to a waterfall in Sandy that looked fun. Amber was going to meet us at the trailhead when she got off work. She ended up having to stay at work a bit late, so Shannon and I killed time by walking around the Temple Quarry Trail at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon.

Little Cottonwood Creek at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon

     The Temple Quarry Trail is a short paved path through the Temple Granite Quarry Historical Monument. This area is where the granite stones used to build the Salt Lake Temple were found. The stones were not hewn from the mountain, but rather from boulders that had fallen off the mountain and rested in the canyon floor. The temple was constructed between 1853 and 1893 using stones transported about 20 miles from this canyon into what is now downtown Salt Lake City. The temple is largest LDS temple in terms of floor area at over 253,000 square feet. The stones averaged about three tons in weight, with some weighing over five tons. They were pulled by teams of four to eight oxen initially, which took three to four days to go roundtrip to the temple site and back. Later, the stones were transported by railroad. Stones from this quarry were also used to build the Utah State Capital Building and LDS Conference Center. We learned a lot about the history of the quarry and temple while we hiked a nice trail along the peaceful creek. The stones in the creek were all smooth and perfect. It made me want to load some up in the car to add to our landscaping at home.

Video: The peaceful Little Cottonwood Creek

          Amber was finished with work by the time we ended our quarry loop. We then drove a few miles south to the Rocky Mouth Falls Trailhead. Amber was there waiting. It was a short out-and-back hike to a waterfall, but a bit of a challenge with some steep climbing and stairs. It is only about half a mile to Rocky Mouth Falls from the parking lot, but you earn every step of it. It starts in a little wooded area, then pops out in a neighborhood where you walk a few yards on the road and then take a little trail between two houses. Once beyond the houses, you climb steeply through the woods into the nearest canyon and then up for a few more yards to reach the falls. Water flow isn't a lot, but what water is falling comes down about 40 feet through a crevice in the rock. It is fed by a natural spring. There are spots of moss providing some bright green on the dark rocks that make up the canyon. I really liked this one. It is way up there on my waterfall rankings.

Going up between the two houses

Approaching Rocky Mouth Falls

Rocky Mouth Falls

     There was a path off to the left of the falls that I thought would provide a better view from overhead. I went up the trail, which was really more like a wash. I climbed to a point where I thought I could slide across the rocks and get a view of the falls, but it was too sketchy. I got about halfway and ran out of foot holds, forcing me to turn back to the wash. I climbed up further and it continued to get more treacherous as I went. I finally got to a point where it flattened off and I turned to look down. It was one of those times when I didn't realize what I was going up and then it looked very scary from the top. It was crazy steep. One missed step and I could fall a very long way. I couldn't see Shannon or Amber anymore either. I went up a little further and saw that the trail was taking me away from the waterfall. I searched for a different way back as I felt the wash was too dangerous to climb down. My view of the valley was nice as I was above the treeline now. I found some goatpaths to navigate parallel to the wash, but I eventually ran out of good trail and was back to scaling vertical rock. It was the most scared I have ever been doing anything outdoors. It was really dangerous. Then I saw some graffiti. I figured if somebody got up there to spray paint on that rock and survived the trip down then I could too. It was a few tense minutes, but I made it. I am so glad Shannon didn't follow me as she is scared of heights and getting her down from there would have been really hard.

Climbing up above the waterfall

Above the trees now with a view of Sandy

     The next day we were all up early for a day of exploring. We all went to downtown Salt Lake City for most of the day. Shannon, her Mom and Gma all went downtown to tour the city and Temple Square. Gma had not been down there since the Church History Museum opened up so they wanted to see that. It was a good trip for Gma as she saw that she can still go out and do things, and can last a full day without getting too tired to get home.

A prosthetic leg in the museum, worn by an emigrant who helped pull a handcart across the country in the 1800s. And we complain about having to take out the trash...

Salt Lake Temple

Conference Center

     While they were touring downtown, I drove over to Rotary Glen Park at the start of Emigration Canyon for a road ride. I got in a good out-and-back ride with several long mountain climbs. My 53-mile day began with a 7.7-mile climb up Emigration Canyon to Little Mountain Summit at an elevation of 6,289 feet. It is a tame climb compared to others in the area. The gradient is much less with no really steep areas the whole way up. It is much more populated though, so more traffic to deal with. In a lot of areas where bikes and skiing are popular you will find stickers of companies within those industries pasted on the road signs. For the first time ever, I saw a First Endurance sticker on a "Share the Road" sign. It was so awesome to see one of my sponsors posted. They are based out of SLC, so I guess if I ever expected to see one posted somewhere it would be here.

First Endurance sticker on the road sign

     It was a cool morning, but warmed up nicely as I climbed. By the top, I was ready to pull off some clothes. I stopped to shed clothes and enjoy the view, which was awesome to the southeast. Snow-capped mountains were all around with a blue lake down below. Chevy must have thought the view was great too as they were taking photos of some new vehicles at the top with the mountains in the background. I'm waiting to see one of those pictures in a magazine ad.

Nearing the top of Emigration Canyon

Another location of emigrant travel. The Donner Party crossed Little Mountain and descended Emigration Canyon in 1846, followed by Brigham Young and the Mormons in 1847.

Looking down on Little Dell Reservoir

Chevy showing off some new vehicles at the top of Little Mountain

     A short descent followed down to the Little Dell Reservoir where I got a few good pictures of the reservoir, mountains and some wildflowers. It was then a few miles of rolling terrain before the climbing started again. It was 5.2 miles up to the top of Big Mountain with another 1,489 feet elevation gain. The bottom of this climb was steeper and really made me work. Switchbacks at the top made the final section a little easier. There was still some snow on the ground at the top, left over from the snow that fell the night we drove in from Wyoming.

Little Dell Reservoir

Almost to the top of Big Mountain

From the top looking south

     I descended the back of Big Mountain down to East Canyon State Park for a few desert views around the East Canyon Reservoir and Dam. This first half of my ride has been on my list for quite a while. It is often the start of the queen stage of the Tour of Utah and the Ultimate Challenge Ride, where they start at University of Utah and climb up Emigration Canyon and then over Big Mountain, before going through East Canyon. The loop then turns east toward Echo and on to Park City before climbing Guardsman Pass and then finishes with Little Cottonwood Canyon up to Snowbird. I didn't have the time or the legs for all of that, so I turned back after riding most of the way around the reservoir.

East Canyon State Park

East Canyon Reservoir Dam

     The climb back up Big Mountain was tough. This side was steeper for longer, but then easier near the top. It is very open at the bottom, then forest at the top. The views behind me were awesome and I stopped a couple of times just to enjoy them. It was six miles to the top with a gain of 1,667 feet. The Big Mountain summit sits at an elevation of 7,420 ft. I then got to descend the south side of Big back to Little Dell for the short climb to the top of Little Mountain. It was then all downhill back to the car. It was an awesome ride and a couple of climbs that I have wanted to ride for a long time now.

Looking back on the lower slopes of Big Mountain