Evening Ride in Utah, Anyone?
Gilbert, Arizona
110°F, Clear
Alpine, Utah
85°F, Clear
I’m in Utah this week working out of my brother’s house in Alpine. It’s been 10 years since I’ve ridden anything on the Wasatch Front. The past few days I’ve hit a couple of the local trails that I never knew existed…Hog Hollow to Clarks and Lambert Park.
Fatty’s always talking about his backyard trails up Hog Hollow so I went out exploring. My first night I got a late start so I though I’d just hammer up the Highland Highway. I like to give the roadies someone to look forward to passing on the way up. It makes them feel good. Close to the top of the climb I found a jeep road that led me to the corner canyon trails. Excited to see some singletrack I flew down Clarks trail knowing that I wasn’t going to be able to make it back before the sun set.
Well the sun set as I was finishing the ride, and it was getting dark fast. Enter cell phone. Thanks to my dirt biking brother who picked me up at the Draper Temple construction site.
The next morning I hit up Lambert Park with my riding buddy Mark and his dog Stanley. Mark got me into mountain biking nearly 15 years ago. It’s good to have riding buddies that you can reminisce fifteen years of rides with…We rode up Spring to the Rodeo down. It was sweet riding. So different than Arizona riding.
Both Clarks and Rodeo are fast and flowy with nice berms. Have I ever even seen a berm in Arizona? And not seeing a cactus the whole ride was practically surreal. So if I fall… I’ll land in that little scrub oak or that tall grass over there? Yup.
Tonight, I’ll be riding a classic Wasatch trail up American Fork Canyon, Ridge Trail 157. Back when I used to ride it in the early 90s we called it sheepherders trail. I’ve got a ton of early biking memories up that canyon. Can’t wait to remember them all.
