Snow Biking

My day started off with some freezing ski runs at Brighton this morning. It was around 0 degrees . Janie and I came home early so I called Berk to see if he wanted to go riding. Berk is always up for a ride. We started riding about 3:00 and I had the brainy idea of climbing up to Sun Crest on the road and descending the new Maple Hollow DH trail. This was my first time back on the bike in 10 days and I could feel it. Riding up the Sun Crest road with a 28 lb. mtn bike was a lot work.

There was more snow than I expected at the trail head. It was was axle deep and the drifts were pushing 18 inches. We weren't going any where at the top. I thought that if we could get of the ridge and avoid the drifts we navigate the snow. We rode down Elk Glen drive to the north and entered the trail on the double track road that intersects the upper portion of the trail. We actually were able to ride the road and about 800 yards of the single track. It was a wild ride with 12 inches of powder and disc brakes that didn't do much except squeal.



We pretty much had to hike our bikes down from the first ladder bridge to the paved road. Hiking down kept our heart rates up so it was warmer than riding the road down the road.

It was a beautiful view of the valley on the slow descent. There were some snow squalls coming off the Great Salt Lake highlighted with a pink glow of the setting sun. It was worth a good laugh. We either need a warm spell to melt some snow or have a group skin up the trail on skis to pack down a trail.