I’m not sure why, but I dumped two boxes of fruit snacks and a box and a half of granola bars in my pack when we were getting ready to go. For the ride planned it seemed a bit excessive, but then again, who doesn’t like a fruit snack when they’re riding? Plus, I was still hungry from the day before, say about 3 o’clock when lunch was over and I didn’t get anything else until I got home. Yup, I’m pretty much still hungry from then.
The ride started splashingly with a nice jaunt up a dirt road. The elevation and pre-existing flem-in-throat condition I had made for a lung buster. After a couple of miles we made it to the gate that let us in to where the beautiful singletrack was to be found. This trail was legal and pretty much unknown and unridden and would provide us with plenty of miles of solitude as we dropped down into Red Canyon. I should have thought about it a bit more, but unknown and unridden in this context meant unrideable. Once through the gate we walked our bikes over, under, through, on and around thousands of downed trees. We made it to the top where relief from downed trees was to be found after five miles of riding, it only took us a couple of hours.
The struggle to the top was rewarded with an astounding view. Having spent large amounts of time, alone in the back country, I was still caught off guard by the immensity of the empty space around us. I guess the fact that I knew the road was only a few miles back added to the mystique. Solitude was found. We had a few snacks, cheered KB up with encouragement that things were to get better. Then we headed down.
There was still the occasional tree but we were able to ride a few hundred yards at a time and the going was much easier. Then we began to drop back into the canyon and the going got faster. Just when things seemed to be starting to flow for us I hear that thump and yelp that makes my eyes sink back in my head and my stomach drop into my feet. KB went down. And she didn’t get up very quickly. Actually she just laid there whimpering until I came and pulled her bike off of her. We surveyed the damage and found that it looked like she had jammed her finger. We coaxed her on. After a hundred yards she came to another stop. We rested for a bit but she could no longer use her hand.
At this point we could have turned around. A road that would have taken us back to the car was close and we would have had a few mile push back up to where we came from. Instead we chose to continue with the hopes that KB would be able to ride the smooth singletrack awaiting us on Cassidy and Casto. We made pretty good time until we came to Cassidy. The trail looked like someone had spent some time out there riding a rototiller. Wet trails and horsed don’t mix in a good way. We were now at a point of no return and on a trail that was unrideable for one of us. The going got stopped.
KB was forced to push and pull her bike over the rough stuff and tried to ride the smooth stuff. Hour turned into hour turned into “Are we ever going to get out of here?” The trail was hard to ride on the bike, pushing was miserable and the day was starting to get hot. All those fruit snacks were starting to seem like a good idea. The only option we had was to continue as quickly as our slow pace would allow back to the car. Our epic ride turned into the longest death march I’ve ever been on.
17.45 miles in 7.5 hours.
I’m still tired. You can see the sunburned helmet vents on my head and KB broke a metacarpal and chipped the joint in her ring finger. All in all, one hell of an adventure.
Photo evidence can be seen over at http://shelbymeinkeyphoto.blogspot.com/2011/06/thunder-mountain-would-of-been-to-easy.html?spref=fb
And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.
Out.
Good thing you dumped those boxes of fruit snacks in. They were much needed.
You better believe it.