Backpacking in Canyonlands

I spent another Memorial Day weekend backpacking with Lindsey, Rob, and Shaun. Our adventure began with driving down Friday night to Green River and trying to find Crystal Geyser thinking we would camp there that night and the drive the remainder of the way Saturday morning. Well.... we were a little mistaken on our directions of how to get to the geyser and so we took some wrong turns.... and ended up driving over some crazy dirt roads and we were thinking the whole time, "No wonder no one knows about this geyser! No one can get to it!" We even took a sketchy, winding dirt road up to the top of a hill where there was a tower with a blinking light on it. The road was so sketchy that Lindsey and I got out of the car to walk it while Shaun and Rob drove to the top. At another point we also had to drive over a metal pipe that was laid across the road. And then wouldn't you know it - we found a lovely, graded dirt road - that any vehicle could drive on - that took us directly to the geyser. What a happy accident! And then in the morning, that dirt road was super simple to follow out back to the freeway. Oh brother. Sadly, the geyser never went off for us ... it would only bubble and hiss. So we dubbed it the "bubble pot."

Stairs leading up to Chesler Park

We went to Chesler Park in Canyonlands National Park. We all packed in 9 liters of water since we weren't sure that we'd find water to filter - the only reported water source was 3 miles away from our campsite. Thankfully, our campsite was only 3 miles from the trail head so we didn't have to pack in all that weight very far.

The Needles District

Chesler Park is a big open, grassy area in the middle of the Needles District of Canyonlands. Our campsite was beautiful.... except for the wind vortex we had. There was some serious wind the entire weekend, and the wind would just circle around our campsite picking up all the sand and filling out tents, food, and ears with it. Sunday was the worst with maybe 40 mile per hour gusts. I was even hit by a tumble-weed when we were hiking back to camp from visiting Druid Arch! And it didn't just roll into my legs - it struck me from the side up on my upper arm! I guess there is a first for everything. It was actually kind of cool to see the dust devils swirling around and even more cool to watch the tumble-weeds swirl around in those dust devils!

Even better view of the Needles

Hiking Joint Trail and to Druid Arch were definitely the highlights of the trip. Joint Trail was a hike through cracks in the rock. Some of those cracks were so tight! We couldn't get through some of them. They were way fun to explore. Then Druid Arch was pretty cool too - especially the little rock formation at the bottom of it that looks like a hamster on oxygen. Ha! We took a little nap on the rocks at Druid Arch. I seem to do that on several of my camping/backpacking trips .... Hmmmm.

Anyway! Enjoy the pics!

Chesler Park before all the tumble weeds disappeared

Descending into the Joint Trail

The whole crew in a joint

Me in Chesler Park

Sunset on the rocks that surround Chesler Park

Druid Arch

More stairs - they were very convenient

The hamster on oxygen - do you see him?

Hiking through Chesler Park in the windstorm

Visiting Hole in the Rock on our way home

The Un-Sundance Spin ICUP Race

Yesterday we had our "Sundance Spin" race that my team/shop sponsors, but it wasn't at Sundance Resort. It was at Soldier Hollow. :( Sundance still has too much snow. I dislike the normal Soldier Hollow race as it is, let alone this "new" course that Ed built so it would be different from the actual Soldier Hollow race next week. I rode my new bike for this race - my beloved Gary Fisher Superfly 29er. I really like it so far, but I do have a bit of a learning curve ahead of me for making tight turns. I nearly wiped out on one turn. I also had to walk a lot of this course. Practically the first 3.5 miles was all climbing! And some of that climbing was super steep. And then there was a steep, nasty down-hill that I walked too. But I got 2nd place, which was also last place since there was only 2 of us racing in my category. Too bad the 1st place girl didn't race in the category she should have raced in (being an ex-professional mountain bike racer that she is), I would have gotten 1st place! Ah well. I had fun riding the race. And I was even a good girl and read my text book in between the race and the awards ceremony.

My Mad Dog Cycles Race Team

Being a good girl

The Mad Dog ladies with one of our male teammates

2nd place on the podium

During the race

Goldilocks Century Road Ride

Janie, Kris Tina, and I rode 60 miles in the Goldilocks Century today. It was quite fun. This is only their second year putting on the ride and you can kind of tell. The rest stops only had a couple port-a-potties and one table of snacks so there were long lines for both. We also had to ride on some pretty busy roads throughout Herriman, Riverton, and Eagle Mountain. And even worse, we had to cross a lot of traffic and go through a lot of traffic lights. Plus the hills. Oh my the hills. There were so many hills. One of the hills was a couple miles long around miles 23-25 - I killed it. I found a sweet spot of energy and motivation and I passed so many people! Including Janie which is hard core! Janie is training for an Olympic Triathlon right now so she is in really good shape. Normally, my heart rate would be 30 beats higher than hers the whole time - that should tell you how good of shape she is in.

The three of us stayed together until lunch. The lunch - I will say - was divine and much better than Little Red's Subway lunch. Goldilocks had caterers with yummy fresh sandwiches. But after lunch my legs were shot from killing that hill and Kris Tina had lost some gas so Janie took off. Kris Tina and I kind of rode together .... until the last bit. Overall, it was pretty fun and the t-shirt and "finishing medal"- which is actually a cute necklace - were really cute. Good times! And the best part: good training for the full 100-mile century coming up on June 4th - Little Red Riding Hood - with Teri and one of my mountain bike teammates, Kendra.