Riding Southern Utah

Dave says: Last week we were in Southern Utah and had a great time doing some biking and hanging out with family and friends.

First, the biking. Before Skye was born, I told Alisha that after Skye's birth I'd get her a fancy new mountain bike whenever she was ready. Well, she was ready to bike two weeks later and so I bought her a sweet 2016 Stumpjumper. She's ridden it a lot recently and has even confessed that mountain biking is more fun than road biking (something most of us dirt lovers have known for years). However, this trip to Utah was different because it was time to hit some of the most burly slickrock around.

Over three days we hit Guacamole, Gooseberry Mesa, and Little Creek Mesa. These are the three mesas in the Zion area from north to south. Guacamole was a good first stop and has a little bit of everything from big slickrock areas to tight twisting in the rocks to riding on the rim. 

Gooseberry is a must-ride classic and some of the hardest slickrock anywhere. Alisha did great with 95% of it and we made it all the way out to the end of the mesa for some epic views. This ride is a full body workout and you want an aggressive bike on this type of trail.

Whereas Gooseberry offers the most technical slickrock, Little Creek provides the flow. The trails are magical and feel remote. I'll let Alisha decide if she wants to interject and tell more about her close encounter with some slickrock 2/3 of the way through the West Mesa Loop. She still told me that Little Creek was her favorite though and is already thinking about a trip back in the fall.

Alisha says: Okay, okay so I was loving Little Creek and feeling like my riding on slick rock had improved over the past few days when bam, I tipped over and was laying on the rock with my bike on top of me. When I surveyed the damage it really wasn't bad except for about a deep wound on my ankle. I could see yellow inside so we tied an arm warmer around my leg and rode 30 minutes back to the car. I was mostly mad because of my dumb tip we had to cut our ride short because I was pretty sure that I would need a few stitches. On the ride back I figured out that it was my brake lever that poked the hole in my leg. So we ended up at the instacare where the doc gave me five stitches. I was bummed because I had made plans to hike Angles Landing in Zion the next day with Shannon and we had to adjust our plans but by the following day (so really only one day rest) I talked Dave into taking me mountain biking on a new trail that is really close to my parents house. It is a fun trail and I took it easy. I can't wait to ride the southern Utah trails again, they were really fun.   

Near the end of the mesa at Gooseberry:

A moment of serenity at Little Creek

You can see why this is called the hot tub. No outflow means that you don't really want to get in though.

Part 2 of the trip was family time. Our rides took us south about an hour from Cedar City every morning and we were fortunate to have both sets of parents in town to take turns watching Skye. On the way to Cedar City, to make sure that the drive went smoothly we left at 3 am and Skye slept almost the entire time. We arrived in Cedar around lunch time and had a picnic on the grass at Canyon Park.

Two of Alisha's sisters came into town for the weekend and so we got to hang out with all the kids. Three things that they liked were the long walk we went on (this is the route to "superhero cave"), getting rides on the atv, and going swimming. Wayne and Debbie were nice to host us for a week and the trip was a lot of fun.