View towards the West from the Wasatch Crest
I've been wanting to do the Wasatch Crest for a while now. Finally, my friend Jeff decided to let me tag along with him and Don. This would be Jeff's second time this month doing the Crest so he had a good idea of how to do the trail in epic fashion.
But the one catch: rather than drive up to Guardsman pass and shuttle a car down to Mill Creek Canyon, he thought it would be more manly to just park in Park City (might as well park there, that's its claim to fame) and ride up the service road to the Crescent Mine Trail and then connect to the Mid-Mountain trail, riding that to the Wasatch Crest trail. But here is the kicker, instead of cruising down Mill Creek, we would reconnect with the Mid-Mountain trail and ride that back to Park City where we had parked the car.
Going up the service road which passes below the alpine roller coaster bridge
We started up the service road which parallels the lower part of the alpine slide until that road intersected with the Crescent Mine Grade trail. Then we climbed up the Crescent Mine Grade trail until it connected with the Mid Mountain trail.
Climbing up to the Mid Mountain Trail from Park City; 1300 feet of Vertical in the first 3 miles.
Climbing up the service road and the Crescent Mine trail was somewhat of a slog, but the Mid Mountain trail was a piece of mountain biker heaven. It weaves through the trees undulating up and down fairly gently, giving the rider sweet transitions between mini climbs and little downhills which connect beautifully.
Jeff riding Mid Mountain
The Mid Mountain trail connected to Powerline Trail, then Powerline connected to Crescent Mine trail which wore us down good just in time for puke. Puke hill that is.
Going from Mid Mountain trail to the Wasatch Crest trail, another 1300 of vertical in 2 miles
Soon we connected to the base of Puke Hill. This is a road, not singletrack like I expected and none of us puked at the top, although it was a pretty arduous climb, all the climbing we had done earlier made puke hill seem less daunting, maybe like spit-up hill.
Don and Steveo triumphant at the top of puke hill
But seriously, the views from the top of Puke Hill are spectacular. But then again almost all the views from the Wasatch Crest fit that description.
Jeff and Don at the top of Puke Hill
After Puke Hill we made great time speeding down the trail with views into Brighton and Solitude to add to the spectacular fall colors. The trail was never the same, transitioning from aspens to open meadows, rough downhills through sharp boulders and then the dreaded spine which Jeff had warned us to be careful on.
The Spine. Looking close you can see Jeff coming down on the right and up a little higher is Don looking down over the Spine of many pains.
After the Spine, we flew down to have lunch at a meadow where a loose dog almost grabbed my PBJ. Then down down down we went flying through the trees like crazy teenagers on a joyride.
Jeff joyriding the Crest
Three bikers. Note the reflection of my photo-taking hand in my sunglass lens
Later we made the decision to stay on Mid Mountain Trail instead of bailing down to The Canyons resort to take a shuttle back to Park City. That was the manly decision. But it was enjoyable and painful. Painful because we were fairly spent at that point and the Mid Mountain trail has to climb quite a bit from that point on. So on rubbery legs (at least mine were, probably Jeff's and Don's were still powerfully able) we trudged on. The trail was a lot of fun and especially as we crested over to the Park City side it became really sweet as it hooked into Spiro. The switchbacks were smooth as butter and just a joy to descend.
Spent biker riding home
We started our ride at 9:35AM and ended at 3:20PM, almost six hours of pure mountain biking.
Driving back to Utah Valley we were three wasted but satisfied mountain bikers.
Complete map of the Epic ride
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