For my 50th birthday, I wanted to do a ride up American Fork Canyon. I really love riding up there and with the late melt we've had here in the Utah mountains, most of the trails have seen little traffic.
I met up with Jeff Hiatt and Bill Watson at 6AM at the split to Tibble Fork. We drove up to the Timpanookee trail head and started off.
The stream was still pretty high and was lapping at the plank bridge. That bridge beckons me to ride it, but I am too chicken. I've seen Matt fall off of it and I have nearly fallen off of it myself. So again I walked across the bridge and then got on my bike and then fell down. For some reason I couldn't clip out and with my foot bound to the pedal I fell over in a pathetic pile.
So we started off: for some reason I was in front and really I was trying hard not to slow any one down but I'm sure I did anyway.
At the turnoff to the summit, Jeff took this picture of me. Yeah, a 50 year-old who still wants to be a kid.
Our next stop was at the 4-way. The trail to Tibble Fork/Mud Springs was still closed due to wet conditions so our options were: 1. South Fork of Deer Creek; 2. Follow the Ridge Trail up to Chain Break and over to Mill Canyon, up Mill Canyon and back down the ridge trail.
Jeff was not in for the longer ride today so Bill and I went over to option 2. That was at 7:20AM and I thought: "Well, we'll be able to do that loop in like 45 minutes."
What was I thinking?!! Yeah, Mill Canyon was really wet. This is July 16th for heavens sake! But yeah even before we got there we went through several marshy places that we had to slog through, a beaver dam washout, and lots of muck caking our dogs up to the ankles. Then when we hooked up with the trail up Mill canyon there was a decent river flowing down it. But soon we left the riverbed and climbed and climbed. Bill was pretty fast, and I wasn't slow, but I must have been 5 minutes behind Bill by the time we hit the last climb.
Bill stopped at the horse trough and the last I saw of him was when he said: "Go ahead Steve, I'll catch up."
Well I don't know what happened but he never caught up and I had to high-tail it home because my wife had tickets to Harry Potter for my birthday date with her. I couldn't be late for that!
On the way down the steeper section before the split to mud springs (not from the 4-way) there was a huge mud slough that looked like pudding. I tried to ride through it. Bad idea. The pudding caught and held on to my front wheel and I endoed right into that mud mousse. On the upside it was a soft landing. On the downside, it was really hard to climb out of.
I did stop at the spigot at the Timpanookee trail head and wash my shoes, my feet and my legs. Just too much mud to take into my car. While I was there I guess I blocked the path to some motorcyclers. I thought they could get by on the right side, but maybe not. I should be more tolerant, but they really damage the trails. Mountain biking is pretty gentle on the trails.
Well that was a great way to start out my birthday, I'll have to make it a tradition!
