First weekend of warmer temperatures meant eagerly awaited shift from winter recreation to biking. I could not wait so I left Friday morning, the plan was to meet Gary on Saturday.
Friday ride was planned in the Green Valley area west of St. George and Bloomington. I rolled into the trailhead at 12.30pm, accompanied by two ambulances and a police motorcycle. Having started the ride, I noticed a helicopter landing near Clavicle Hill, and once I got there, they already had a biker on the stretcher ready for departure. This definitely made me more careful. I rode through the gap to Green Valley race course, which was in pretty decent shape even though there was a race a week ago. Then classic descent to Stucki Spring through an ATV wasteland, and flying descent back to the trailhead. Clickable map and fotos are here.
On Saturday morning I rode on a motorcycle trashed race course from its west end. Fortunately, in the eastern part, I found a newly constructed course which contained quite a bit of singletrack and was quite pristine (of course, till the motorcyclists find it). Clickable map and fotos are here.
Then I drove to Hurricane to meet with Gary at the Hurricane Rim trailhead. It was very windy there, so we decided to drive to Gooseberry Mesa. We rode there in the afternoon, and camped for the night with a de-luxe movie show in the back of Gary's car. Clickable map and fotos from the rideare here.
We rode the North Rim and Practice loop on Gooseberry in the morning and Gould Rim - JEM - Hurricane Rim loop in the afternoon. I was very impressed with the new Gould Rim singletrack, it makes the whole loop one of top picks in the area. On the top of that, it's closed to motorized travel, so, hopefully, it'll stay as it is. Clickable map and fotos are here.
U of U / CHPC / Cuma / Travel / English / SW Utah Spring 2004