The best festival I've ever been on
is organized by folks from Altitude Cycles in Vernal, and takes place
at Red Canyon Lodge near southern tip of Flaming Gorge. The
location is awesome, on the northern slopes of the Uintas in ponderosa
pine forest (quite unusual for Utah). Seems like each year the same folks show up so it feels like a family reunion.
Due to busy schedules, we left SLC at 6:45pm, and with non-stop driving arrived to Red Canyon Lodge at 9:45pm, just in time to get last beer before the end of the welcome party. We drove to the Greens Lake Campground and settled at the group site.
On Saturday we signed up to the advanced ride, which was about 18 mile long Elk Park loop in the Uinta foothills about 10 miles southwest of the Lodge. Me and Gary decided to ride our bikes to the trailhead and were joined by another rider, Shawn from Jackson Hole. The ride itself was quite advanced, with several hard rocky climbs. Clickable map and fotos from the day are here.
On the ride back we pushed a bit harder which left an adverse effect on my lungs. Doping with Albuterol helped only partially. In any case in the evening was party, this time in a hawaiian style, with baked
fish, salad and, of course, another keg. A DJ played mostly 80s music which seemed to fit to everyone. Since I did not want to mess myself up too much, I ended up not drinking as much as I wished. In any case, it was fun.
On Sunday I finally participated in the world-famous boat ride
trip. We did the morning ride, starting from the trailhead at 9:30am and back at the cars about 1:30pm. Clickable map and fotos
are here.
Back at the cars we changed, said goodbyes and drove to Manila for quick lunch and back to Salt Lake. I am already looking forward to the next family reunion next year.
U of U / CHPC / Cuma / Travel / English / Dinotrax 04
URL: http://www.chpc.utah.edu/~mcuma/summer04/dinotrax04e.html