Easy Rider

I wanted to do a full sized ride today, but just couldn't bring myself to do it for whatever reason. Instead just ended up petering around on familiar terrain. Namely, Squaw Peak trail up to what I call "The Hump." Basically, this is where it crosses over from the Provo Canyon area to the Hobble Creek Canyon area.

This area is my fall back area more often than not. I usually take it all the way down into Hobble Creek Canyon, but when I hit the hump today, I was greeted with a massive wall of (very chilly) wind. I didn't really dress warm, and ended up turning back at this point and just enjoying a slow ride back to Provo Canyon.

I did fart around in a couple places, one being (what I thought was) a trail, but turned out to be a dead end. (It's marked as such on the GPX file.) At least I think it's a dead end. Perhaps you can continue farther on foot, but it seems you'd have to bushwhack a little bit.

Saw some deer in one of the popular places for campfires. There were about 6 of them, all drinking from some pooled water. All but two scattered. One young buck, and an equally young doe. I killed my engine and watched them for a bit. The buck never quite got the nerve to go back to drinking, but the fawn did. Eventually a truck coming up the main road scared them and they scampered off. Shame, too, because I was about 10 seconds out from having my camera ready to take a picture. Oh well.

Speaking of terrain. Due to the recent rain and the abundance of vehicular travel on the road, the roads were very nicely packed and 50mph straightaways were easily done. A nice change from the powder that was up there last time I was there that nearly had me turf in a corner.

Anyway, back to the canyon and I decided to head towards South Fork Canyon. I was just out for the leisurely drive at this point, anyway. Stopped at the park towards the end of the pavement and just sat and enjoyed the evening for a bit.

The temps were nice in most of the areas. As I mentioned, it did get chilly up higher where the wind started whipping around. If I'd had remembered to bring my heavier jacket I would have just kept riding and probably dropped down into Hobble Creek again.

On this ride I was also testing out my new Shift Assault pants that I recently picked up on eBay shipped for about $50. They are nice. Comfortable, a bit lighter weight than I would have thought. They keep your knees warm, though, heh. I think with some thermals underneath, they'd probably be good to about 40 degrees or so. Further testing will decide that.

I still need to pick up some waterproof gear. Hopefully my most excellent cold weather coat will be back from Arizona in a couple weeks. It's totally waterproof, and I've worn it when the temps were as low as the teens. Can't recall the brand, as it's been holed up for the past 4 years or so.

Today's ride made me realize that I do need to really branch out more. It's kind of pathetic that I have hardly gotten out of Utah valley. I need to finish getting my trailer ready so I can drag the bike in the cage, then ride it elsewhere. Moreover, I just need to plan on some 2 day trips and find some good backwoods riding to get me from point A to point B. In time.

Oh yeah, I also forgot my camera on today's ride. I got some pics with my Sprint Mogul, but the camera in this thing is just so freaking crappy that I'm not going to even bother uploading them. I need to get a decent, small camera that I can just leave in my rack bag so it's always there when I go riding. Oh well. Track logs to follow:

GPX File
Google Earth File