I Led a Skills Clinic at the Hurricane MTB Festival! And Nobody Died!

I have to apologize in advance for the dearth of photos in this post. As it turns out, it is really hard to whip out the camera when you’re constantly yelling at people to “get low! Lower! Seriously, lower!”

A little bit of backstory here: I spent a month in Hurricane while Mike was doing his completely worthless OB/GYN rotation there, and to pass the time and meet new people I glommed on to the weekly shop rides. Thursdays and Fridays were the ladies’ rides led by Dejay Morisette, queen bee of Over the Edge Sports in H-town. On the first Friday that I was there, she gave me a lift to the trailhead from which our ride was kicking off that day, and we got on the subject of skills clinics.  She wanted to offer a small clinic at their annual MTB festival for people who wished to brush up their riding after winter or, for beginners, to learn the basics before hitting the trails. Dejay had already attempted to secure the services of VIDAmtb Series, for which I am an ambassador and assistant coach, but Sarah and Elena were sadly unable to shoehorn the festival into their busy spring calendar between the Sedona workshop and the Beti Bike Bash in Phoenix AND the Trans-NZ Enduro.

“Well,” I said to Dejay. “I have my Level 1 Instructor Certification from IMBA. Let me see what I can do.” I sent Tricia a text message asking if she wanted to ride bikes and make some money, and she said yes.

End of backstory.

Two months later, Tricia and I found ourselves waking up at the ass crack of dawn to wolf down some bacon and coffee before welcoming the first twenty riders of a sold-out clinic weekend. We had decided that we could each handle up to ten participants per session, but I was surprised when, at the close of online registration a few days before the weekend, all sixty spots had been purchased.

One of the great things about VIDA clinics is that they include a morning skills session and then an afternoon on-trail session to put the skills in context. Our clinics in Hurricane were short—only 2.5-4 hours—so we didn’t have enough time for extended trail application. Nonetheless, we crammed a lot of information into each morning and even got to take some of the participants to a nearby trail to session a tricky switchback.

Here you go. The only photos of the clinic. Drink ‘em in.

When the participants arrived each morning to check in, I asked a series of questions to figure out which group to put them in. Although I was sorely tempted to utilize my question tree for determining whether a given individual is an appropriate mountain biking companion, I instead applied these queries:

1. What bike are you riding

      2. Where are you from

      3. How long have you been riding

            4. What pedal/shoe combination are you using

      5. What kind of trails do you like to ride

I mean, it’s not exactly scientific, but I felt like it should provide a pretty good idea of skill level.

I do have to note that there were a few cases of folks who had registered online and then showed up, heard that we’d be doing beginner and intermediate stuff, and decided to go ride somewhere else instead. It caused me to make a mental note to really spell out the depth of the clinic for next time. However, my first-glance assessment of the people who bailed had me thinking, smugly, “Ya sure, buddy?” There was a portable pump track at the festival, and I wish I had set up the check-in table right next to it so that, in the cases of people opting out, I could point and say: “Okay, if you can rail this thing faster than I can, I’ve got nothing to teach you.” I’m guessing that would have taken them down a peg. Or I’m just an arrogant jerkwad. That’s totally possible. But seriously: pump tracks are not intuitive, and it is almost as hard to teach someone how to use one correctly as it is to learn what to do on them. It’s a good litmus test.

Anyway, after everyone had checked in and I had appraised their skill levels, I sent them to Tricia, who did the bike check to make sure their brakes worked and their wheels weren’t about to fall off (fortunately an easy task, since most of the participants were on shiny new demos from the vendors at the festival). I gave a brief introduction of us and what we were all about, sent the beginners to Trish and the intermediates to myself, and got started.

The skills we covered were fairly basic, but the idea was to really drill them into the participants and try to get rid of bad habits, like two-finger braking and being way too stiff. Tricia and I both ran through IMBA’s standard body positions, bike/body separation, and braking skills as the foundational stuff on which we would build everything else.

One of the things that really struck me was the ease with which riders on the newer bikes, whether their own or demos, got comfortable with the body positioning and letting the bikes move around under them. The trend over the past couple years has been the widening of handlebars, which allows riders to get their center of gravity nice and low over the top tube of the bike, which in turn confers stability and lets the elbows and knees bend effectively and act as shock absorbers. In addition, almost every new bike these days comes with a dropper post, which with the push of a button gets the saddle down and out of the rider’s way. This doesn’t sound like that big a deal, but once you use one, you can’t ever go back to a static seatpost. I felt terrible for the participants on older bikes with handlebars narrower than their shoulders and old school posts that restricted their range of motion, because everything they tried to do just looked uncomfortable and, frankly, a little dangerous. Luckily, they were in the minority, and most of the riders were on nice new rigs.

It was also very interesting how each day’s group differed from the others. As I mentioned, Tricia had the beginners and I took the intermediates, and I think that my groups tended to have a little more range in skill level than hers, which actually made a lot of sense: “beginner” is pretty cut and dried, while “intermediate” can mean different things to different people. My Friday group included a cocky guy who was the “too cool for school” type, and I wasn’t entirely sure how to interact with him because none of the women I’ve coached have behaved in such a way. Something for me to work on, certainly, because he won’t be the last. Towards the end of the clinic we were talking about trail applications, and he and a couple other guys were telling me about a tricky switchback on the JEM trail system and how they had crashed on it multiple times. Later the next day, I came across the feature while riding with Trish and the Knolly Bikes guys, and while I could concede that I wouldn’t take a beginner on that trail, I didn’t think there was an excuse for wrecking there, or at least not after you learned your lesson the first time. So that’s me being smug. Anyway, there were also a couple folks in my Friday group who were the opposite of Cocky Guy, and had their minds totally blown by some of the stuff I drilled them on. Those people are the most fun.

The Saturday group was fairly consistent in terms of skill except for one guy who was on a super old bike and clip-in pedals that he wasn’t terribly good at getting out of. I wished I’d put him in the beginner group, but he said in his pre-clinic interrogation that he’d been riding for about twenty years, so I figured he must know a thing or two or he’d have gotten himself killed by this point. Nope. He tried to get himself killed during the clinic by failing to get a foot out of his pedal before falling over and smacking his shoulder on a curb. Sigh…at least it wasn’t his head.

The Sunday group was the smallest, and all women except for one guy. I had a brief moment of panic during the check-in process when one of the participants refused to sign the media release form, which just said that the festival organizers could use photos or video of the clinic in social media or whatever. Sarah had sent me the release form that VIDA uses for their clinics, and when I called her to ask what happens when someone doesn’t sign it, she was baffled. In all of the clinics she’s put together, no one had ever refused to sign the form! She said to just ask the photographer from OTE not to take photos of my group. Easy enough, but still…I wondered if the recalcitrant participant was in the witness protection program or something.

But I digress. The group on Sunday was by far the most proficient, and we moved through all of the skills astonishingly quickly. I moved them over to the pump track, figuring that they would pick it up pretty quickly, and I was subsequently surprised when most of them struggled and two of them didn’t want to try it at all. This was unfortunate because pumping is an absolutely essential skill for good trail riding; it makes the difference between just hanging on for dear life and working the trail for maximum fun and safety. I desperately hope that OTE brings the pump track back for next year’s festival! I could spend so much time playing on that thing!

I also hope that Dejay wants to do another skills clinic next year. I learned so much and I have a million ideas for ways to improve it, and with more notice I could partner with VIDA more effectively to bring in several coaches for different skill levels. Hurricane is an excellent venue for getting comfortable on tricky terrain and trying new things. I had a blast at the festival, and I can’t wait to go back!

Trailer Life Stop #5: Grand Junction

The original plan in Grand Junction was to park the trailer in Sienna and Trevor’s backyard. That way, we would have water and power and access to indoor plumbing, but we could also have our own private space and wouldn’t be all up in their business all the time.

Sadly, despite heroic efforts, the alleyway behind the house was too narrow for the wide turning radius necessary to finagle the trailer in through the rear gate. Such is the curse of our temporary home: too small to be really comfortable, but too large to be easily moved around. We gave up and parked instead on the street in front of their house, then went inside and proceeded to soak up the surroundings like desiccated sponges. Space! Hot water! A furnace! A backyard with a dog door! A real kitchen! A couch with many pillows! Heaven!

ALL THE PILLOWS!!!

Luckily, S&T were out of town for a few days, so we had time to straighten up the house after the initial orgy of enjoying the totally mundane things that normal habitations have. After a brief debate on our options, it was decided (rather, I made a spousal decree) that we would take Sienna’s generous offer of their space room for the duration of the rotation, and I aspired to make us worthy of such generosity by doing as much of the dinner planning and cooking as possible, as well as keeping their dogs company while she was at work and Trevor was out of town.

Ah, the dogs. This was my main concern in staying at their house, besides being a nuisance, of course. Sienna’s puppy, Claudio, was 6 months old at the time, and had all the wonderful puppy qualities that Ellie finds terribly objectionable in her fellow canines. I was worried that she would try to eat him whenever they were in the same room, but they ended up getting used to each other within a few days, and by the end of our stay, they had even started to play together after a fashion (Claudio ran around in circles and did somersalts while Ellie stood there and barked at him).

Claudio and Cayman on their couch

Also, S&T frequently entertained visitors, who often brought their dogs, whom Ellie then tried to eat before eventually settling into a wary coexistence with them. She’s a real handful for a little 45-pound mutt.

Apart from the inconvenient dog issue, life was downright pleasant in the little house. Unfortunately for the person with lots of free time (me), Grand Junction had experienced a fairly significant snowstorm a week or so previous to our arrival, and the snow stubbornly persisted in keeping the trails from drying into rideable conditions for the first two weeks of our stay.

No-go.

Finally, on the second weekend, the Kokopelli trail system just west of Fruita was declared suitable by the local bike shop, so we loaded up the bikes and hurried thence at our first opportunity. As a matter of fact, we rode the Rustlers and Horsethief Bench loops there three days in a row, because that was all we had to ride, and mountain bikers get pretty cranky when we’ve been off our bikes for a few days, so it was much better than nothing. Luckily, Horsethief is a very entertaining trail, and it has a few challenging sections on which there is always opportunity to improve one’s riding technique. Like on this part:

The infamous Horsethief Bench drop-in.

The snow and mud were still refusing to budge from the excellent Lunch Loops trail system just south of downtown Junction, but it occurred to us that we could cheat the nasty conditions by getting out on our bikes at the crack of dawn, before the sun had a chance to make things squishy. And, because the trails were still mostly empty at that hour and we were shuttling a relatively short loop, we could bring the dogs along so that they could burn off some energy by chasing us – and the many bunnies that lived there – around. On one memorable foray, our party included more dogs than humans, and we must have been quite a sight for anyone watching our adventure.

Once the last holdouts of the snowstorm finally succumbed to the warm weather, we were able to branch out from Horsethief Bench onto the other trails in the Kokopelli system. I had my first taste of Mack Ridge and Moore Fun, two very rocky and challenging slices of singletrack on the western side of the area, which were made especially enjoyable by the good company:

Leigh and Tucker Dog on Mack Ridge

Sienna and Trevor on Moore Fun

On the fourth week of the stay in GJ, Sienna and I took a road trip together to Sedona to meet up with the ColoRowdies that were gathering there for the mountain bike festival, the VIDA skills workshop, and a Rowdie birthday celebration. An impressively large group convened in an open area out in the Forest Service land northwest of town on the Thursday evening before the festival, and Sienna and I rolled up to the campsite at one o’clock Saturday morning after a long drive down from Colorado. We grabbed a couple of hours of shut-eye, then proceeded to have a wonderful weekend of bikes and beer and friends, which you can read about in greater detail here.

The final week in GJ was a flurry of preparation: Mike had his case presentation that was PA school’s version of a master’s degree thesis defense, which was a necessary hurdle for him to clear in order to graduate in August; and I had the skills clinic that I had volunteered to put together for the Hurricane MTB Festival. Mike’s presentation went swimmingly, and my account of the adventure in Hurricane will follow in a separate post. In the meantime, here’s a photo of Claudio upside down:

When I returned from Utah, Mike and I repacked our worldly possessions back into the trailer and spent our travel week a few miles west of Junction, at the 18 Road trail system near Fruita. Happily, several folks joined us out there to camp and ride bikes for a few days before we had to make our way back to Idaho for the next rotation. We had such a good time that I completely forgot to take any photos. It was an ideal way to cap off our all-too-brief return to Colorado.

Let's Hear It for the Boy

I admit it: I have been unfair to mountain biker boyfriends and husbands.

I have previously expressed the opinion that males are incapable of teaching their female counterparts how to ride a mountain bike well.

"Tell me to pedal harder one more time. I dare you."

This assertion is not entirely without reason, however. I have heard many stories of women being put on mountain bikes with pedals to which they are not accustomed and taken on rides too far above their skill level at the time. Further evidence of this practice can be found in abundance on Craigslist, where countless posts begin with some iteration of “I bought this for my girlfriend/wife. It only has a couple of rides on it.” (Subtext: “I took her on a ride that was too hard, she cried, and now she never wants to touch this bike again.  I’m not going to get any action until I get rid of it. Help.”)

Nonetheless, I owe a serious debt of gratitude to my husband Mike, without whom I may never have thrown a leg over a real mountain bike on an actual mountain. I can give myself some credit for persevering after my bumpy introduction to trail riding, but Mike is largely responsible for fostering my enthusiasm and creating opportunities for me to push myself to become a pretty decent rider.

Now I’m at the level where I’m teaching other women the fundamentals of mountain biking. I love that they continuously get their minds blown by basic skills that they’ve been doing wrong for years. In some cases, they have been told to do the exact wrong thing by the gentleman callers in their lives; for example, when I told a woman in Hurricane that she should neverevereverevereverever grip her saddle with her inner thighs when coasting or riding downhill, she said her husband had told her to do it. I asked for his phone number so that I could yell at him.

"You have a specific set of very terrible skills..."

But you know what? He may be solely responsible for getting her on that bike in the first place. I would take her being on a mountain bike with terrible form than have her never get on two wheels at all. And who’s to say that my metaphorical trial by fire of being thrown into the metaphorical deep end with only a metaphorical punctured rubber ducky for support didn’t make me the capable rider I am today?  We’ll never know. What I do know is that Mike is my forever riding buddy, and that makes me happy.

Even when he's a zombie.

So to be fair, I will update my assertion that husbands and boyfriends are abominable mountain biking coaches to this: Spouses/partners/lovers should not coach each other.  For whatever reason, we just don’t want to hear advice coming out of the same face that we wake up to in the morning. Go to a VIDA clinic or on group rides with your friends for progression and encouragement. Then when you go shred with your honey, the only things you need to say to each other are “Nice job on that gnarly switchback/sick drop/smooth non-technical doubletrack” and “Your buns look scrumptious in those shorts, darling.”

I just saved your relationship.  You’re welcome.

So let’s hear it for the spouses and romantic partners who introduced us to a world of awesome that we may not have discovered otherwise! Thanks guys and gals.  We heart you.

smoochies!

(And, of course, to those of you who picked up mountain biking on your own: you go on with your bad selves. You rock.) 

And everybody watch this video, because it's funny:

Forget UFOs: the ColoRowdies are the real invaders at the Sedona Mountain Bike Festival!

The ColoRowdies came out in force to celebrate at the Sedona MTB Festival last weekend.  The CR MO proceeded as usual: establish an enormous base camp in the desert, have a dance party around the campfire until much later than is prudent, then emerge blearily into the sunrise and drink coffee until it's time to strap into the chammies and GO RIDE BIKES!!!

A few Rowdies (and CaliRowdies) arrived Thursday evening to secure the campsite, and they were joined on Friday morning by several others for a solid tour of some trails on the south end of Sedona.  Liz Cunningham kindly provided these photos of the day's adventures, and since I wasn't there I will now attempt to caption them in absentia:

Wait a second, Liz is friends with identical twins?

So many spiky plants here! Don't fall right.

Synchronized trail stretching is so enduro.

Sadly, the crew had to split up on Saturday, since Rowdie ladies Liz, Tricia, Brittany, Bri, Betsy, Sarah, and yours truly had taken on coaching duties for the VIDAmtb skills clinic taking place that day.  We awoke early and started cooking several pigs' worth of bacon and brewing gallons of coffee in preparation for a long day of not-riding as we watched hot air balloons full of tourists rise above the desert like hung over bumblebees. Apparently hot air balloon piloting is not an exact science, because on our way back to town our progress was repeatedly hampered by retrieval crews:

We fought through the fallen gasbags and proceeded to have an excellent day of clinic-ing, with only a few instances of cactus-on-rider violence:

Teamwork makes the tweezers work.

The rest of the crew buckled down for a ride on Hangover trail, one of Sedona's most iconic routes due to its beauty and technical difficulty:

#soenduro

The Rowdies crushed the challenge, took a brief break to also crush an inordinate amount of Mexican food, and decided to engage in bad parenting by taking their bulging food babies over for a pedal up and down Hiline, another famously tricky trail in south Sedona. We were later told that there was a harrowing incident on the climb, wherein Garrett from Durango caught a handlebar on a tree and went tumbling down the steep hillside, saving himself from further disaster by grabbing hold of a bush about twenty feet down.  Sienna captured the aftermath:

The damage was surprisingly minimal, and after finishing the ride they arrived back at camp, thoroughly worked but grinning like fools, to trade war stories with the coaching contingent, who had each ridden less than five miles of actual trail that day but were pretty mentally exhausted by seven hours of nonstop instruction.

Everyone settled in for an evening of campfire, food, beer, and music under the supposedly UFO-riddled Sedona night sky, and the proceedings were later dampened but not damped by a brief rain squall sometime around midnight.  Bed was sought by those who wanted to be (relatively) fresh for the next day's adventures, and tequila was sought by those with a primal need to stay awake until dawn.

On Sunday the crew split again: four poor souls who had to be back in Denver for the grind on Monday lit out early to pedal hard and get back on the road:

ColoRowdies Matt, Eric, Don and Brittany

The rest of us eventually made our way to Broken Arrow trailhead and met up with a few Rudeboys for a lap or three on Pigtail.  The trail that took us there, Hog Wash, provided some excellent photo ops:

Pedaling to the good stuff

Ben shreds an optional rock roller

There is a wonderfully built little drop on Pigtail that we spent some time on, taking photos and following each other off of it in a delirium of happiness about being back on bikes with good friends in such a beautiful place.

Pigtail drop-in with Arturo, Colin, Ben, and Meredith

Tricia drops it like it's HOT!

Rowdie train!!

The crew shrank again as more Rowdies had to return to the real world that evening, but on Monday we still mustered a respectable group of 11 riders for a morning assault on Hiline. About two miles in, Rowdie Ambassador Ben had a ride-ending derailleur malfunction, and had to retreat, Aaron Gwinn chainless-style, back to the trailhead to do some repairs.

Knee pads are key for on-trail bike maintenance.

The rest of us kept on, took a photo at the tippy top, and dropped in to the descent with much hooting and hollering.  We stopped several times on the descent to work on tricky sections and take photos:

Obligatory jump photo! Tricia, Betsy, Meredith, Liz, and El

Liz on the drop-in to the gnarly stuff

Almost got a good photo of Tricia. Almost.

Suddenly, a cry went up from higher on the trail: it was Ben! Back from the dead, with a new derailleur and a burning passion to rejoin the ride! He swooped through the gnar on a fusion tail of rainbow unicorn farts, and the Hiline crew was complete once again.

Ben's butt!

The day was a particularly good one because several of us rode sections that we hadn't attempted on previous occasions, and besides the derailleur, there were no incidents.  It was the perfect way to cap off the weekend, and the only thing that would have made it better was having the rest of the Rowdies out there with us. Here's to next time!

Trailer Life Stop #4: No, it's pronounced "Hurri-ken"

HURRICANE!

No, not that kind

I have been looking forward to this rotation! I was dreaming about it while freezing my tush off in Bozeman over Thanksgiving. 

It was cold there

“But Stoken”, you may very well be asking, “why would you be so eager to pull the trailer all the way down to the middle of nowhere, deep in FLDS territory, mere miles from a scary polygamist stronghold, to a town where they can’t even pronounce the eponymous weather event correctly, and you can’t find a decent beer to save your life?”

Because BIKES!

Bikes bikes bikes bikes bikes bikes bikes bikes bikes bikes bikes!

Hurricane and St. George have scores of great desert trails between them, the Red Bull Rampage takes place only 10 minutes north of town, Sedona is only about 4 hours away, and Bootleg Canyon is just 2 hours south on I-15.  The average temperature in January is above 50 degrees, and even when there is precipitation, you can ride slickrock in any weather conditions.  As I hadn’t been for a ride since Burning Bike last October, this situation sounded like heaven.  Finally, I could take advantage of my status as an unemployed bum with plenty of free time!

Not so fast.

The weather decided to be thoroughly truculent. It was nice enough on the day we arrived, but the day after that it rained…and the next day…and the next day…and (guess what!) the day after that. This both damped and dampened my enthusiasm somewhat.  But I had faith that Jibbers Crabst would bring me sunshine eventually.

The bike shop in Hurricane, Over the Edge Sports, runs 3 weekly rides: Thursday is for more beginner/intermediate ladies, Friday is the more advanced ladies, and Saturday is the general shop ride that tends to be medium challenging, depending on who shows up. I checked the Facebook page to see if any rides were still on, and although that Thursday was canceled due to moisture, Friday was on and the destination was Zen trail, just west of St. George.  It’s a black diamond on the map, which sounded pretty good to me, so I rolled up to the shop at the appointed meeting time.

There were four of us: the shop owner’s wife and ride leader, DJ, and two local women.  The ride was something of a confidence booster, since despite my nearly 3-month hiatus from riding, I had no problems keeping up on the sustained climb at the beginning.  The trail is mostly slickrock with some stretches of sand and loose rocks, and the uphill part is interesting and challenging, with cairns to show the way when it’s not obvious.  When we got to the downhill, DJ put me in front, and I made my way down without knowing what to expect around blind corners and over large rock roll-downs. It was a rollicking good time!  I got back to the parking area feeling re-energized and excited for more.

#ladyshred

The next day was the open-to-all shop ride, which I saw as a chance for Mike and me to be shepherded around on trails that non-locals might find difficult to navigate.  Since most of the classic mesa trails were inaccessible due to the recent and inconvenient precipitation, shop owner Quentin took us to the Boy Scouts trail system, which borders the south edge of Quail Lake State Park.  OTE actually did most of the trail construction, and you can tell that they know what they’re doing…and they have an appreciation for technical stuff. Like Zen, it’s large and chunky rocks interspersed with sand, and it dries out quickly due to its southern aspect.  In addition, it’s great for practicing tight switchbacks: there are one or two that even give the trail builders trouble. The group that day was a sausage fest: me plus 5 or 6 dudes. I surprised myself by holding on to Quentin's wheel for most of the ride, until I kept getting lost on the downhills because the trail wasn't super obvious and I have terrible eyesight. It wasn't a hammer fest by any means, and the crew was very friendly and fun.

Over the course of the next four weeks, OTE also played tour guide for us on:

Little Creek: it was still covered in snow and ice at the time, and a long trip to get to the trailhead, but I think it would be fun in warmer weather.  Plus there are petroglyphs!

Or so I'm told.

Church Rocks: fairly short and easy slickrock loop, with lots of choose-your-own-adventure options and a little drop to practice your huck-to-flat technique. My first time there was a Thursday women's ride, and they're always mellow enough that DJ brings her daughter Fiona on the bike with her.

Broken Mesa: pretty primitive and rocky, and horses had done a serious number on the dirt when it was squishy. The final descent down Ice House would be okay if it wasn’t covered in demon baby heads…and if the access wasn’t an 8-mile dirt road climb.  Not recommended.

Guacamole: really cool, and slightly reminiscent of the funner singletrack parts of UPS.  Lots of good sketchy optional lines.  The road to the trailhead becomes impassable when muddy.

Gooseberry Mesa: I’ve been hearing about this place for years, but we didn’t make it out there until week 4 of our visit because if the access road to it is even slightly muddy, it’s impossible to power through, and the rain and snow we got in the first week here took forever to dry out.  Gooseberry is quite similar to Guacamole, but on a much larger scale.  It’s a serious workout, and it makes me wish for a telekinetically-controlled dropper post, since it seems like every climb is immediately followed by a steep short downhill section that I want my saddle out of the way for…and then right back into another punchy climb. We didn’t do the more technical South Rim trail on that occasion, so I’ll have to go back for another visit at some point.

Yup.  We're up on a mesa.

I also did some exploring on my own, and had a very enjoyable time on the Barrel Ride trail system outside of Santa Clara, which you can lengthen as desired with several figure-8 options. I did a solo out-and-back on Hurricane Rim as well, which is fun and interesting, and gives a great view of Zion National Park.

Much of my non-wheeled exploration with the dogs occurred in wilderness area near the KOA where we were staying, and there is some seriously beautiful canyon land all over the place. The trails are pretty primitive, and at one point Paddington was terribly pleased with herself for finding the way out of a dead-end canyon before I did.

She was much better at navigating the canyons than Mike, who kept getting himself stuck in crevices and had to be pulled out by his beard:

There are more ridiculously cool rock formations than you can shake a stick at:

This one looks kinda like a toilet to me.

Rorschach rock?

OTE, in addition to organizing three weekly rides, has two days a week that they take trail crews out to do digging and maintenance. I took a Thursday off from riding in order to have enough energy to dig, and Quentin took me and two others up to a trail-in-progress that will connect the JEM system to town. He had an arsenal of trail-building-specific hand tools, as well as a huge gas-powered circular saw for rocks that could not be coaxed out of the earth.

Trail building is a great full-body workout, like Crossfit but with a purpose, but it reminded me that I have not been staying in shape or doing enough stretching or yoga (the downside of living in a 8x20ft space for long periods with three other organisms whose mission, it seems, are to be in my way at all times).

Anyhow, the focus of this particular day’s work was a switchback that needed to be reworked so that it would be possible for at least some riders to clear, and not just those who are 90% quad muscles.  We dug, scraped, hauled, rolled, cut, placed, filled and fractured from 4:00 to sunset, but by the time we quit it looked like the switchback had been the victim of a wayward grenade. Luckily the crew would be back again in two days to continue smoothing it out. I joined them again two weeks later while Mike finished up with his last day at the clinic, this time to remove rocks that had fallen in the trail and onto a wooden bridge spanning a small gully, and make the section less of a lungbuster.  I am normally in favor of leaving plenty of rocks around to keep trails interesting and challenging (not to mention more resistant to erosion) but these were definitely on the "more hazardous than necessary and probably only rideable by Danny McAskill" side of the line, so out they went. It was a terribly pleasant way to spend a warm southeast Utah evening.

Notes on the town of Hurricane itself: it’s really nothing special.  Lots of gas stations, one grocery store, a couple cafes, four RV parks, a Walmart, and a handful of restaurants. One particularly odd-looking restaurant we noticed on our first drive through town was El Trovatore (formerly Baristas) which featured a large and anatomically correct bull on a pedestal, and if you want to be amused for a few minutes, go read some of the Google and Yelp reviews of the place.  I kind of want to go see the inside of it now.

Besides the trails and the breathtaking geology, Hurricane has one other asset: seriously legit sunsets.  The sunsets routinely run through more colors than there are names for, and I got to enjoy plenty of them on my evening walks with the dogs in the Red Cliffs wilderness area across the highway from the KOA. (Apart from the abundant hot water in the showers, close proximity to a lovely and largely unused trail network was the only selling point of the St. George KOA.)

That last one is a sunrise, but still.

There isn’t a single liquor store in Hurricane, so if you want that or pretty much anything else you have to go down to Washington City or St. George. The area is really popular for retirees, so the Costco is always completely bonkers all day every day, and don’t even bother trying to get gas there.  Any savings you might enjoy are offset by idling in line for ten minutes waiting for the octogenarians to figure out that they have to scan their Costco card before swiping the payment card. You are guaranteed to see FLDS women there, too, with their prairie dresses, big Elaine Benice hairstyles, and incongruously comfortable modern sneakers.

STG and WC are metropolitan enough that you can find just about anything you need.  Just about.  My creative compulsions were stymied by the total lack of non-chain craft stores.  No bead shops, and no yarn/knitting establishments. I guess everyone just grows their own sheep?  Or maybe that all just have Amazon Prime now.

Luckily, I had built up a decent inventory during my freezing stint in Bozeman, and I managed to offload the whole lot both at OTE and Red Rock Bicycle Co. in St. George in my last couple days there. I may not be paying the bills with this stuff just yet, but at least I can fund my habit!

 

Bam!

Since the weather was uncooperative for a decent chunk of this rotation, I am very relieved that I will be going back to Hurricane for their MTB Festival, which runs March 18 to March 20. It's going to be a ton of fun, and everybody should sign up and get out there for some sweet slickrock singletrack!

Next stop: a well-earned travel week adventure in Sedona!