Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Biking and Hiking

Greetings!  It's been an active two days in the area.  Yesterday we rode the mountain bikes out Sheepbridge Road.  We climbed up the road for about 4 ish miles to where the JEM trail crosses the road.  At that point we stood and talked to three other riders who recommended we go left on JEM, and take Goosebumps down to Cryptobionic, which would then return to Sheepbridge Road.
It's just lovely out there.


This is Goosebumps.  It trends generally downhill, and is full of  whoop-de-doos (a series of up-and-down bumps, suitable for jumping).  They're fairly abrupt because they go through a lot of water courses.  It was fun for the most part, I walked a couple of off camber side hill trails.


When given the choice, take the green trail.  Cryptobionic was very fun.  It's smooth and swoopy and down hill.


This morning we were tired.  We decided to take the shuttle in to Zion and walk up something. We picked the trail to the Observation Point.  Brilliant!  Eight miles round trip, over 2,000 feet of climbing.  What an excellent recovery tool.  Idiots.


We saw this on the trail.  It's a swarm.  Look in the lower right hand corner of the photo.  That brown blob is composed of bees. Bees!  I hate bees.  We walked away quickly.


This is off the trail. It's really pretty.  This must have been very impressive during the last two tropical storms.


Here we are just over two miles up the trail.  We stopped and ate lunch and calculated what time we would probably get back if we continued on.  Since we'd left late, didn't really have enough food, and didn't have any additional clothing for when it cooled off, we bailed.  We both have a goal to never require a medi-vac or to be on the evening news.


Going down is just stunning.



This is the first section of the trail.  Steep!


In other news, the wood burners from California left this morning.  Happy we are to see them go.  They've forced us to keep the RV closed up since we got here because of their incessant burning of wood.  The kid count is now way down, as is the population in the RV park.  Good!

4 comments:

  1. LOVE some good swoopy downhill!

    Looks like a good hike no matter how far you go. I'm happy for you knowing the kids have moved on!

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  2. We crossed the Jem trail on one of our hikes. Looked like a great biking area. Glad you enjoyed it.

    Yes, Observation Point was not a great rest hike. This sounds like how I choose rest hikes:) You got a great flavor for the trail.

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  3. We may do Observation point Saturday from the East Mesa trail east of Zion. It's the easy way.to go. We're planning to go to Mount Carmel tomorrow and Virgin Sunday. Will let you know about the hike Saturday if we have internet. You should join us!


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  4. Such lovely photos! We hiked up to the Observation Point on our one visit to Zion in 2006. Unfortunately, that was the day Barry came down suddenly with Norovirus, and he was deathly ill on the way back down. We also missed out on our next (and last) day there because he was so sick. We will have to go back someday and see more of the park.

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