A gathering that was put together by a bike buddy Jerry from Grand Junc. I got in the area a day earlier for some solo riding.
I left SLC Sunday morning and in about three hours pulled over at the Mackinaw Campground of Fish Lake Recreation Area. The monsoon was already showing up with clouds, so I quickly ate lunch and took off to ride a loop around Fish Lake, a.k.a. Mytoge Mountain loop. Clickable map and fotos are here. The ride was not long, but a flight over the bars with landing on rocks paid its toll and I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around recuperating and hiding from occasional rains showers.
It rained part of the night and it was quite damp on Monday morning, so I decided to head to Torrey in the morning instead of riding around Fish Lake. I parked at the Capitol Reef Inn where we stayed and rode local Velvet Ridge Trail. Clickable map and fotos are here.
Then I waited for the rest of the group to arrive. By the time everybody came, it was raining. We still set off for a shuttle ride off Boulder Top to Torrey. The drive to Boulder Top was an adventure in torrential rains. Fortunately, once we pulled to the trailhead, the rain stopped. The ride down was a challenge, since I am not used much to wet riding over rocks and roots. We ended up getting stuck in a mud a little bit, but not too bad since most of the soil was rocky or sandy. Clickable map and fotos are here.
We got back around 7pm and just managed to get dinner before the local restaurant closed, after washing the bikes and ourselves.
Tuesday was the day of the big ride. We drove to Fish Lake to to a loop on the Fish Lake Hightop. Apart from hiking over loose trail at 11500 ft, it was a very good ride. We finished right when a thunderstorm rolled in. Clickable map and fotos are here.
On Wednesday morning, we did a short ride off northwestern Boulder Mountain. As all the trails in the area, the downhill was quite challenging, but, I am used to hike, so it was OK. Clickable map and fotos are here.
In the afternoon, we drove back to Fish Lake to do a shuttle ride off Hightop down Pelican Canyon. After some adventurous 4 whell driving we started a bit below the expected starting point, took an ATV trail that ended in the wrong place and did some freeriding and hiking on an old overgrown forest trail. Then finally found the right road, rode it up to 11200 ft and down Pelican Canyon, which turned up to be a really nice downhill. Clickable map and fotos are here
U of U / CHPC / Cuma / Travel / English / Torrey 2004