Category: Blog Posts

We have skis so why not go skiing? Is it not good to not get all caught up in one activity? So then we should take a break from biking and go skiing. And for that, we choose a nice little adventure in the Moser area.  In the summer we go mountain biking there so a nice little exploratory ski in the winter would probably turn out pretty good.

It started out pretty well and soon I felt this desire to do some turns down a slope. So we turned our climbing efforts into a more uphill direction and just headed up the ridge. That is about as much fun as we had because things started to turn sour.

On this beautiful day in January, the snow started to chronically stick to our bases. Double check … January. OK, so middle of winter right? What are the chances that we would have spring-like conditions? Not too bad. But it didn’t seem like spring and it wasn’t warm out. The sun was so warm that it was melting the snow I guess. OK, so one doesn’t have to be so cognizant of the conditions biking.

I mean the damn fat bike will go through anything. Snow, slush, mud, dust, sand, and dirt. Much simpler life on a bike. I so wanted this day to be over. I just wanted to go home. Why did we even try to get outdoors anyway?

We tried to salvage the day. Headed into the woods. Same thing. Tried to ski off the backside. Stuck to the ground like flypaper. Soo it was evident we needed to bail on the day and go into town and buy some beer. But the day was not over.

For an hour we tried to ski walk our way out. It was like doing some sort of sick heavy weighted leg extensions on a torture device. I even tried to take them off and boot it out. Snow was over my head. No walking today. Darn, could I get airlifted out? I told my partner to go and save herself and leave me to die. If she had enough time maybe she could send for help.

Yea, we finally made it out. Others at the parking lot were reporting the same bizarre stuff. F’this we were done with alternative winter sports. We have been fat biking since.  A day on the bike is a good day. A day doing anything else is a crapshoot.

A life lived to identify an existence. Deep, perhaps … like the snow. Probably just a bunch of silly nonsense dribbled out of a morning coffee induced brain dump. Still, I am stuck on it.

“Whatever it is, it’s got to be funky”, a friend of ours will sometimes say. An elixir is what I pour into life to make it funky. Pharmacology? Perhaps a, “sweetened, aromatic solution of alcohol and water containing, or used as a vehicle for, medicinal substances”, according to the dictionary types. I surely identify with what this elixir induces.

Is that the reason a poison-induced window of life can be called the elixir of life?  Poison yes, but removing stress can also be an alchemic preparation believed by some to be capable of prolonging life. Long live the funk!

The gold diggers used an elixir to alchemically, if that is a word, prepare base metals turning them into gold. Never worked. For me, never was into gold.

My mind wanders, then wonders. Am I off topic yet? What was I thinking about? An eagle screeches overhead.  Shit, it is cold outside. My fat bike leaned against a guardrail.

Wait a silly second. I am not in the park. Instead today I am in Bozeman biking the city trails. But at this second my partner who is in the “Da Park” spots a bald eagle. Funky, right? A quintessence or absolute embodiment of anything is really something that doesn’t make any sense actually making sense.

Am I biking under the influence? Absolutely not. Just a little snow blind. Everything is so white right now. All that devil dust covering anything and everything. All I see is white. So my thoughts wander as I squint out the reality. A panacea; cure-all; the sovereign remedy to not being able to see.

Perhaps I should let my eyes widen. And take in the beauty of it all. The funkiness making it all so beautiful. I am right where I need to be. Just a ramble, that’s all. Just a bike ride. Maybe we will have some wine tonight.

We are still hoping that we get to live in the park this summer. Things are looking bleak since they tore down our transit hut from last year. Now we just hope something becomes available with WiFi so I can work from home. The backup plan is to get a cheap place in Gardiner. We have options.

How is the park? Well, Mo has been out recording wolf sounds and volunteering for a birds project. Definitely keeping busy she brings back images from the field. I sure wish we could switch places. Feeling sorry for myself standing in the cold and looking at my bike I feel trapped a bit.

Me, when I am not in the Park I am back in Bozeman squeezing in a bike ride once in a while. Right now for some reason I just can’t throw my leg over my bike. I have to say I have been extremely disgruntled since coming back from the Desert.

How cool would it be to trounce around in the Park and check out the wildlife? It beats enduring the cold devil dust to finish by going inside for a showing of YouTube videos into the evenings. I’m relegated, a self-inflicted state, to ride the same trail every single day. Same old spooky woods, same old pond, etc, wash and repeat. When I do feel like going outside the car is out-of-town.  I turn around to go back inside, to heck with it.

Mo is going out for another wolf recording session and is sitting by the Lamar River waiting for the dawn. That is when the wolves will finally start to howl. They are trying to get a good track for their podcast.

The microphone picks up everything. Even flakes of snow hitting the surface. All the while I stay quiet at home working and wishing for the desert.

And the wolves finally tells all. How it is to be wild and free. They are not trapped. Not at all, even in the winter. They are at home. Why shouldn’t I should do the same? Raise my head to the skies and howl. And thank mother earth for my freedom. And what I do is my choice. Hell yea, going for a ride.

One more sunrise ride. One more morning. One of the last days left in 2017. I will miss St George. Back to reality. Now I know.

I run into the turtle fence. The Desert Turtle in danger. Just like me. The fence keeps them out of trouble. I need a fence. Maybe there is a fence but I’m on the wrong side.

I haven’t been outside in a while, biking only once only because I was told I needed to get outside. I am hating the winter and unmotivated to be in it since we came back from St George. I’m in a funk and need to crawl out from under this rock. Speaking of which I harken back to our trip. Did I mention we were in the desert … gosh how I miss it. Anyway …

We needed a rest and the Beaver Dam Mountains, which sit in the southwest corner of Washington County, Utah, being made up primarily of Permian Age limestone, was a good candidate for a distraction from biking. We decided to do a safari with our Ele into the Beaver Dam Mountains, and check out the Bloomington Cave. It can be found approximately 15 miles west of the City of St. George although we took the log way around and descended from the mountain range crest.

Bloomington Cave is the most extensive and well-known cave in the St. George Field Office. It is a large tectonic cave, and has at least six distinct levels and a maze of passages that are generally narrow, often with steeply dipping floors. The surveyed length of the cave is currently 1.43 miles (7,574 feet), making it the fifth longest cave in Utah. In 1994, this cave was listed as a significant cave on federal lands, under the authority and mandate of the Federal Cave Resources Protection Act (FCRPA) of 1988.

Good thing that when we did finally find this gem we were missing a permit. And the good thing is that we would have been totally unprepared. According to some people we met there this cave’s difficulty level is currently unrated. And after looking at the sign it became abundantly apparent we would have found the cave much more difficult than expected. Bloomington Cave requires squeezing through little cramped spaces, rock climbing (whoa!), and moving on slippery surfaces. There are 5 routes and this thing was over a mile long. A mile of puzzles. Hmmmm.

So we ended up posing at the entrance.

Anyone wishing to enter Bloomington Cave must have a permit. The permit is free and available from the St. George Field Office. View our Permit System document to learn the process for submitting your application.

Oh yea, we are going back. A brand new type of adventure. But first I need to start getting outside. Arg …o/o

You know how on that one holiday you wake up early to see what that spirit everyone calls Santa has left you? Well, maybe it was because someone told me the lie was untrue. Or just maybe I plane just forgot. I tend to think it is what I  do when my eyes come open in the morning. I want to go riding.

And now that we were in a place that allows riding. As opposed to the hell of the North where it was below zero and 3 feet of snow. No, here it was in the 50s and the sun was coming up. No snow … just dirt. I’m riding damn it.

I pulled my bike out of the car and gave it a once-over. It had not been ridden for three months. Not since that devil dust started to fall up north. It looked good so I swung a leg over and started to pedal up the hill.

Soon I found a fitness path … and off of that, a single track called Owens Trail. As the trial unfolded before my eyes a grin also started to spread.

I am not saying it was all glee. Well, maybe it was. But I was soon educated on how my skills had gone to the wayside living up north. But that is okay.

So maybe I walked a couple of sections. But overall this experience fit like a glove.

I topped out on a high point and figured I had better turn around. I would save the rest for the days to come. I had to get back. Because it was that one holiday everyone wakes up to see what Santa, that devious devil, would bring everyone “stuff”.

I bombed back down the trail excited to begin our vacation. Soon my wings got strong and the wind lifted me off the ground. I was flying. Finally after so long. And I flew off to the horizon.

I often go out fat biking around the neighborhood. This year I do what I like to call the Lollipop Guild. It’s a series of three out and back routes that at the end have a small loop. So it looks like a lollipop on a map.

I also always offer my tiny excursions to my partner. If she is in town or not busy she will sometimes indulge in my insane route. For her, one should ride, loop around, and then make it home. Most importantly the most direct way. To me, I want to savor the fat bike experience and go long. Which may mean snaking my way along every town trail. It can get quite complex.

Tonight she indulged me and followed my senseless twists and turns eventually ending up at the ‘Pop’ of the largest ‘Lolli’ route.  After an hour we went around a mile as the crow flies, but my route was 6. She had enough.

“Stay out and have fun, I am just going to ride home”

And that was it. She bee-lined it. I finished my routes and joined her home a couple of hours later.

The one thing we can say about our annual Thanksgiving trip to Twin Lakes is that it is always different. I mean really different. We have never had two trips into that cabin that were the same. And this year did not disappoint.

The first year we skied in, taking us just shy of 12 hours and almost killed snuggles. Since then we have fat-bike-packed our way. Once in deep snow with truck ruts, a 50 plus ride from another cabin in a freak blizzard, once the packed snow allowed us to fly up the hill, one in a rainstorm, sometimes walking the bike in deep powder, and then last year we drove up to the place. This year we got a ton of snow but to only have a heat wave keep temperatures in the 60s at night. 2017 is officially the year of the slush fest.

We were able to drive about a mile or two from the traditional corner that we park but from there on it was ice ruts and mud bogs. We decided to ride that part.

But soon enough as we gained elevation we reached snow. I was elated with expectations of riding the rest of the way. About 6 miles. And right there you should sense a problem. Never expect … right?

The sunset appeared in front of us as we were walking our bikes. We rode on snow for about a mile then I started to sink through the snow. With temps in the 50s I started to shed layers. Our tracks burned through to the ground and produced a 3-inch deep layer of slush water. And I can say this much. Pushing in slush is really tough. Snuggles rode past me because she was light and could float. About 2 hours later I got a message on the radio.

“I made it to the cabin … had to walk”, then some breathing sounds, “don’t follow my tracks”, more breathing, “I went the wrong way”.

An image of our last outing at Yellowstone National Park. And I wonder, not if, but when, the villains in power dismantle it. Yesterday we lost two national monuments.  I really do not see any reason to share any more adventure. No reason to share photos.  There is just no reason for anything.

Amerika … perhaps from some ancient language meaning gap. Lots of rich and everyone else pretty much being taken advantage of by … well … the rich.  Maybe it is no one’s fault. This is happening throughout life. For instance, take my friends who the last time I rode with could ride pretty much what I ride … just a tad slower sometimes.

So how is it that the latest ride I went down a couple of steep berms and then found myself alone. When they finally walked down it was reported to me that it was unrideable.  But I just rode it.  A gap perhaps.

Some people are good hosts. I consider myself not a good host. When I learn there are visitors I posture with stress responses. I would rather visit. And go along. Unless I plan something. If I were to actually plan something then I have everything figured out. Paul visited and after the usual negotiation of the expectational itinerary I was comforted to learn we were just going to “hang”. I am cool with that.

Once released from anxiety the possibilities were endless. One such possibility was a ride on Chestnut, a local gem. Mo dropped us off at the trailhead and was there when we popped out. Like a professional vacation for my friend. And without trying.  I am going to say that I consider “Just hanging” is more fun than hosting.

“Let’s do night rides.”

“And then next spring do a group trip to Moab.”

Lots of these conversations occurred while shuttling to the Wednesday Night Ride locations around the Gallatin Valley. I remember thinking, “finally, a social network and cool new friends”.

Looking back now that there is snow everywhere is how I really knew that it was all a mirage. After the last two or three rides were canceled the airwaves went silent. Now I wonder if this summer was just a dream. Oh well, getting on the fat bike for lone rides into the darkness.