A longish bike ride

Recently I sold my car. I did it partly because I couldn't afford the insurance premium, registration, and the price of fucking gas these days! Some amount of enviro do-gooderisim also factored in to the switch. I also didn't like the terrorist-per-gallon rating that my car, or anyone's, had. M has her car of course, but she uses it for work, so for the most part it's all pedal power.

I went on a mountain bike ride last Sunday. Now I ride to the mountains, but I caught to Wasatch Crest Shuttle up to Gardsmens. I did the crest, then the mid mountain, then down to Park City for a snack, then I rode home, taking part of I 80 from Parley's to East Canyon, to Emigration, then home. I consider this a longish ride according to the classification system devised by Sukow:

a ride <6hrs
longish <8-9hrs
long <16
redicuride no limit

I may not have the numbers right. I'll have to get back to Sukow on this. They are just a ballpark. This would also vary with terrain, or if you were racing at the time ect...

Elk Mountain Traverse

During the busyness of Spring I still got out to do some skiing. To be efficient I concentrated all that skiing into 16 hours called the Elk Mountain Traverse. True to form for all my ski races, I did'nt finish the whole race. I had seven miles to go and collapsed after jettisoning all cargo from my innards. I think I got dehydrated early on and never fully recovered. Oh well. There is always next time. Here are some pictures...

The Paria

About a week ago I got done walking through the canyons of the Paria river down in south Utah and north Arizona. It was a great way to unwind from a busy first half of the year. With my first paper published and second paper submitted the day before I left it was a much needed mental break.

The hike took four days. It was HOT, but the river provided the needed cool-down. We entered the area via Buckskin canyon, which is a thirteen-mile rock hallway till you reach the confluence with the Paria.




Our first day in the Paria was the best aesthetically. The walls were wider but you still felt enveloped. The canyon was a lush oasis from the gently flowing river and the perennial seeps.




As the canyon became wider and deeper with the increasing miles the sun became a bigger deal. Hiking in the afternoon was out, so we scaled back the hiking time and found camp and shade by noon. We read and ate snacks. I build a rock wall in the river and laid down in the resulting cool pool.




Although, my watch read 127 F after I left it out in the sun, I think the afternoon temps were about 107 F tops.

If I were to recommend one hike to do in the Utah desert this would be it.

Uinta Ski Hike

I went on a little trip to the Uintas. I skied till it was dark, and then kept going, all the way to gunsight pass to my high camp at 11,300. I got up at 5am and started over the pass and into painter's basin then back up some steep hills to King's peak. At 12,800 I had gained the long ridge where King's peak resides. I mistakenly thought Kings was south of where I was. Daytime heating made me leery of traversing a steep slope with a slide-for-life into an unknown drainage, so I bailed on fake Kings and decided to head up to a more accessible 13er which I thought was not King,s, but actually was! King's, shown above as the central peak that is recessed a bit in the photo. From the top I was able to see all over into several drainages that practically nobody goes to. I came down via an amazing ski pole glissade. When the angle slacked I skied the rest on perfect corn across miles of open terrain in these expansive mountain valleys. The only living thing I saw up there was a fox. Once back on the Henry's fork side I kicked back at my tent, melted some snow and made some tea. I let my socks dry in the excessive warmth and took a nap. Due to the excessive heat the thin snowpack was collapsing and unconsolidated. I could only travel successfully on the packed down ski track, and even then I fell into many a trap door. I decided to come down that night when the meager refreeze made the track more supportable. About every 30 steps I fell through and I needed my skins for the decent just to slow me down so I did not stray from the track into the vast sea of facets. I was very weak on the way down, but feeling ok. I skied for 14 hours that day and by 10 at night I was at my car. I spent 32 hours car to car for a 40-mile round trip hike. Great training for Elk mountain coming up in two weeks...

Pink Pine Powder Day

Click the title for a little movie. It might take a minute for it to load...

New to the quiver

So last year I started skiing seriously. I am not very good hence I retain the title climbwill while the other Will gets the ski prefix. Contributing to my lameness was that my old skis weighed next to nothing and were only 90mm at the tip: My 190 lb. carcass would just sink through all that powder we had last year. My new Voile Carbon Surfs, mounted with dynafit comfort bindings and driven by the Scarpa Matrix boot will hopefully change that (both the sinking carcass and the bad skiing that is).

The Voile skis have snowboard inserts. To mount the dynafits you have to obtain this grey plastic mounting plate. On the mounting plate there are three hole patterns on the for the rear binding piece for small medium and large boot sizes. The hole patterns are spaced 1 1/8 inches apart. The dynafits can adjust about 1 inch, leaving two 1/8 inch gaps between binding configurations on the ski. My boot landed just shy of this gap. The binding adjustment screw at its limit will just barely accommodates my boot. Either the guys at Voile checked to make sure that no major boots sizes' land in those gaps or they were just plain stupid. Mondo point sizes are not exactily equivalent to centimeter sizing: e.g. my 28.0 dynafit evolutions are slightly shorter than my 27.5 scarpa matricies. So it seems unlikely that they could ensure that all boots will fit their skis...

-w

Cyclocross State Champs: I'm A Contenda!

I just got done with the Utah cyclocross state championships. Another fine day of racing at Wheeler Farm. Some of us on the blog do this funny sport. True, its somewhat strange, and it does not have the following that road or mountain bike racing has. Why do it? Well first off you have to like racing. Why cyclocross racing? If we make analogies to auto racing then Road racing would be like NASCAR or Indy, Mountain bike racing would be like Baja or rallying up pikes peak, Downhilling would be like monster trucks. Cyclocross is like formula one: Winding tracks with ups, downs, curves, hairpins, banks, continual accelerations and decelerations, and running. Most people know of cross for the running and jumping over barriers part but mountain biking can also have hike-a-bike sections. To me the running makes for interesting tactics and emphasizes different types of fitness, but the running makes up only a very small part of the race. The other thing about cross is that it is the winter time branch of cycle racing: When the other racing seasons winds down cross is the only race in town. The mud and snow make for suffering and challenging riding conditions: Do I run this muddy trenched section or can I ride it? The other great thing about cross is that its much more low-key: People come out to have fun. Antics abound and the courses are usually in parks where many people show up. Spectators can usually see much of the course and watch the progress of packs of riders and the race leaders as they go by different sections of the course.

Here is some pictures of the single speed and men's B race. The race was great for me. There was some good racing.


Check me out cruising on the runup.
On the last lap this other single speed rider snuck up on me and passed me, demoting me to third place. I passed him right back and we both got clogged up in a pack of B men riders. We all went through a wooded single track section. Once out of the woods I took an inside line that was bumpier than the smooth section, but the B men didn't mind me passing as I was not their problem.


The course closed back up on a corner and I safely had three guys between me and the other single speed guy. I unloaded all energy reserves on the flats going into the final stretch for the single speed silver. Steve Wasmund, the first place guy is like so much better that I never even saw him the whole race. Maybe next time...

-w