Saturday morining, my friend Niel (yes, that’s the correct spelling) and I headed up Milcreek canyon to get a taste of the simple single-track called the Milcreek Pipeline. Upon arriving at the trail head, we geared up and headed up the road for our 1.5 mile trek to the trail head. Pushing steep climbs on a mountain bike is no fun, but the payoff was well worth the work.
At the upper trail head, we hit the trail and soon were out from the cold morning air into the sun. The trail runs along the ridge where an old pipeline ran. On the upper trial there are still pieces of re-bar sticking out of the ground, which is an obvious danger. Shortly after, you hit the descent (about 600 feet) and there are some nasty, tight switchbacks that both Neil and I almost flew over. All in good fun though. At the bottom of the switchbacks, we headed further west along the ridge to find some great, fast singletrack. Not too many baby-heads, but there was a lot of loose rock that was interesting to navigate around.
Out at the end of the trail, we had a complete view of the entire valley. It was beautiful. We enjoyed our Clif bars and made the ride back to the car quickly. The whole ride took us about two hours.
So, tonight I was going to take a ride with Niel, but he ended up having a sick kid and couldn’t go. So, in lieu of taking the night off, I decided a lone ride was in order.
I packed up and headed for Little Cottonwood Canyon at about 6:15. I arrived after a harrowing drive and shortly after gearing up, began to make my way up the 3.5 mile, 1300 foot climb to the top of the hill. 3.5 miles may not seem like a lot on a road bike, but trust me, when you’re navigating loose gravel, talus, and baby-head-sized rocks, it’s no easy feat. I made the entire climb only having to walk a couple of nasty steep sections (mostly because I wasn’t in the right gear when I hit them). The ascent took me about 45-minutes or so. Coming down, on the other hand, was a whole different story.
The descent on this trail is quite fast. It’s funny how the difficult stuff doesn’t seem so rough when you’re flying over it. Of course, having a bike with 29″ wheels really helps in that department. There were a couple of hairy spots, but overall, I survived quite well. I debated popping over the small piece of bridge that crosses an old water pipe, but wimped out. In about 15 minutes, I was back at the car.
Overall, I’ve been having some great rides lately and my endurance is finally picking up again. Of course, with Winter on the horizon, some gnarly snow rides seem to be in order to help keep me going.
