Johns Visit: The Desert

Thomas with Delicate Arch

Now its almost unimaginable to think that just down the road from our snowy enclave in the mountains that you can find yourself in 30 degrees C weather, melting in the desert. But, that’s where we were headed, to Moab,Utah and some of the finest mountain biking on offer and with some crazy rocks too.

We got into town after a early start and set up camp to head off immediately into Arches National Park. With the sunshine on our necks and the unusual feeling of warm air surrounding us, we headed on the Delicate Arch walk. Shortly into the walk I myself found some wild source of energy from within. I was a man possessed. I was just running, jumping, climbing and exploring with such a spring in my step and a twinkle in my eye. I think I was just enchanted by the desert, and man was it fun. We posed with Delicate Arch and I ventured across a steep and narrow crossing to where no one else had ventured. Amy decided to follow, for some reason, and for a quick moment really found herself in a pickle of a situation. Amy sliding 30m down a rock face would have put a bit of a damper on the trip, but it didn’t quite come to that. A relaxing night cooking sausages on the camp fire, of course accompanied by a refreshing beverage or two.

Maybe the most famous mountain bike ride in North America, running from high in the mountains right back down into town in Moab is The Whole Enchilada. It’s a 20 mile descent across the most amazing red rocked desert. It starts so high in fact it would have been many more months till the snow cleared on the top section and it dried out, so we were only able to ride half of the Whole Enchilada. To make up for the half we were missing out on and to get the most of of the riding experience, to really earn it, we cycled the whole route of the Porcupine Rim from town and back. Featuring a 20km 3 hour uphill ascent followed but the remaining 3 hour descent and hour lap back into town. It was a fair journey and it was definitely me and John's most epic adventure together.

It was simply just a blast for the entire ride. Not at all discounting the arduous ride uphill, even that was a scenic spectacular. Passing through an environment so unlike anywhere else, it was quite easy to keep the pedals turning. Reaching the top felt like the achievement, but that was actually the easy part. If you're thinking we were just off on a casual roll down the hill from there, it was anything but. Fast undulating sections, steep chunky sections and sections where off to the side would send you over a 100m cliff. Our full suspension rental bikes were put through their paces but they didn't completely protect us from all those bumps. The ride had literally shaken us to pieces, so much in fact that I spent the following days cradling my hand because it felt as though it was broken, despite having not crashed. When we made it back down to the road section, we re-hydrated from a spring coming out of the side of a rock wall and headed back into town to meet Amy and then drove to a river to try and cool off. We were all melting, and this river was the only oasis in the desert, except that it was painfully cold, with snowmelt from the mountains, we could only dip our toes in. That night we treated ourselves to some BBQ, going to the same restaurant Amy and I dined at with her sister and mom back in 2012 during our road trip and we finished the night back at Arches, where we hiked to a lookout spot, watched the sunset and did some stargazing before sitting around with some cold beers by the campfire.

Feeling like we had achieved life's meaning and having conquered the desert, but our muscles were calling out that the desert had conquered us, we headed one last time into Arches on the way out of town to do an Amy guided journey through some more of the desert spacescapes. I limped from view to view taking advantage of every sitting opportunity or spot of shade. Not long before you know it, we were on our way back into the mountains, where the warm weather had followed us. 

John's Visit: The Mountains

Devo Bros being silly

The highlight of my time in Colorado was having my bro come shred and chill for a week. Using his 30^th  birthday as a great excuse to spring a bit of a surprise trip. He did take the surprise away from us demanding he needed to know what was up to take the time off work, but that's the price you pay for being such a hot shot head chef, the bugger. Other than knowing he was coming over to ski and live the "High Life", he knew nothing of the mad trip we had planned. Props to the Devo Parents and the Clarks for significantly chipping in for his flights and most importantly to Kel for surrendering him for a week and giving him a generous beer budget.

Up Breckenridge

Right from the get go, we got after it. Straight out of the airport parking structure at 7000rpm we quickly got caught in stand still traffic, but only temporarily, while we headed to Boulder. That was of course after a pit stop at the always impressive Bass Pro Shop. Browsing for camo-print sofas, fluro trucker hats and $160 hand guns. Shooting some guns ourselves, only of the laser rifle hunting game variety, the bro-off begins. Making it right to the Flatirons on the foothills in Boulder with a perfectly timed breakdown, we pulled into the car park and had to finish the parking maneuver with John and a stranger pushing.

The Flatirons are an array of impressive steep tilted sandstone slabs pressing against the foothills below Boulder making for a steep and strenuous climb offering magnificent views across the plains and into the mountains where we were headed. No way to better kick jet lags butt than to acclimatise on a leisurely afternoon climb up these mad rocks. That we did and to be honest for myself having just descended 1500 meters the air to me was like breathing liquid oxygen. I’m not sure that it was so for John though, as we were still at 1500 meters elevation. A good few hours round trip and after a wee Cheba Hut snack in town, we were off again rallying up the Boulder Canyon. Taking the scenic route winding up the narrow canyon and climbing over winding mountain roads. John's analysis of the situation was fair, “It looks very North American”. Climbing over the Continental Divide right at sunset was just a magic way to introduce John to our home of Summit County. With pizza and beer for dinner in town at Downstairs at Eric's, the trip had only just got started, and was very "North American."

Picking up some rental gear from my ski shop the following morning, the boys introduced John to the our tough mountain lifestyle, with a controversial Barley Wine that had been hanging in the fridge undrunk for some time. At 9%ABV John was ready to get going. Now, due to an unseasonably warm and early onset of spring, meant that we were able to jet around town in style in the RX7, however it left a little to be desired on the snow front. However, one can only complain so much when you are at 4000m in stunning sunshine snowboarding in the Rockies at A-basin ski area. Casual laps and a few fun runs into the trees while still actually managing to find some good snow. Continuing to take advantage of the strange weather, we baked in the sun on the balcony of our house some cool beverages, good music and better yarns in the early afternoon.

Sunset over lake Dillion from Keystone

Following our interlude off to the desert we returned to this mountain lifestyle for what seemed like 4 more short days. As the old saying goes, how time flies when your having fun. Its a pretty manageable routine, which often was the general makeup of our lives in Colorado, I guess with the insert of a few work days here and there. But the basic formula we went with while John was around was, wake up, have a big breakfast, head out to the slopes, can of mountain dew in the pocket, shred hard and explore the mountain and head back to town for happy hour. That's roughly how its went. We did mix it up actually a day or two, with the insertion of a wee journey out to Beaver Creek. That was quite the unbelievable day as it was just so hot. Literally in the teens, celsius. At times it was more like water skiing, but its always cool to get back to the Beav and explore our old haunches and I believe I had about 10 hot cookies at the end of the day, 3pm on the dot at the bottom of the chairlift. 

Tinkabell at Broken Compass Brewery with us.

Another day we did the double-banger with a morning session at Breckenridge then heading over to Keystone for night skiing, which at that point of the year was more like twilight skiing. Seeing the sunset over Summit County, across Lake Dillion from the top of the skifield was pretty magic. And other than that, it was a bit like, good food and beers at home, playing cards and listening to music or adventures with the dogs to a local brewery or up the hills for a walk. I hope John had a mad time, I sure as hell did and I cant wait for my 30th birthday present ;)

A perfect week in the mountains!