So. We left for vacation on Aug 26 and we don’t start making our way home until Thursday. It’s been a deliciously long trip.
First we stayed in a sweet little cabin around 30 min outside Bryce Canyon NP. We’ve stayed there before, it has a nice little mini kitchen. Now with COVID, contactless check in and check out. So we cooked in, had no contact with anyone at all except when we went into the National Park.
Theres a horse pasture right out the front door of the cabin, and this year there were two mares and two little fillies in the pasture. We spent a lot of time just watching the horses, scratching their itchy parts etc.
The afternoon after we arrived, I rode my MTB down the dirt road outside the cabin. A few miles later, I found a trailhead. Rode back to the cabin and looked it up, then pieced together a route to ride into Red Canyon, which is just outside Bryce. I had the place to myself. Later on, we went into Bryce Canyon itself and did a short hike along the rim around sunset time. On the way out of the park, we had this crazy deer sighting. Family group in a meadow and then this buck crossed the road and walked right over to me, standing in the open car door snapping pics of his family. Handsome fellow.
After two days at the cabin, we left for Park City. We came here on a timeshare exchange a few years ago and wound up buying a resale every other year timeshare at Marriott Mountainside, which I stretched into a 13 day stay. The reason we bought the TS is I loved the MTBing around here, there’s gobs of intermediate cross country trails around here. We’ve been here 9 days and I’ve ridden 100 miles/11000ft of trails already. It’s been heaven. All the locals have been complaining that it’s “hot”. They have no idea. The highs are in the 90s but when I start my rides at 7am, it’s typically in the 40s or 50s. So not only are the trails delicious, the weather is too.
Wasatch Crest Trail, at 10000ft. It’s a beauty of a trail.
This is the Land of The Switchback. If you need switchback practice, come ride Park City.
Mid Mountain Trail. You can ride this one for many miles, transversely across the mountain, from Deer Valley to Park City Mountain to the Canyons.
Today I rode up up up to Shadow Lake, at 9000ft. So cool and crisp. This is Keystone Trail.
Tomorrow will be a rest day. Then three more days of riding, before we head home. Tuesday Park City will be on the back side of the big storm that’s heading to Colorado. Highs forecast to be 58F, and it will be windy. But otherwise the weather is expected to stay fine. At home there’s a miserable heatwave going on, so we’re feeling lucky to be here.
We have cooked in every meal except a few takeout meals. Other than me riding, we are just hanging out playing Yahtzee and binge watching Amazon Prime. It’s been a super chill and enjoyable trip.