Little Cottonwood-AF Canyon

Like last week, today's ride started with a climb up Little Cottonwood, but I started at the house and didn't ride the Quarry Trail (I figured the ride was going to be long enough without the extra dirt climb). I stopped at Snowbird and filled my 100oz Camelbak and both of my bottles (I'd started with just the bottles).

The first climb is pretty long :)

After riding to the top of Catherine's Pass, I turned right and instead of dropping into Big Cottonwood, the trail led up over Alta and down into American Fork canyon. I had intended to traverse to Pole-Line pass, but missed the turn and descended down a dirt road much too far. I knew I had missed it, but there was another dirt road that led back up to Pole-Line, so I climbed that and rejoined the trail. I'm now pretty sure the map has the wrong trail number on it.

The drop into American Fork was pretty steep, but rideable and fun. I think it would be less fun going the other way. Unfortunately motorcycles, which probably made the trail in the first place, have really torn it up. Motorcycles are kind of a problem -- they are fun and it seems like there should be places for them to have fun in the single-track, but it doesn't seem sustainable when you see trails like this one. There are other areas lower in the Canyon where they ride regularly and everything seems fine, so maybe it is just a terrain issue.

Anyway, I followed this single-track, which is part of the Great Western Trail, for several miles. Much of it is part of the Wasatch 100 (underway today but they wouldn't get there till late tonight).

This trail traverses all the way to the Alpine Loop pass. As I was descending towards the pass, I encountered another Revolution kit climbing up towards me -- Greg Larson. We chatted a minute and decided to descend together to his car. We had a fun descent, all the while listening to his Mavic freehub make all kinds of grinding noises.

By this time I was nearly out of water, so I refilled at Timp Cave, and then rode out the canyon, over Suncrest, and back to the house.

A pretty big ride at 7.5 hrs with 10,000 feet of climbing. Fun day.

PS: Good Luck to the Wasatch 100 runners!