Roll The Bones

After a late night at the Flogging Molly concert(Fantastic), I had racked up about three hours sleep when I picked up ZenMasterKenny and Spencer The Great at the shop for the first official Group ride of the year.  We headed up to Hog’s Hollow where Zimm-The-Man and Bishop Yates were waiting for us.

ZMK and STG (man I need to lay off the nicknames) bolted off the front.  That’s what I like about ZTM is he’s faster than me but he likes to BS like me, so with the Bishop, the three of us brought up the rear.

Bishop had been up there earlier in the week and ridden the top part of a new trail.   I was a little tentative about it.  The name brings to mind windbag pundits and overinflated art-rock from  Canada.  But on his recommendation, we decided to check it out.

*attn Nathan, Skidding Is Bad Form

From the top of Clarks the trail heads over an armored swamp crossing and begins to twist and turn downhill.  The “Flow Trail” designation I believe refers to the pump-track like rollers and berms it takes you through.  It’s all still pretty new, and a little rough, but there were at least two other groups of riders heading down while we were, so I think it should ride in fairly quickly.  For maybe the first half mile or so, everything clicks.  Little boosters and jumps are everywhere.  Along with tight switchbacks with berms that once the trail smooths out will be a hoot.

The further you go down, the less complete the trail is and therefore the rougher things get.  It may be that I’m just not seeing the vision but the other thing that changes, is the trail reverses direction and slope about twice every half mile.  You begin doubling back on yourself covering the same ground several times.  Comparisons to the line for a ride at Disneyland are not innaccurate.  The thing I found the strangest, was that you head back up the hill constantly.  I joked to Kenny that it was a downhill which required an 11-32 cassette.   After crossing the abandoned dirt road that takes you down to the bottom of Ghost Falls, things get really rough.  We stuck with it in the interest of exploration, but found a trail that has only recently been roughed in.  And then suddenly……

You can't get there from here.

The trail ended abruptly where workers last left off.   You could see the flags where it will continue but we opted to ride/push back to where it crossed the road and climb Ghost Falls.  In hindsight, there were a few logs and things that had been laid across the trail which were probably intended to signal that it was time to turn around.  But being the hard-core riders we are we just bunny hopped them and kept going.    After a Grizzly sighting and a steep grunt up Ghost Falls North,  we continued up the Canyon Hollow Trail which is becoming a fan favorite and headed back up to the top of Clark’s/Hog’s.

♪ All the Yogi's on the street throwin' up gang signs ♫ I went in my house to get my clip,..♪ With my Mac 10, on the side of my hip♫

With the rough trail, and the down 100 yards, up 75 yards design of the Rush trail, it felt like we had been climbing since we left the truck.  We decided to call it a day and bombed back down Hog’s to the vehicles.  Now Zimm-The-Man, will tell you that he’s timid about downhill’s due to his age and inability to recover from failure to maintain proper upright riding parameters, but he was right on my tail the whole way down with me going as fast as my chubby little legs could manage.  Then I let up just before the giant puddle on Hog’s Hollow Road and he sailed by, threw a huge flair off the lip at the beginning, touched down for a second before sending it off the lip that leads out of the puddle.  Somebody’s been hitting the Geritol.

With only minor crashes incurred by SpencerTheGreat,(possibly due to the fact that he grew about six inches and is still riding the same size bike) it was a good ride. We’ll see how the this new trail progresses.  It’s really exciting to see Draper City throwing resources at the Corner Canyon Area.  The result is going to be destination travel worthy riding within a short drive of anywhere in the two valleys.  This year alone there have been new signs, information kiosks, maps and best of all new trails popping up just since the snow came off.  Kudo’s Draper City.