11th Annual UTAZ Riders Guild trip

History

More than 15 years ago my bro and his friends started organizing annual mountain biking trips.  The trips initially included a core group of friends from the Phoenix area.  The location of the trip changed from year to year, including Six Shooter (Globe), Flagstaff, Moab, and Big Bear.  Eventually a few of the key players moved to Salt Lake, which normally would have caused the tradition to fall apart.  Fortunately Tobolilto didn’t let this happen. He organized the group to visit the Salt Lake area annually.  This has now become Utah-Arizona Riders Guild.  In its 11^th year, it includes many of the original core players with new people joining every year.

This year’s trip started with most of the AZ crew on the same flight from Phoenix.  After traveling for work constantly for the last 20 years, it felt strange getting on a plane for the first time since January.  The Southwest flight felt safe as it was only sold to 2/3 capacity.  Seventy-five minutes later we arrived to SLC to start the 4 days of fun.

Staging

We staged the group at Dave’s house in Salt Lake. Conveniently located at the head of Big Cottonwood Canyon, we collected all our bikes and gear here. Later in the day we moved the party to Midway into Dave’s family house for the weekend. Midway is perfect as it allows us to finish our daily rides with a trip (or trips) down the awesome Wasatch Over Wasatch trail. It is great that we are able to stay here for free every year and that it is spacious enough for our large group.

Day 1

Wasatch Crest to Mill D

Ryan organized a shuttle to pick us up at the Mill D trailhead.  After riding up the road to Guardsman’s Pass once, I can’t say I’ll purposely do that again.  It was just not fun to ride up the road on a mountain bike while being buzzed by constant traffic.  We started down the Wasatch Crest trail, many of us just getting familiar with our rented bikes.  The geometry of my rented Enduro is so unlike the bikes I normally ride.  It took me a little while to start carving the turns instead of turning the handlebars.  I found it climbed well enough for a bike with 170mm of rear travel.  I even was able to ride it up the full length of Puke Hill, although I did have to stop to catch my breath once.  Puke Hill conquered, we descend the trail, bombing down the amazing track after Desolation Lake.  This part of the trail is so much fun with speed, with the vegetation hitting the ends of the handlebars as you launch over water bar after water bar. A few of us enjoyed a quick Utah beer before loading up and driving to second ride for the day.

Wasatch Over Wasatch

We drove over Guardman’s and toward Midway for the next ride. The WOW trail is 10 miles of amazing fun. It goes through alpine forests, meadows, high desert, and an area that feels like a jungle. Along the way you get to carve big banked corners and pound over rocks at high speed on true singletrack. The trail this year was more dusty than usual and was showing signs of use. I started to feel more comfortable with my bike, although I did lay it down in one of the banked corners. At the end of the trail we rode through the new bike park flow trail before heading to the house for the night. Tobolito busted out some good Italian. Yum.

Day 2

Deer Valley gravity trails

One of these days we’ll hopefully have lift served biking near Flagstaff. Until then it is great to have the opportunity on this trip. I first rode Deer Valley 2 years ago, but I didn’t plan well and ended riding my blue XC bike. That bike is great, but the wrong tool for this job. I enjoyed the riding so much more this time on the super full squish bike. While I enjoyed all the trails, I found the “technical trails” more fun than the flow trails. Aspen Slalom was a highlight, although I have to improve my skills to be able to clear the top. Finishing the day with Undertow was also a highlight. Tobilito and I chased each other down the huge banked corners that are basically vertical as you pass through the turn.

Day 3

Park City

My goal for the day was to see if I could muster the will to ride the enduro bike from Park City to the top of the Wasatch Crest trail. I’ve made this climb several times on different bikes, so I wanted to see if a bike like this could be used as an “everyday bike”. Most of the group decided to break off at the Mid Mountain to explore some different trails. Four of us continued up Pine Cone, but two decided to turn around before the top. I was really happy that DMC asked me to join him when the others broke off. I made it to the top of the 3000 foot climb. We blasted back down, exploring a few new-to-us trails and joined the group just as they sat down at Squatter’s Brewery. After returning home, the original plan was to go out again for a night ride, but nobody could self-motivate for a 2^nd ride.

Day 4

Wasatch Crest to Mill Creek

For the final ride of the trip we rode down Wasatch Crest to Mill Canyon.  The first half of this ride was the same as the first ride of the trip.  Instead of descending into Big Cottonwood Canyon though, you come down Mill Canyon and ride directly into Salt Lake City.  Our group was plagued by flat tires, but it was otherwise great.  There were many more people on the trail versus the ride on Thursday.  We ended up back at Dave’s house in Salt Lake to shower and prepare for the trip home.

This year’s trip was amazing as always and the group of guys that join are good friends.  We were just missing a couple of my friends from Flag. I appreciate Dave and Ryan hosting us and Tobolito being the ringleader from Phoenix. I’m already excited for next year’s trip.