The Downhill Ordeal

So on Friday, July 20, Kristen and I went with our neighbor Matt Stockwell, his son Nate and his friend Parker, on a Snowbird Tram bicycle trip for Nate's birthday (Happy Birthday Nate). We all took our bikes up on the Tram and rode down. Kristen decided to go at the last minute. It was a lot steeper and more difficult than either of us anticipated. The trail was full of loose rocks and scree and we seemed to have a number of near misses.

Kristen's front tire popped about 1/8 the way down as we were descending into Mineral Basin. Fortunately, Matt had a spare and we got back on the trail fairly quickly. We kept descending and it kept getting steeper and more difficult (Kris and I really ground our brake pads down). About 1/3 of the way down, Kristen's front tire popped again and we didn't have a spare, so Kris and I started walking the bikes down, which was an enormous pain because of how steep the trail was. Fortunately, after walking about 1/4 mile, we met a Snowbird employee driving up the trail in a Suburban. We loaded Kristen and her bike in the Suburban and Kristen was able to catch a ride back to the summit and take the Tram back down. On their way back up the mountain, the Snowbird employee told Kristen that if the Suburban started to roll backwards, she should jump out of the truck because there was no way to stop it once it started a backwards descent. I think he was just trying to scare Krissy.

Meanwhile, I continued down with Matt and the kids. We made it down to the entrance to Bass Highway and turned off on the new trail. This about doubled the difficulty. It was mostly narrow single-track that was really rocky and technical. I nearly lost it several times. In retrospect, it was a total blessing that Kristen popped both those tires because I doubt she could have made it through this lower part of the trail uninjured.

In any event, we all made it down one way or another and, other than some scrapes and bruises on your's truly, we are none the worse for wear. Here are some pre-ride pictures, before our innocence was lost...