Getting Barrelled On Your Bike

Been thumbing through old writing on my computer this morning.   I wrote this short essay for the local newspaper when I was in high school it is about one of my favorites in Bishop, Dutch Johns Loop.  Bikes have been making me smile for a long time.

Inhaling deeply the burn in my stomach subsides, cool air fills my lungs and I shift into the higher range of my fully rigid nine speed mountain bike, exhale with pleasure. Now settling into the smooth cadence of a long mountain climb massive views of the Owens Valley below greet me and the sky wispy with stratus clouds seems to expand beyond infinity. On this fall afternoon I will ride to over 8,000 feet above sea level and still be dwarfed by my western surroundings of multiple 13,000 foot peaks. Living in the Eastern Sierra this is more often the case than not. No matter how immense the tasks we take on in these surroundings, our efforts and accomplishments never exceed the amounts of beauty we experience while out.

For nearly an hour I continue upward, my legs burn with every downward stroke of the peddle as my bicycle crawls over a mix of granite cobbles and wheel swallowing sand. The four wheel drive road bully’s me from one tire track to the other.  I find solace in sighting a group of Mule Deer. Two does that are moving with there fawn bound across the road no more than twenty five yards ahead.  The climb and pain along with it simply disappear for a moment. Inspired by the deer’s skillful navigation through the dense sage and scattered rock, I am forced to refocus my attention ahead. Carefully picking the most efficient line and riding with more grace and precision than ever before.  The climb is made much easier, and dare I say enjoyable.

Eventually rubber meets the packed and tacky soils left behind by the previous night’s rain fall. Here the double tracks grade lessens, beginning to contour flawlessly with the undulating terrain.  My largest chain-ring comes to use as I brake out in a heavy winded sprint. Bunny hopping boulders and railing turns with aggression I descend into a creek drainage. It is exploding with the hues of fall. Aspen forest engulfing me, the tunnel of yellow, red and orange becomes a constant blur. I enter a trance like state resulting in effortless flow.  Body position and tire pressure are the only things I rely on to absorb the terrain ahead.  The feeling is that of Ecstasy; a surfers perfect barrel, a skiers coldest powder snow face shot, something that has to be felt to be believed.

A similar wave exists in Colorado. Gavin took this photo of me getting barrelled on Lowline Trail last fall.

At the end of my ride there will be no podium, no beautiful woman waiting to hand over a champagne bottle, and that is just fine by me. In the Sierra’s the magnitude of your efforts can never surmount the beauty you are surrounded by, but there is no defeat in that. On this ride my only competition is myself.  The only beautiful woman I am seeking is with me the entire time, Mother Nature and her fresh water streams are the greatest reward I could ever receive and one of the many reasons I ride my bike.

Andrew's new route, Straight To Hell 5.11a/10d R

         A typical Gunnison scene epic tunes from Ween filling the air, 4 drunk dudes, 1 spoken for girl and a kitchen table littered with climbing magazines and PBR cans. My friend Andrew fresh back from his first trip to Chamonix in the wrong season, (should have gone skiing, not climbing) and full of enthusiasm brings up a line he'd been eyeing at Hartmans the last couple of days. He described it as a sort of British gritstone type of line, steep face climbing, three pieces of iffy thin gear in all of fifty feet. He and Elias made plans to go check it out last night and I tagged along with a couple prusiks and my camera.

     
         Most of us think of Hartman Rocks as a sort of nancy bolted sport crag. It would be hard to give the place a standard ethic. The grading is all messed up and many bolts are bad, most likely a product of college student first ascensionists.  There are a few classic run out slabs in the 5.10 range, but most routes are short, slabby, and probably rap bolted. Only a few traditional lines exist, and yesterday Andrew added a gem.

   
         Having top roped the route a couple times before he knew what he needed to "protect it" and hoped on the sharp end, nailing it! Elias and I both TR'd it, neither of us climbing it clean on our first goes. It is stellar face climbing, thin and balancy, on high quality rock. I cant imagine placing the fiddly ass gear on lead, good job Andrew!

A Long Awaited and Brief Recap

Matt and I at the EMGT finish line

                Skiing is my passion and it is what brought me to Western, the vast expanse of the Elk Mountains promised me endless opportunities for my favorite type of adventuring, backcountry skiing . With the passing of two winters now in the range I have to admit the mountains have shown me more joy than I ever believed possible, and have cultivated multiple friendships that will stand the test of time. People find bliss in many different places; and for me, my place is the mountains, on the East Face of Gothic Mountain and at the finish line of The Elk Mountain Grand Traverse. This year our range was blessed with epic amounts of snow and it kept my friends and I on ski’s, earning turns all the way into June.  I finished my season on the 5th with a very special descent of the Refrigerator Coliour on Ice Mountain a remote peak that is home to sustained 50 degree slopes and near vertical rock.

Half way down the East Face of Gothic on our last day of spring break.

                So with the thinning of the snow pack and the blossoming of the Cottonwoods I began to feel a bit out of places. Lost in a world without white, ecstatic about having just experienced the best and most progressive season of my life; I was stoked but I was not content. I longed for pow. And soon I would find it in a place that I had almost forgotten.

Last few steep turns on Ice Mtn with Dylan and Matt.

                Pedaling along, the sage fly’s by my side in a blur, the colors of a lush high desert pallet; green’s, gold’s and grey’s are all vivid in there spring infancy. The clouds are breaking above my head and the sun is dropping into an orange sky that lies between the horizon line and cumulus above. Hartman Rocks and its miles of trails north of the power line are now open. I turn onto Rattlesnake stand up out of the saddle and begin to power through beautiful burning legs. Down the first rock moves and onward to a glorious re-acquaintance with my second favorite thing BROWN POW!

                Riding your bike is fun, it is fun in the hills, it is fun in town, it is fun with friends and it is fun all by yourself. Last year in the dog days of summer it may have even saved my life. At home in the California heat ,hanging drywall for cash, depressed, questioning, and in content, I forced myself out on a forty mile high country ride and somewhere between Coyote Flats and Baker Creek I found a new happy, healthy energy.  I came home that day, quit my job the next, traded in my burnt out steel hard tail for a new aluminum one, split for single track ridge riding in Lake Tahoe for a few days, came back to Bishop for a couple and headed out to Moab and the La Sals just a week later.  Single track salvation! Soon I was at home in Gunnison, riding above tree line in the Elks, and through the sage again at Hartman’s.

                This summer I chose to make Gunnison my home, avoiding the 100 degree temps in California and enjoying the splendors of life in the Elk Mountains with gratitude.   My mountain bike season began in unison with the close of my ski season, and the decreased objective hazard in the snowless hills has lent itself to daily exploration and long weekend epics, one of the most beautiful things about dirt is that it doesn’t develop depth hoar. 

                In late June I raced The Original Growler a 64 mile cross country race at Hartman Rocks on a single nights notice. My co-worker and Mountain Sports Teammate Alex passed his registration on to me because of a hurt knee and plans of an upcoming trans-America mountain bike tour, GO ALEX! The Growler was short enough for me to think I might be able to kind of race it but long enough to be seriously humbling. I flatted twice, had to hike about ten minutes to get another tube on my second, and cramped pretty darn bad at the Top of the World on lap 2. For off the couch racing it was long, muddy, technical, and awesome! I was stoked to finish in six hours and forty something minutes, and can’t wait to try to go sub-six next year, better conditioned, and hopefully flat free.

                As June drew on I knocked off a few new and obscure rides feeling liberated by the adventure of exploration and hard effort.  One ride took me on a long climb in the West Elks, up mining roads and down barely scratched in elk trail, another started right out of campus headed east to the Fossil Ridge, where Mule Deer were my only witnesses and the climbers at Taylor Canyons First Buttress must have thought I had just finished Doctors Park.

The top of 401 at seven in the morning.

                As my Legs started to get tired my head seemed to be hungry for a bit of fear, because I began a three week climbing bender with my buddy Elias in late June.  We were psyched on rock, making our way through the grades at Taylor, and even putting up a few of our very own on first ascents in the 5.10 range at splitter crag I had found out on a long ride west of town.  Rock climbing is a funny sport for me, when I am motivated the fire burns hot and I cannot get enough, but somehow it dies out overnight. I grow tired of pushing myself through the fear and movement. Maybe it is too sedentary; to slow to reach the final destination, I prefer the movement of a bike, the feeling of covering tons of country, seeing many things, not having to stop at a belay. Unless of course it is in the mountains, mountain climbing is different.

                June has become July and the high country riding is in full effect, wild flowers are chest deep on the 401, and the alpine brown pow is being rejuvenated nearly daily with afternoon thunder storms.  Two weeks ago I went big and failed on an all dirt Crested Butte to Gunnison ride, it was to include, Trail 401, to Deer Creek, to Block and Tackle, to Reno, Flag, Bear, Doctors, to Forest Road 586, and finally descend Signal Ridge. I came up short at Harmels after ten hours, the climb up Forest Road 586 sounded heinous, I was out of food and decided it best to throw in the towel and ride the pavement home to Gunnison.

Coming down Flag Creek in the CB Classic

                The Crested Butte Classic a 100 mile race came up a little less than a week later, and with the absence of an entry fee or really much organization at all it seemed like just my type of ride. A mellow scene and awesome course that included; Strand Hill to Teocali Ridge on lap one, Reno, Flag, Bear, Deadmans from town on lap two, and finished with Kebler Pass, the Dyke Trail, and Wagon Wheel back to Crested Butte.  A little nervous at the start because of my recent big effort, I was stoked to fly through lap one feeling great on the new Teocali re-routes. That trail is awesome and if you haven’t already ridden it you need to get out there! Lap two was really hard, the climb up Reno Divide seemed endless and I was alone for most of it not knowing if I was going fast and suffering or going slow and suffering.  My friend JP caught up to me at the bottom of the Flag Creek descent and we pushed each other through the rest of the lap, enjoying the best Bear Creek descent ever, filled with hollers of stoke and all. I dropped JP on the road back to Crested Butte, and set out for lap three all alone again. The Kebler climb went well, and I cleaned the entire Dyke Descent but had no hope of clearing the steep single track climbs by that time of day. I battled hard to keep up the cadence from Horse Park Ranch to the top of Kebler knowing the end was near. Finally I was descending Wagon Trail completely exhausted. I pulled into town in sixth place over all with a time of 10hrs 17mins. Cool!

Camping out at Emerald Lake.

Ellie Coming down Agate Creek.

 Life in Gunni has continued on in its unique awesomeness the past week, I rode 401 with a great gang last Monday night and camped out at Emerald Lake afterwards. Hit Hartmans a few times throughout the week, once with my stellar co-worker Jefe who is pretty damn rad and showed me all sorts of new rocky lines! And yesterday we had a six person Western State Mountain Sports crew on Agate Creek  off of Monarch Pass which is just another Gunnison gem. While the thought of the rapidly approaching fall semester makes me shutter, I am getting more and more excited to race the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Cycling Series with my Western Teammates and hopefully enjoy another seamless transition into my favorite season come November! I’ll be itching for a change in pow.

Angela and Ellie Cruising along The Continental Divide Trail.