Salt Lake Strip Mall

The great Wasatch mountains of Utah are an amazing place. The resort riding we have done since leaving CB has been excellent. Park City offered X Games style parks and pipe, Snowbird had the parks and the amazing big mountain scene - a short hike would get us onto some amazing terrain covered in powder fields and off-piste freeriding. Brighton, today, was rail riding goodness in the morning followed by some mad backcountry-access gate goodness. I followed Christian out this ridge to a line that involved dropping into a quick traverse across the top of a couple hundered foot rock-dotted chute, over a snow spine onto a precariously purched snow apron, around a huge boulder where I had to hug the rocks and snow to scoot into a position to drop into my line. The justice came in the form of a steep spine of snow where each turn sent slough sliding in either direction while I continued turning down the soft structure. After a final slash turn on the spine I gunned it into a wide open powder field and arched turns until the slope flattened out. I looked back up to the top of the ridge and Christian was silhoutted against the sky with his arms raised over his head in celebration. My heart was pounding like a speed metal drummer.

Funny that all this takes place about a half hour from downtown Salt Lake City - one of my least favorite cities. The majesty of the mountains and the magical quality of the snow is conversly matched by the murky air and never ending strip mall that is the city. We ride hard on this rugged, steep, and amazing natural terrain during the day, then return to the highway that greets us at the bottom of the canyons and sucks us back into the neon buy-everything culture of the city. Crested Butte has no stop lights, no fast food, and the speed limit is 15 mph. I am grateful to be able to be on the road and to experience this, but I am also grateful that I live in a place where life is simpler.

The kids are all maniacs. They are both frustrating to try to direct and very fun to be around. They are very loving, but also super-mean to each other. The smelliness came to a boil today when Little E ate a burger that set his gastrointestinal system into chaos. The drives around town are much chillier because we have to have the windows open at all times. They ride really well during the day, crash for a while until we are about through with dinner, then they get dialed into hyper-spaz mode. Tonight I had to pry them from the dinner table because they were so fired up about slurping Jello through straws. Once they got into the parking lot, with make shift to go Jello, they started running the progress in reverse - spitting Jello through straws at each other. Madness.

We are trying to plan for the next few days and it looks like we are bound for Clifornia tomorrow night after riding at Snowbasin. 500 miles to the next mission. Damn I hope E's digestive issues get resolved.