Mountain biking in St. George

Gotta love that red rock!

So I went Mountain Biking in St. George last Saturday. We must be crazy! We got up and left by 6:30 AM drove down, rode two trails and then headed for home. Hahaha! I was a little worried on the drive down because my little temperature gauge wasn't going a blip over 19 degrees. That's COLD! It remained that cold right up until we started biking. Which was probably around 10:30 or 11. But then the sun broke through the clouds and it turned into a gorgeous day! We couldn't have asked for a better day! We had a much smaller group this year compared to last year. Sometimes I feel like smaller groups are better when mountain biking. The more people you have the wider they vary in skill level and the more likely you are to have problems with bikes. There were just 5 of us this time. The guy who rode in my car pretty much slept the whole way there and the whole way back. We did Gooseberry Mesa again. There are actually a lot of trails all over it, we did the South Rim. Super pretty!

This is the group. Left to Right: Koda, me, Kate, Liz and Ian

By the time we finished that we barely had enough time to do the other trail. In hindsight we probably shouldn't have done it. However I'm glad we did! It's called the JEM trail - after the initials of the three guys who have blazed and maintained most of the biking trails in the area. Props to them! It was SUPER FUN! Ian and I shuttled the cars down to the bottom while Koda, Kate and Liz started down the trail. By the time Ian and I got back to the top the sun was down, it was getting dark and it was COLD! So, naturally, off we went! The first 1/2 mile of the trail was pretty much going down the face of a cliff, but after that it was relatively flat with small rises and dips here and there. We were FLYING! It was a super fun trail! And once we got going it wasn't all that cold. Lucky for us the dirt on the trail was a little lighter than the surrounding dirt so we were able to see where we were going fairly well. We caught up to the other three just 100 feet before the end of the trail. By then it was pretty much pitch black and they were walking thier bikes. I'd like to go back and do that one a few more times in the daylight. We had to slow down quite a bit once it really got dark.
The drive home was uneventful. We drove through 3 separate snow storms though! I thought they were SO beautiful but Koda was sure we were going to die. Hahaha! He was kind of a weirdy. ;-) One of the storms we drove through was incredible. The snow was so fine it literally looked like we were driving through glitter. Everything was sparkling! Too bad my camera was in the trunk. I totally would've taken a few pictures of it.
It was a fun trip - and probably the last mountain biking I'll do until spring. Bummer. But at least it's finally starting to look like winter around here! BRING ON THE SKI SEASON!