The Naming Cave

I was bumping around the modern miracle that is Google Earth and I came across two 360 degree photos by Don Manion entitled "Naming Cave." This could be the coolest technology I have seen in a while.  He had located them in the middle of Gunlock Reservoir, I can only assume that he did that to keep the location somewhat secret. I guess he didn't figure the human gps would have a go at sleuthing it out.
There was enough information provided in this first photo to triangulate what I thought to be the location.


Utah's Southwest Desert in Utah


My first attempt was foiled by a tire malfunction so I tried again this morning and 12 miles from pavement, a hike-a-bike section and some deep sand I rode my trusty steed straight to the cave.  Accessing the cave is not terribly difficult but Sidi never had hiking sandstone in mind when they made my bike shoes so I ascended the climb in my woolie socks.
Over the millenia a giant slab of sandstone sheared off from the ceiling and the Indians used it as their sketch pad. There is also a fire area in one corner where the smoke escapes vertically thru a crack in the rock.


Naming Cave in Utah

From the cave mouth, see the bike in the center.

Close ups. The cave has kept these images in great condition.

The cave from just outside

I have no idea why Don called it The Naming Cave, I can find no reference to it any other place.

Guided tours by appointment.

Little Black Mt

I saw some really good stuff today, go get a drink and come back because this post is long.

I got up early and headed out for some longish dirt miles. Being me I was looking for something new and I needed to link up the cross over from Bloomington to Washington for the St. George Centurion route I have been efforting. 

The Desert is a bloom 

I started on the East side Little Black Mt and searched out the best way around to River Road. As you can see most of the day was spent in Arizona.

Try it, it's interactive.

Upon returning to the truck I determined that I was not finished so I headed out up the Fort Pierce Ridge Trail to Warner Valley. They call it a trail but it's mostly for Texas wheelchairs (4 wheelers,) it's good to see that they are making things accessible for fat and lazy Americans. Now I am not saying that I could not afford to mix in a salad or two but pushing your thumb for faster and squeezing your hand to stop takes no talent whatsoever.

In the southern part of the valley are the ruins of old Fort Pearce. The fort was a fortified shelter at a water source along the historic Temple and Honeymoon wagon trails used in the late 1800s. Close to the fort, you can find Puebloan and Anasazi petroglyphs, and at least one outstanding pictograph. Some of this art could be several thousands of years old.

Fort Pierce was positioned to protect and defend the water source from Indians. Seems kind of mean to me to keep people from water.

An up close of the Fort from an earlier trip with my kids. The Fort never had a roof.

I ripped this photo from another blogger; Newlyweds traveling to and from the outlying settlements to be married in the St. George Temple wrote their names with axle grease. Hence the name " the Honeymoon Trail."

I also remembered reading that there was a great pictograph in the area. So armed with only my unerring internal GPS and a yard sale of semi useless facts in my head I set out to find it.

Ran across this little guy, it was a little too cold for him to be upset.

Traversed the precious water source.

Climbed this steep incline in cycling shoes unfit for the job. I left my bike by the one lighter green tree you see on the right hand side, thinking to myself  "now everybody remember where we parked."

And ran straight into this; the Redman.

He is about 5 ft tall and hidden under an overhang that has protected the red ochre color for who knows how many years.

One of the most superlative mornings I have had on a bike in quite a while.

Silver Reef to Ice House

I was looking for something new with some good mileage so I had an amigo drop me off in Silver Reef. During the 1870's it was known as the murder capitol of Utah and had it's own China Town. There is still an original Wells Fargo building open for the tourists.

The first 2.5 miles is a steady and at times taxing climb with about 1000' of vertical gain, the higher you get, the better the view gets. 

After a 2 mile descent the road flattens out but maintains a general uphill tilt for eight more miles. The snow capped peak of Pine Valley Mt is always on your right hand side. Have I told you that it is the worlds largest lacolith? 

The summit is at 5341' and the last pitch to the top is  S T E E E P. Or maybe it just felt that way because I have not started  blood doping for this season.

That is Zion National Park in the far distance.

The second part of my plan was to locate the top of the Ice House Trail. My penchant for never getting lost really came in handy, luckily someone else had ridden it earlier that day or I doubt I would have found it.

The trail has seen very little traffic over the years but is getting a new revival as of late so I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

The early settlers of the St. George area used to take wagons up the trail all the way to Pine Valley. Fill the tarred in wagons with water and wait til they froze solid, and then bring them back down so they could have ice for most of the summer.

This trail is still very rough and my hands were aching pretty good by the time I made it down the last pitch into the Green Spring area. The last mile or so is pretty crazy, I have ridden it before on a long travel bike and it was much easier. 

A fully rigid SS should not be your weapon of choice unless that's all you have.

Totals;  saddle time 2:20 -- 24 miles. I was convinced it was going to be more like 30+ so I was a little put out. There was an abundance of interesting things to see and off shoots of the road to explore. I would definitely ride it again.

Karma

You may remember this post from about a month ago, well race day came and went yesterday and Karma seems to have reared it's ugly head. You see, rain + dirt = mud and from what I understand there was plenty of the thick and sticky variety to be found.

I ran into a friend from High School who was down for the race, he said that he and his buddies hiked for miles carrying thier bike because the wheels would no longer spin due to the mud.
Out of 170 entrants they had a total of 12 finishers, thats a total of 158 DNF's !  158 people who laid down between $80-$125 to go hiking in the mud.....that's a shame.

I will admit there is no schadenfreude in my soul, (for those of you who went to community college you can google that and use it as your "word of the day.") I actually feel sorry for Cimmeron who really went to a lot of effort to put on a big event, not to mention that her livelihood depends on having successful races. I said it before  that I do like her and plan on participating in her Frog Hollow 25 race hr in the fall.

Remember that you can ride the 440 for free this year, I will be including more categories this year. Women's and a 40+ category just for me. And if it rains we can all go home and live to fight another day.

10 for style

This is the best thing I have seen in a long time, American downhillers are a bunch of weak sisters compared to the way they do it south of the border.

There is so much going on in this vid that you may have to watch it twice.
Things to look for in this video;
Dude is wearing a pinstripe suit
Cobblestone streets
Dirt streets
Terrible Mexi-brakes that squelch badly
Neon Green houses
Waldo
Dogs wandering the course
BIG gaps with HUGE consequences
Going mach 9 down stairs with a railing on one side
Wall ride on someones house
Graffiti
Grinding noises whenever he pedals
Bright yellow houses
Whistles
Transition step-down off somebody's front porch
Dude laughing halfway down because he is having so much fun

Intellectual property?

You may remember this post from last year, well I think I found out exactly who tried to shut down the 440,  along with the "why." A race promoter here (GRO Promotions) in St.George just posted this as their newest "Epic 50 Mile Race." I am a little nonplussed by the nomenclature GRO,  did that name just come to you one night when you were out on the town, maybe at the local Cinemaplex?

If you take time to look at the course info/maps and understand what you are looking at, you would notice that they have taken my 440 course, added a few junk miles including some pavement to get to the magic number of 50.
They are asking an incredible $85 per person to ride, heaven forbid you sign up late because then they will charge you an extra 40 of your hard earned dollars. This is one of my problems with doing events in my own city; why should I pay money to ride something that I can go ride any day of the week?
The second problem is that I actually like these guys, they also put on The 25 Hrs of Frog Hollow which was good fun and I think they try hard to put on an enjoyable event.  I was actually looking to hook up with a larger promoter to do the 440 event in 2011, all they had to do was ask.

Charles Caleb Colton once said "imitation is the sincerest flattery." So I guess I should take some solace in the fact that my 440 idea had enough legs that somebody would want to steal it. That sure warms the old cockles.

Just remember that you can come ride the 440 for exactly Z E R O dollars this next fall, come and try to beat the Brothers Rock.  We will have a women's class this year and maybe a 40+ category just for me.

So best of luck to the Grit and to GRO, this is a really difficult course that has potential to bring in a lot of people but just so you know, in my own head I am going to be taking the credit.

BTW, I wrote this post 3 different times trying not to sound too bitter, I think I almost made it.

Ol' Pueblo

For some people it's Mecca for others it's Jerusalem but for me it will be an annual pilgrimage to a little piece of heaven just outside of Oracle Arizona. This years 24 hrs in the Old Pueblo solidified my lifetime reservation to that event. Gale force winds and rain could not diminish the incredibly enjoyable time we had.

Friday night I saw the best sunset I have ever seen.

The report was that 1850 riders took part in this years event, the whole thing is remarkably well run and organized for such a large gathering. This is a shot of the main drag in 24 hr Town during Todd Sadow's soapbox speech. There was a lot of bad facial hair this year.

Back at our camp we had the living room/ bike shop all set up, yes that is a piece of carpet.  JT our teammates from last year decided to ride solo this time and pulled off a third place finish hats off to him.
We replaced him with the guy in the center of the frame.

The race started as the clouds and wind started moving in. Duane did the run for the Le Mans style start again this year, I hope I never have to do that, it looks like no fun.

The picture below is just before my second lap, the clouds had settled to the ground and there was a fine mist accompanying the 20-25 mph gusts.
As I made the turn and started east the wind was at my back, I was riding at the same speed as the wind which creates a very quiet, almost eerie silence. This was the best part of any of my laps, riding thru the desert with the fog and silence was just incredible. Unfortunately just as it got too dark to continue without lights I  turned into the wind for the climb and that was when things got really ugly as the clouds opened up and soaked me to the bone in about 2.8 seconds flat. The last 5 miles of that lap were miserable; uphill, against the wind, in the pouring rain. There must have been 8 people walking up the climb.

With an incredible stroke of luck I managed to snag the sunrise lap as well, the rain was gone and the wind had lessened but the temps had dropped to around 40. The rain and traffic had packed the dirt into perfect conditions.

Duane finished his 5th lap just a few minutes past 12 o'clock giving us 17 total laps.
I call this his superman outfit.

We finished 8th out of 19 teams in our category, middle of the pack is where I live. Shout out to Delina of Sabrosa fame who cowgirled up for 11 laps all by her lonesome, that is one tough chick.
There are a lot more stories I could tell but long blahg posts upset me so call me if you want to hear about Chris's broken Gary Fisher frame, my double flat, the broken seat post, scratched corneas or the Chocolate Baby. Good times, good times.