Good Good Goooooood Morning!

       4:40am the alarm went off, I sat up and shrugged 4 hours of sleep and opened my puffy allergy filled eyes, I'm tired, but let's get cracking! A quick out the door and off I went down my street on the Trek for a adventurous morning. Made my way to Dimple Dell in the darkness of morning, using my headlamp to guide my way along the boring mulch road thru Dimple Dell. Recent rain has made things much more nicer as I pedaled thru and onto the road to meet trail once again to connect me to the parking lot to meet with my shuttle Bryce. He invited me to show me to the Alta trails and I was looking forward to it. He was a little late and he informed me another would be joining. His friend showed up in decked out adventurers dream a big modified sprinter van. We chugged up the Canyon arriving 6:30 to the lot to find my front tire had gone flat. Removed the thorn and patched the tube, not a good thing since I only had a tube and 20 more miles to ride a long sketchy distance.
      We pedaled up dirt road and then onto toasty pretty single track. The flowers have been firing off the last few weeks and I was glad to be riding among them along the Alpine landscape made for one heck of a ride. On and off dirt road and single track we began to climb Catherines pass. I hiked this once, was unsure it was very ridable. With one gear I got rocked pretty hard on the climb along with the others, but overall I walked a bit and made my way up alot. The view from above is absolutely stunning, hard to believe to be up that high on a bike.
      Down Catherines was a blast, more so for my full suspension friends but I did just fine. Though that was all our climbing for the day but I was wrong as we went left into the campground and began to climb again on steep brown sticky wonderful narrow track. Man this ride just kept getting better, I could not believe my luck as I passed through mind boggling eye candy filled views. The mountain biking was incredible none the less, all the right stuff. From there we took a twisty and fun trail and then bombed hard to the car. So So so much fun!
     Bryce Departed and it was just me and another I forgot his name sorry. Plan was to Ride Cottonwood trails down, but to hit Snowbird first for a little. The leader took mid way which I was sure we shouldn't but he seemed sure but I was hesitant, we hopped off somewhere and began walking bikes until we hit sweet sweet trail again. Came across a young moose, she took a pee and then was on her way. Rare for me not to see moose at Snowbird, they're everywhere!
    Made the way to White Pine trail which was a lot of fun, and then pavement to The Gnar trail above the Quarry trail. My first time riding it for me, heard about it and have been wanting to ride it, I brought the wrong tool for the job and didn't clean the entrance but the entire rest of the trail I cleaned. Finally some technical riding, felt like I was back in Connecticut. From the gnar it was the quarry trail from there which was no longer foreign to me and ripped it as fast as my bike would allow. Pretty jealous these guys had full suspension bikes I am not going to lie. Tire wen flat again, this time the rear, I felt the pinch earlier despite 40 psi in my tires. Very very pressed for time now change a massively quick tube and off I went onto the pavement where we split and I pedaled fiercely home.
     I can easily say this was the best ride of the year so far, the high alpine views and trail are so good up there, and the ride down from the top of Alta to my house must have been 6,000 foot descent.