White Christmas

Hi Guys,

Thought I would post about a recent Ski Trip. Where is this winter you may ask...in my front yard! After shoveling the snow off the sidewalk for several days of snow fall, it piled up to my waist. This is at 200ft above sea level. Even got some downhill skiing off Salmonberry street the other day. Long walk up.

Enjoy the photos and Merry Christmas.



Note the snow level compared to my F250. Gives some perspective
Another shot of my ski trip...right outside the front door. Made a nice track in the local park and got some laps in.

My neighbors cars. Yes there are cars under there. We has several days massive amounts of snow. Total snowfall for this storm is well over 2ft. This morning we got another 5 inches. Looks more like Snoqualmie pass than just above sea level.

A different view of my neighbors cars buried.

After my first day of shoveling. We have had an equivalent of 3 years of snow in 2 weeks.

For comparison, note the size of the wheelbarrow next to the truck.

Driving down the road, some photos of the road.

Another victim of 4 wheel "Slide" syndrome.

Christmas Eve, another dusting of snow. Starting to get nervous about the roof. We are supposed to get rain soon and that would make all that snow really heavy.

Moab 2008 Bartlett Wash

Hi Guys,

Another post today. The snow is on the ground, roads are fine, my wrist is back in action and ready to begin another season.

This time last year, I was on the a boat crossing Drake's passage on my way to Antarctica.

If you get a chance, check out the Abu dhabi Anventure Challenge. 36 teams from around the world are comepting over a 6 day stage race. A buddy of mine, that I can sometimes, keep up with, his team won entry into the race and early last week was somewhere around 14~15th place over all. World class athelete. Look for team Dart-Nuun.

Hope to start training for a 70.3 Ironman this next year. I was hoping to complete the 1900meter swim in 50 minutes. A good goal, until I spoke with my 7th and 8th grade cousins who can swim a 1600 under 23 minutes...If you don't dream big, you wont get there.


Back to Moab: I have crazy video once I figure out how to compress it to put it on this site.


This was Thursdays ride at Bartlett. We wanted a easier day to go play around rather than another 5 hour day on the bike before our monster 33.5 mile day on Friday. On this ride the steel framed hardtail riders out did the fully suspend guys. Those guys were nuts.

Trey found his hill right away and what better to do on a hill than a front wheelie
Matt demonstrating how to go really slow down something ridiculous steep.
The camera view for Matt came out better than for me. Yes, it was crazy steep.
Matt took getting back off the seat to a whole new level, but he didn't crash so it worked.
I decided to let off the front break and just bomb it when I got 1/2 way down because my tire was getting destroyed trying to go ultra slow down this. The end result was the same...no crashes.
This ride Trey got to ride off a bunch of rocks. He didn't flat on this wheelie drop.
Everywhere we went there were these cool little bowls. This one was a bunch of fun.
Our ridge to get to the lunch spot was ~3 feet wide. If you got off the ledge, you couldn't stop for another 30 feet before another ledge to get some more traction. Our side walls of the tires got a good workout.
This panorama demonstrates the steepness of the next couple of photos. Scott is in the background falling over...not really but made for a neat picture.
San Diego Mike Crossing the great ridge hold bowl.
Here is a panorama of me in different stages of dropping in the bowl. Note two photos above for the steepness.
Scott on the steel framed hardtail got the Wow...can't believe you just did that award. Though the steepness isn't as bad as the first hill at the start of the ride, if you bailed here, the pain would be much worse. Yes it is as steep as it looks.
We couldn't believe he was really dropping in this thing.
He made it...somehow. Lean back, keep the back tire in a constant directional skid and hope you make it. Way to go Scott...but no way I am doing that. I got to go to work on Monday.
Trey found another hill to climb and played on the way down. He was also on a steel framed hartail and it took a lickin here but did just fine.
At the top of the rim, here is a pano of the surrounding area.

Soveign Trail Part 2

Hi Guys,

Thought I would post this week.

This starts the second half of the Soverign trail.

Below we found a really neat Rock to ride through. These were all over the place.

The trail got into a lot of technical rocks. Trey plowed on thorugh. You really felt small going through this rock field.

Trey didnt' have a good day with tubes. This was the second tube this day. From tubeless tires with Stans to 2 flats with tubes...Advantage goes to the full suspension guys with no flats.

The way down, we came upon this crazy steep section with loose rock. The motocycles that passed us didn't do so well on this section either. Something about falling 30 feet on that rock that doesn't sound so nice. Matt is nailing the section below.

Here is a panorama of the second part to our trail. We met up with another loop here and continuted on. The greens on the rock were awesome.

We found this gully below and it was an awesome ride. The rock formations and water washout areas had some really technical drops.


Here is another going by.
This is a vertical image of the gully the trail went out on. You can see a rider in middle right.


Here I am going through the gully.
Another view of the gulley.

Looking down the trail, this kept going through these rocks. Nice singletrack.

Kind of hard to see the trail, but here I am riding up this hill. The loose rock made it difficult to ride up steep hills.

Trey, finding another flat on this trip. He ditched the tire that evening. Actually, I believe he threw it. Only to have a brand new tire for Bartlett Wash the next day.

Coming back on some good rock, we road through some good rock formations.

Matt caught us at the end of this rock, trying to get some air off of nothing.

Here is Scott comming back. He treated his bike nice after the gripshift plastic broke.

This takes on a whole new dimension to bike stand.

Hope you enjoyed this post.

Soverign Trail--Part 1

Hi Guys,

**Update, my wrist is pretty much back to normal. Still strengthening, but for the most part, I am good to go again. Yeah!

Our next day we went out to the Sovereign trail. We waited a little later for the weather to warm up. Here Matt is headed out on the road from the start.


Wayne catching some air with Pam and Matt behind.

The official sign.

This is first of the fun challenges. Here Scott makes it look easy.

A great down off camber trail skirting some good rocks.

This was a great little spot. We found out these trees don't move when you accidentally run into them.

Here Trey flys down this drop on onto the next.

Scott passing by.

A good place for a lunch snack. And for Trey to get a flat tire. Here I am on the giant slickrock formation.
In the middle of the rock this was a giant crack. Had to find a good path to cross.
A nice pano...would have been even nicer if I had taken the picture level. This land is soo different than anything in Washington State.
On this trail, the terrain changed multiple times.
Here is another shot of the giant massive slickrock. It seemed to just keep going.
Looking back at the giant slickrock. Look at the different colors of rock.
Scott taking a nice line down the steep rock. I soon followed.
The trail continued down some nice singletrack.
This was a nice tail.
Here, Scott found a really cool rock to ride through.
Of course, this was soo cool, I had to ride through this as well.
Stay tuned for part 2.