Ascending Emigration Canyon in January (guest post)

Our Saturday Adventure (by Red Rider)

Mother Nature definitely has a sense of humor. She delivers dry, relatively warm weather all week while we are at work so by Friday night, Rodzilla and I are chomping at the bit to ride our bikes. We commit to ride up Emigration Canyon Saturday morning while son is at cello practice with the Utah Youth Symphony. Perfect, we say!

Saturday morning we wake up to gray skies and a little drizzle. I hear the wind and get a little nervous but decide to carry on. After all, I had spent some time this week reading inspirational quotes on Pinterest – stuff like, “Do it today or regret it tomorrow.” And "Suffer the pain of discipline or suffer the pain of regret.” You know – inspirational stuff to get the butt out of bed.  

 

 Rodzilla says to prep for a wet ride. I bring pretty much all I own in the way of cycling gear and then some. We drop off kid with cello and park at the bottom of the canyon. Rain seems to have picked up a little – or is that my unconscious self trying to talk some sense into stopping this ride. I think back again to inspirational quotes, “Where would life be without all the adventure?” and “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. (Helen Keller)” 

It takes us a good 20 minutes to get dressed in fifteen thousand layers. I have so many layers on it feels like I have casts on my wrists.  We ride, I’m warm. It’s raining harder. I’m still warm. I thank Rodzilla for making me bring the waterproof ski gloves even though I can’t shift or brake to save my life. I’m riding up hill, I just need to hold on and pedal so all is good – for now.

 

The rain is starting to get to me and I have strong thoughts of turning around with about one mile to go to the top. Rodzilla reminds me of the movie K2 where they struggle and finally make it to the top of the mountain. I remind him that making it to the top of K2 was the easy part; it was the coming down when everything fell apart. 

It’s snowing at the top of the canyon, which makes for a much nicer ride even though it’s a bit on the cold side.  Pictures must be taken to record our little adventure. 

We finally start back down. I’m starting to get a bit cold and a little nervous because those ski mittens I was praising on the way up, are becoming a huge hindrance for breaking on the way down. (Side note: I’m not great at going downhill. I break a lot! Rodzilla, on the other hand, is like a bat out of hell.) Rodzilla is hanging with me on the way down. He’s yelling something about not being able to feel his fingers. Apparently, he gave me the waterproof ski mittens and used his non-waterproof biking gloves which were now soaked through. We change up our plan. I tell him to race down to the car and come pick me up. I give him the mittens as I still had on my biking gloves. 

 

About three-fourths of the way to the bottom I’m wondering what is taking Rodzilla so long to come get me. My feet have rivers running through them. My hands are completely numb and I’m freezing. I’m afraid to stop for fear of losing the little body heat I have left so I keep pumping. All I can think about is how I forgot to bring an extra pair of warm, dry socks.

I make it to the bottom of the hill just in time to see Rodzilla unclipping power cables from the truck. Apparently, keeping the car heater running while getting dressed is frowned upon by our truck, that or we need a new battery.

I also learned that Rodzilla and I have no modesty when we are freezing and want to get out of our wet clothes ASAP. I believe we flashed several individuals in the parking lot while we were changing.

All in all, it was a fun adventure. Next time I’ll try to talk Rodzilla into driving separately so we can leave a car at the top of the canyon. Downhill in the sleety rain is not something I want to do again real soon.

Now battling sniffles.

Red Rider

P.S. Rodzilla, being the stats geek he is, says we did pretty well compared to our fall rides up the same canyon. We were right on target up until the last couple of miles and a little slower on the downhill. All in all, we were about 2 miles per hour slower. Good to know we haven’t lost too much ground over the winter months. 

Rodzilla Comments Below

Do you every feel like you look like a bad ass, only later to see the pictures and realize you are a tard-muffin? Well I should have listened to Red Rider when she made numerous comments about my helmet cover. She compared me to a Mario Character from Super Mario Brothers.I assumed it was Mari, which is kinda cool. but maybe it was one of the toad guys.... LOL