Crest - MidMountain Loop

Mark and I set out to do a Crest - MidMountain loop yesterday. We started at Park City Mountain Resort. Spiro is the usual route up, but we took Crescent Mine Grade, Apex and Keystone instead (thanks to Alex, Rick and Paul for showing me this route). I like Spiro better, but variety is good and Crescent is a decent trail. Saw two dead chipmonks and one dead mouse on the trail - rodents too slow and/or bikes too fast?

View from Crescent Mine Grade trail.


Keystone trail.


At Shadow Lake we climbed up to Scotts Pass and up Puke Hill.

Up on the Crest we each had a mechanical at the same time - I had a rock-punctured tire and Mark had a broken spoke. Eventually the Stans sealed the puncture, but it wouldn't hold full pressure so I ran low the rest of the ride. We removed Mark's broken spoke and were riding again.

A fair amount of traffic on the Crest, but not bad. We saw a handful of riders twice as they were doing the loop the other direction. Came across a woman who had just gone down on an eroded spot. Fortunately she was OK.

I rode The Spine for the first time (after years of wimping out) - thanks to The Spine getting easier over the years, the confidence-inspiring 29er wheels and Mark's encouragement and pointing out the line down the crux. I also cleaned the rest of the Crest and the two tight switchbacks going down the connector to MidMountain. Felt good.

Mark on the Wasatch Crest trail.


Going down the connector I had some critter run across the trail only 1-2 feet from my front wheel. Suicidal rodents?

MidMountain was good. Mark broke another spoke near Red Pine Lodge. Strange coincidence? I told him to back off on the massive watts - his wheel can't take it.

Heading up the long traverse climb heading over to Park City Mountain Resort I was fading. The last half mile before the top I wanted to stop and take a nap in the grass. Good thing Mark was in the lead so I could follow his wheel. At the overlook we stopped for a snack. My back and arms were tired so I laid down to stretch out - that felt so good. After a few minutes we headed out. It helped to know it was essentially all downhill from here.

Riding down MidMountain and Spiro was a blast. Excellent chunk of trail.

Almost to the end of MidMountain.


Spiro has some lovely scenery.


I turned off on Silver Spur for a little more single-track, over some good-natured protests from Mark.

An excellent ride. The trails were in good shape, not too crowded, the weather was mild with a lot of overcast to keep it cooler, we did well on the technical stuff, made all the climbs, Mark saw some new trail, lots of splendid scenery, and we got worked over enough to feel good about the effort not so much it was a death march. 32 miles in 4.5 hours.

P.S. Good finish at the 2nd stage of the Vuelta today.