Park City Anniversary

It's our 23rd wedding anniversary. For Jolene this means she's been married half her life. To me. Poor woman.

To celebrate we stayed at the Silver Moose Ranch bed and breakfast in Park City. We've gone to Park City several times for our anniversaries. It's just far enough from home that we feel like we're away, but not so far that it takes hours to get to. And there's lots to do and see in Park City.

We used to stay at the Old Miner's Lodge bed and breakfast, but it closed more than 10 years ago (strangely the website is still up). We tried a few other places, some were OK, a few were bad.

The Silver Moose Lodge is pretty nice. Nestled back against conservation land, the setting is excellent with two duck ponds and a stream running right by the house. The omelet breakfast was good, the hosts friendly, and the hot tub out on the deck was relaxing. Our only complaint is the very firm bed, we didn't sleep well.

OK, back to the story.

We arrived in Park City Friday morning, parked at Park City Mountain Resort with the plan to bike up Armstrong and the new Pinecone trail. We were enjoying the climb up Armstrong...



...then it started to rain. Which was OK because the trails were very dry and dusty and it was hot. The rain drops were like little bombs sending up smoke-like plumes of dust upon impact. But then it started to hail. We took shelter under what trees we could find. Here's some video:



Fortunately the hail only lasted a few minutes.The rain slowed so we kept going. But then it started up again and we waited under a pine tree.



Two guys came down Pinecone from the Crest and told us it was dark, grey clouds to the west as far as they could see. There had also been some lightning and thunder, we decided going higher was not smart. So we stayed lower by taking Mid Mountain south and riding Johns 99, Empire Link, and Tour de Suds down to Daily Canyon. Finished off with Daily Bypass and lower Sweeney.



Back at the car we cleaned the mud splatters off us best we could then drove the short distance to the B&B, took a shower and went over to The Canyons and enjoyed a free concert, The Chickens.

After the concert we ate at Nick's Greek Cafe. Jolene had Slovakia and I had the the Gyro platter. Good food and sizable portions (we were starving and couldn't finish it).

Back at the B&B we relaxed and had a soak in the hot tub.


Since we got rained out on Friday, we decided to give Pinecone another shot. Climbing Armstrong was OK, but we could tell our legs weren't fresh. But the trail was nice, tacky dirt with no dust, thanks to the rain the day before.



We made it to Pinecone. Jolene liked the first part. (In this photo I like how it looks like Jolene's front tire is disappearing, like she's entering another Narnia.)



Somewhere near the middle of Pinecone, still doing OK.





About 2/3 up we stopped to eat in the shade under a pine tree.



We got going again, but cold legs into the steepest section (in the deep pines) was a little harsh, and Jolene shows how she feels about it.



Made it to the top.



Yep, there's the top of Puke Hill.





We sat down to enjoy the views, watch people grind up Puke Hill and eat a little. A few minutes later Jolene spots a tall rider who had just come up Pinecone and says "that looks like Andy". Sure enough it was, and Rhonda arrived a few minutes later. We had a good chat with them and got caught up on what they've been up to. Fun to run into them up there.



We finished off the ride by going down Puke Hill (feels weird to go down that beast that before Pinecone I had only suffered to climb). Then we took the Scott's Pass single-track down to the Shadow Lake trail then down Keystone, Two Step and Steps. Next we took Mid Mountain north to Crescent Mine Grade (CMG) down then Eagle and finished with lower Spiro, which was deserted because the middle part of Spiro was closed.

We loaded up the bikes, changed, got a slushy at Maverik then headed to Midway for lunch at Tarahumara where I had Chiles Rellenos and Jolene had a taco. Then we drove back home.

The rain Friday put a little dent in our plans, but overall we had a good time. I enjoyed spending time with Jolene. I'm so lucky to be married to such wonderful and adventurous woman.