mtb: jeremy ranch road

When the choice for the day is chores or play, you know what we're going to choose.  Sunday: up, walk the dog, load the MTBs into the truck, go to breakfast at the Cottonwood Cafe (Athenian omelet for H, french toast and bacon for me), drive on up through Parleys Canyon to the Jeremy Ranch exit.  Jeremy Ranch is an upscale bedroom community just west of Park City.  There's a golf course, a bunch of very nice houses, and a dirt road that runs along a little river and comes out in Morgan County, on the road to East Canyon.  Since we don't golf, we were heading for that dirt road.

It was a very pretty day, sunny, 70s, with a slight breeze and occasional high, thin clouds.  We parked where the asphalt ends and jumped on our bikes, riding very carefully over the cattle guard.  The signs warn of free range cattle and we were on the look-out; we've driven the Jeremy Ranch Road several times but free range cows on a MTB would be much more exciting.  We'd opted for this outing because I'm still such a spaz on the MTB that a well-maintained dirt road sounded like a good skill builder.  It's a fairly popular road - we saw runners, walkers and other MTBers, many with their dogs.  There were a few cars too but not many, which meant that it didn't get too dusty.

A little too matchy, outfit-wise

(don't know how that happened)

The road runs for about 7.5 miles, following the river the whole way.  All around us were rolling hills, green with grass and sagebrush, the aspen just starting to green up.  When we reached the end of the dirt, we turned around and rode back the way we came.  The problem with having followed the river down on the way out was that there was a lot more up on the return: we climbed about 260 feet on the outbound but over 700 on the way back.  I was very proud of myself, though, as I made it up all the hills without putting my foot down once.  Just gotta keep practicing, I guess.

After we got back to the truck, we grabbed the cooler and found a spot to sit by the little river, where we could sip our beers and do some bird-watching, as swallows, a warbler (or maybe goldfinch) and a big red-tailed hawk busied themselves around us.  No free range cattle after all but still a nice day out on Jeremy Ranch Road.