sidewinder

 On Saturday, it wasn't quite as sunny but still cold.  And windy this time.  I had in mind to go back to finish off the Moab Brand trails; H declined to accompany Milton and me in the face of all that wind.  (He did end up doing a town walk where it was yes, still cold and windy.)  To be honest, about fifteen minutes into a headwind out of the north, I was thinking that H had the right idea.

Heading north on lower Sidewinder

Milton and I drove out to the Killer B parking area off 191, just north of Arches National Park, and hopped onto the paved bike path until we reached the lowest exit of the Sidewinder trail.  The wind was brutal.  My hands were super-cold, despite mittens, and I wished I'd worn a beanie that covered my ears better.  Nevertheless, we persisted, and once we got onto Sidewinder proper, we had some protection from the wind with the cliff walls.  The trail was pretty and red, hard-packed dirt mostly, and it climbed steadily - with a couple of cliffy spots - until we got to the Rusty Spur intersection.

From there we crossed the paved bike path and made our way to a big intersection: Bar M loop, Lazy EZ and Deadman's Ridge.  When we turned onto Deadman's Ridge, we were mainly heading south and it was much, much more pleasant with the wind at our backs.  I'd hoped to knock off the whole trail segment (3.4 miles) and I think we got most of it, although at one point we must have turned wrong and finished up on Bar B instead.  Still, it's a great trail to walk (way too technical for me to ride), with rolling ups and downs and varied terrain.  From Bar B we segued to Killer B, and thus back down to the car.  We'd seen no one the whole time.

The wash between Sidewinder and the paved bike path

After getting cleaned up back at home, H and I walked to Josie Wyatt's for a beer and managed to run into a friend there.  Dinner was again soup and the evening's entertainment was exactly what it had been the night before (different KZMU radio shows though).

Stats: A and M hike: 6.34 miles; H town walk: 4.00 miles; A and H roundtrip to JW's: 2 miles; soup: green chile stew.

PS - I didn't take any other photos so here's a quick run-down of the rest of weekend: additional hikes/trail runs: A and M 4.8 miles, H 4 miles; additional town walks: 1.5 and 3.48.  Two more soups: red lentil and then again back to regular lentil.  We like soup.