TR - Mountain Biking in a Blizzard - Guardsmans to Mill B

[tmartenst]

So the weather called for partly cloudy with a 10% chance of rain in Salt Lake on Saturday morning but just partly cloudy after noon. Looked cloudy up there but decent so we left for a bike ride in Big Cottonwood Canyon around 11:30am. We planned to go from Guardsmans Pass down to Mill D North where we had placed my truck. The beginning of the ride was good but we ran into some snow patches. Most of it was fine to ride through except where early backcountry hikers/riders had torn it up a little and their tracks had frozen. We figured after Puke Hill it would be a more pleasant and consistent ride.

Well, towards the top of Puke Hill, I noticed a bit of weather coming our way up canyon. After 5 minutes of catching our breath and having a drink, it started snowing groppel. By the top of the next hill after Scott's Pass it was horizontal groppel with velocity so we ducked into a Nextel Antennae shack. Long story short is that it never let up for any longer than about 2 minutes and we had snow, groppel, hail and lightning & thunder all around us for 2 hours. Finally, after two hours in the breezeway of this shack we made a break for it back towards our car at Guardsmans since we figured the two inches of snow that fell would be worse in the down direction and the weather was still pretty harshly coming up canyon. At least it would be at our backs if we went the Guardsmans route. The break lasted about 10 minutes and we got barraged again with groppel and thunder. All made it safe and another 'adventure' under the belt.

Crazy bike ride to say the least. I think the mountain was telling us to bust out the boards and skis. Makes you think about how people get stranded out in nature in situations just like that.

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[blueeyes]

Woot woot! Nice report. :2thumbs:

My friend Kyle had suggested riding Guardsmans pass Sat cuz I have yet to ride this one. Glad we decided to ride the BST up here in Ogden instead. It was just a bit muddy and beautiful the entire ride. We did get a small spatter of hail mixed with rain for a second but that was it.

[Sombeech]

Dang, that's hardcore. :mrgreen:

[accadacca]

We salute you!

http://www.fnawesome.com/wp-content/uploads/we-salute-you-medium.jpg

[chromehead58]

best rides are those where everything goes wrong..when everything turns out ok that is...
glad everyone ok and you got to have a wilderness experience..