This trip all began when Cory invited my to head up Hobble Creek and do some dirt biking with him and some of his buddies. How could I say no? I’m looking for every opportunity I could to get my newly acquired dirt bike out so of course I said hell yeah. Anyway, the plan was to meet at 8:30 in Springville at Cory’s friend’s house. Once we got there and everyone was unloaded and ready to go, we headed out and started to ride for the canyon. The thing that worried me about this was that my bike is only registered for off-road only. Us cruising up the streets of Springville was a bad thing if we got caught (which I previously learned in Moab with my Samurai) so I was a bit nervous. Luckily there was some street legal dirt bikes in the group so they surrounded the couple illegals incase we did happen to see a cop. Fortunately we made it up the canyon with no problems.
Once we hit dirt road up the right hand of Hobble Creek, we quickly started running into some snow and mud. After blasting through a bunch of snow, which I had never gone through before, I quickly learned that snow is tricky. I learned this quickly by taking a good spill coming out of a snow drift. Luckily I was alone in that moment in time so that helped keep the embarrassment to a minimum. After heading down the main dirt rode a ways, we immediately hopped on a single track trail which took up straight up into the back hills of the area. I didn’t even know these trails were up there but they were they and we were on them and man o man, they were a lot narrower than I was used to. This is a quick way to start learning how to control your riding. The trail was great and a lot of fun until I saw us coming up on our first water crossing. I had no idea what to expect. Being spring time, he water was flowing fast and deeper than usual. This made it so that you couldn’t see the bottom and therefore couldn’t pick your best line for avoiding rocks that are on the bottom. You basically just have to approach the water, and punch it and hope for the best. Well, I learned the hard way that you can’t let off. I ended up making it about 3/4 of the way across and got stuck on some rocks in the bottom. Unfortunately my biking boots aren’t water proof and my feet got completely soaked. After a little tug from someone on my front wheel to get me unstuck and a little guidance on the climb out of the stream, I was out and definitely ready for a break. The first photo is of this break spot. Once we had a minute to relax, off we went up the trail not knowing what to expect. As we went up the trail, it continued to become more and more difficult. I found myself questioning my abilities as a rider several times. Eventually we were cruising along a hillside with barely a trail cut out and a 30 foot drop off to the stream below. If the bike went off, i’m not sure how we’d get them out. Nevertheless, we cruised onward hitting obstacles, near slide offs and then snow which ended the trail for us. It was either fight the deep snow and hope the trail goes through or turn around and go back down the way we came up. We opted to head back down and find another trail to ride. So we headed down the trail across the nasty spots and obstacles and water crossings and towards the end too another break. At this break, some friends of Cory and his friends happened to be coming down the trail. We talked with them for a while and they ended up riding along with us. So we headed out off the trail at a fork which took us across a few more water crossings and out to a main dirt road. We quickly hoped onto another single track and quickly found out that there was a lot of mud on this one. Gotta love the spring run-off. Anyway, the mud made it very interesting. Dumped my bike probably a few times just trying to get to the top of the mountain. Cory got some good laughs. After a while of riding, we started to make our way back down the mountain on single track all the way down to where the pavement turned into dirt road. At this spot, there was another trail that heads up the bottom of a canyon and parallels a stream. This trail was way different in that we were amongst trees the entire time, we hit several water crossing (1 or 2 with sketchy single board bridges) and plenty of obstacles to keep you on your toes. One crossing I got stuck in again and the crossing shortly after, I decided to just walk my bike through since my feet were already soaked. This time the water was deep enough that it was just flowing in the top of my boots. I’d say that the water was about knee high if not slightly more. After that and getting over a big ol’ log, we were off again flying up the single track. Once we got all the way to the top of the mountain, we had to decide whether to drop off the other side and hope we don’t hit deep snow or head back down the same way we came. We decided, once again, to play it safe and turn around and head back out the same way we came up. It would have been bad to drop off and then find out the snow was too deep and then not be able to get back up the mountain. So down we went through the same mess we had just come up.
Once off the trail, we lined up again putting the illegals in the middle and off we went down the canyon and back into Springville hoping to not see any cops. Luckily we made it again and barely survived another trip. This trip DEFINITELY challenged me. Many times I found myself so exhausted that I could hardly steer my bike as I was riding up or down the trail. This probably wasn’t the most technical stuff I’ve done so far but was definitely right up there with one of the more challenging ones. Anyway, somehow I survived (with plenty of help on the way) and made it back in one piece with no bumps or bruises. Thanks Cory for inviting me. The pictures below were at just a few of the break stops we had. Sorry there are no action shots. No time to stop and do that. You can sort of see in some of them what single track is like. Enjoy.
