Little Creek and more

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Just on the other side of the highway from Gooseberry, but a whole different mesa of trails. After vacating our campsite on Gooseberry, we relocated to Little Creek for some brand new trails and exploring. Found one of the best spots to camp, complete with a fire ring and plenty of room. With the temperatures a little warmer every day, we didn't bother with the hunting tent this time. Instead we had a fire every night and stayed up late (8:00!!) to watch the sunset, moonset and the stars. So many stars without any light pollution around us. And so quiet. We spent two nights up there, just enjoying the quiet and the solitude.
My breakfast fire - I was quite proud of that little fire since I'm not usually the one in charge of fire.
We'd found some good trail info online and stuck to the recommended route for the ride. A good mix of fun, tight single track through trees, then popping out into a field of slick rock. Some tech moves up and over rocks and lots of searching for the next cairn to find the way. Some areas were very much like Gooseberry and others completely different. There were a few places that went really close to the mesa's edge, a little to close for my liking. But eyes on the trail and keep focused on where I wanted to go. Its worth going back for - even to get to know the trails a little better to be able ride smoother.



Nick at one of the many view points along the western loop
And then Nick took over for the supper fire...

After two nights on Little Creek, with the chance of weather moving in, we decided to make the last ride in that area on the Hurricane Rim trails. We parked at the western terminus of Hurricane Rim and rode it all the way out. Wow, lots of climbing, lots of sharp turns and lots of chunky rocks. Hard but fun riding and very fitness oriented. After the rim, we climbed up Dead Ringer to the top of Jem. I'd never done Dead Ringer before and it was a nice, sustained climb. I was getting a little confused at times as to where I was - trying to figure out where JEM was in relation to the trail we were on. Finally, we crossed, right at the road. Didn't see that one during the race! More sustained climbing paralleling the road and the JEM descent and finally the upper crossing where JEM becomes one way. Then it was onto the real climb to the top of the mesa. Not bad, better then the road, but quite a challenge. Once on the top, it was time for the JEM drop. Probably my smoothest run through that section on this trip! We took JEM all the way down to Cryptobonic and Cryptobonic back to the Rim. Silly me, I'd assumed since most of the Rim trail had felt like climbing before, it would be all descending back to the car. Wrong! No such luck there - there were some burly climbs for us to get back to the car. We'd beaten the weather and gotten several nice rides in after the race. Time to relocate from St George to the other desert riding mecca....

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