UTAH Training Camp 2009....Well we decided to change things up a bit after hearing so many good things about the St George area and Gooseberry Mesa. Instead of Moab, we went a little further southwest and wow, the trails were amazing. First things first however Justin and I went down through Washington and stopped at Stevens Pass where there was another Helly Hansen Big Mountain Battle ski race. The race was wicked and completely different from the Sun Peaks race where we were on all Blue runs. Stevens pass did not disappoint and sent us down double black diamond runs. The tricky thing was that the night we arrived, there had not been snow in about a week, so it was very icy....Not good for a green telemarker. Team Helly Telly was in for a bit of a reprieve as we awoke to find about a foot of new snow in the morning. This turned into a "dust on crust" kind of scenario and man, we were knackered by the end of the day. This time we did not end up with the fastest hike (it was only 3 mins!) Endurance athletes need more time to warm up (lol). Anyway the awards banquet was pretty stellar as Mark Campbell had some pretty wicked sponsors on board. Justin won some K2 skis as a draw prize. Big thanks to Mark and Helly Hansen for an awsome race series in THe Big Mountain Battle. 
Off we went straight after the awards to head down to Utah. After a quick car nap outside of Salt Lake, we were down in St. George the next day. At 4 pm we were up a Gooseberry mesa for a 1 hr ride (read 4 hours) and did not get back to the car until dark. We managed to find a turkey-trail that was not well marked and hard to follow in the fading light. This year we decided to stay in Hotels as they were quite cheap down there and the camping was not as good as it is in Moab. It was actually kind of nice to have a proper shower after a long days riding. We ended up staying 2 nights in Hurricane, one night in St George and one at Gooseberry Mesa, camping. The rinding in this are is unbelieveable. To put it bluntly,we rode the hell out of the trails, we found some trails that were not even on the maps yet and linked up three different trail networks in one ride, then had some food and went out for another ride. Most of the trails are all pretty much 100% singletrack and every trail was amazingly different from the next. We rode in packed dirt rolling jumps, desert moonscapes, sub alpine-like meadows, slickrock, rocky decents and picky climbs. The one thing about this area is that you need to go tubeless with sealant, there are soo many thorns and cactuses that we had a bit of an issue with flat tires and on more than one occasion, wondering if we would be walking back the car. We ended up cutting our trip short a bit on Thursday morning when I crashed on a small slickrock boulder and wrenched my ankle, at first I was sure that it was broken, we (I) limped back the car and loaded up to head home and called the team doctor, Iron Helmo for some advise. With my foot on the dash in the passenger seat and justin in the drivers seat, we made an epic, non-stop drive back the border with Justin putting in a super human driving effort by not even letting me drive, wow! We ate so much mexican food down there and discovered an awsome chain called the Cafe Rio, go there and order the Pork Barbacoa salad, it is delicious and filling in tyopical USA restaurant style...
Off we went straight after the awards to head down to Utah. After a quick car nap outside of Salt Lake, we were down in St. George the next day. At 4 pm we were up a Gooseberry mesa for a 1 hr ride (read 4 hours) and did not get back to the car until dark. We managed to find a turkey-trail that was not well marked and hard to follow in the fading light. This year we decided to stay in Hotels as they were quite cheap down there and the camping was not as good as it is in Moab. It was actually kind of nice to have a proper shower after a long days riding. We ended up staying 2 nights in Hurricane, one night in St George and one at Gooseberry Mesa, camping. The rinding in this are is unbelieveable. To put it bluntly,we rode the hell out of the trails, we found some trails that were not even on the maps yet and linked up three different trail networks in one ride, then had some food and went out for another ride. Most of the trails are all pretty much 100% singletrack and every trail was amazingly different from the next. We rode in packed dirt rolling jumps, desert moonscapes, sub alpine-like meadows, slickrock, rocky decents and picky climbs. The one thing about this area is that you need to go tubeless with sealant, there are soo many thorns and cactuses that we had a bit of an issue with flat tires and on more than one occasion, wondering if we would be walking back the car. We ended up cutting our trip short a bit on Thursday morning when I crashed on a small slickrock boulder and wrenched my ankle, at first I was sure that it was broken, we (I) limped back the car and loaded up to head home and called the team doctor, Iron Helmo for some advise. With my foot on the dash in the passenger seat and justin in the drivers seat, we made an epic, non-stop drive back the border with Justin putting in a super human driving effort by not even letting me drive, wow! We ate so much mexican food down there and discovered an awsome chain called the Cafe Rio, go there and order the Pork Barbacoa salad, it is delicious and filling in tyopical USA restaurant style...
