Shoulda got a Mule

[UtahPete]

So, Jane and I decided to go for a little ride today and meet my sister and her husband for lunch at a great little restaurant near the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon, which is on the Wasatch Front in Salt Lake City. The Silver Fork Lodge is near Solitude Ski Resort on the western side of the mountain, an easy jaunt up the canyon from the city for them. It's accessible from the eastern side, where we live, via Guardsmans Pass, which is closed in winter but open during summer months. The pass is accessible from either Park City to the north or Midway (via a less developed but more picturesque road) to the south. It had been a few years since we took the Midway route, so decided to go that way.

Once in Midway at the Wasatch State Park golf course I chose to go left at the Y intersection. After a mile or so, the pavement became interspersed with patches of gravel and then just gravel and then dirt, rutted and rocky. I didn't remember the road being THIS bad! Eventually we got to a point where the road was deeply rutted and rocky and we lost traction on the steep mountain grade. I was starting to curse the Wasatch County road maintenance and trying to determine the best way forward, when along came a jeep with a couple of little old ladies (Jane and are 74...) who told us we were not on the road to Guardsmans Pass but rather a National Forest road that only got worse further up. I was finally able to get Jane's bike out of the ditch where it had skidded, got both bikes turned around and back down we went.

At the Y, we took the other option which of course I should have picked the first time, and this time had a beautiful and uneventful ride through some Fall colors over the pass and to the restaurant for a great meal with Shirley and Tom. On the return trip we elected to take the serpentine road through Deer Valley to Park City then home to Oakley. Amazingly the bikes performed well and don't seem the worse for their inadvertent adventure on a mountain jeep trail.

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[CopperSpyder]

Glad to hear to all worked out and you got to enjoy the day after a rough start. Sounds like it was a nice ride once you got on the right road.

[pegasus1300]

Thanks Pete, I did not know about the road from Midway, only the one thru Park City. I will have to ride that one soon. Thanks for the info.

[UtahPete]

Thanks Pete, I did not know about the road from Midway, only the one thru Park City. I will have to ride that one soon. Thanks for the info.

I can be your tour guide if you like...I know which way to go at the Y now!

[pegasus1300]

Soon as I get the shifting fixed.