The day started with rain, and I happily lurked in my tent until I was ordered forth by a toddler overlord who requested ‘tasty food’. I cooked porridge in the rain, and I don’t know if he was terribly impressed. I wasn’t either, as the showers continued until 11am or so. We moved our picnic table under the juniper tree and huddled.
Brendan, who by this stage was known as Greban (and don’t even think of arguing with a two year old on such matters, it’s just not done) suggested we should ride the Garden Mesa trail over in the Sovereign Trail System. In a pattern that was to be repeated many times over the coming days, I said “Oh alright, that sounds like a good idea”, and we set off.
The Sovereign Trail System is full of coppery green, and looks suspiciously like a generic ‘alien landscape’ set from any number of low-budget space movies. After overcoming my initial reservations about this strange green landscape, the trail turned out to be fun, if a little on the sandy side in places. The place was fairly deserted as we climbed up onto the Mesa, rode around a bit, and then dropped down back to our car.
After returning to camp for what was either a late lunch or an early dinner, who can say, we all set off together and headed to the Klondike Bluffs area.
By the time we started riding it was around 5pm, which ended up giving us really nice light, a good temperature level, and pleasing lack of rain. Now if only we could make it to the summit and back before sunset, we wouldn’t be eaten by wolves. (Spoiler alert – No-one was eaten by wolves)
The riding was pleasant, and easy enough for towing the Tout over, and finished with a wee walk into Arches National Park to reach the summit of the Klondike Bluffs area. The Moosling was impressed with his freedom, and enjoyed galloping to the top of the mountain and declaiming something or other at the pillars.
And so we descended the mighty mountain, and it was lovely and quite enjoyable, and then the Moosling played ‘Help, help, I’m stuck in a cattle grid!’ while we loaded everything back into and onto the car. (Oh, and there were also some alleged dinosaur footprints, which I was unexcited by)
Distances biked: 14.5+14 km
Elevation gain: 320+225 m