Goosebery Mesa

Utah can be a beautiful place. For example, Southern Utah in early summer (when it's not sweltering hot outside) is a picturesque little desert land. During summer term I have been taking a mountain biking class that has a required field trip towards the end of the term. You may be saying to yourself, "hey, a mountain biking class sounds awesome... so much fun!" and you would be correct. Sadly, this is not the only class I have been taking in spring term, but only a filler class on top of Pathophysiology so that I can be eligible for a scholarship. Pathophysiology has become the 4-credit bane of my existence, while mountain biking has risen to the occasion and wonderfully provided an enjoyable outlet. Needless to say, the two-day trip down to Southern Utah was highly anticipated and a well-needed break from the tedium of pathophysiology.

We left Provo at around 8:00 a.m. on Friday morning (I had to take off an ENTIRE day of work for the trip, hooray!) and reached Hurricane around noon-ish for a quick lunch/bathroom break. Gooseberry Mesa is approximately another 30 minutes away from Hurricane, followed by 20 minutes on a bumpy, dirt road to the top of the mesa.

We got to camp, set up, and headed out for our first ride on the mesa. This was the trailhead... needless to say, I was a little intimidated.

A couple of minutes into the ride, I understood what "extremely difficult" was referring to... countless boulders to ride up and then back down, a highly technical kind of mountain biking that I have never before experienced. It was awesome. The scenery all around was absolutely beautiful and I pushed myself to do more than I've ever done before on a mountain bike.

Um yes... we rode OVER all of these rocks. It was crazy.

Aren't the mountains beautiful?

This is the group of guys I was riding with. There were only four girls on the trip (counting me), one of which was amazingly good and rode with the advanced group and two who were beginners and rode with the slower group. I am right in the middle, especially when it comes to technical riding. I have the endurance and the physical ability, but just lack some of the technical skill.

If you notice on the left side of the picture there is a little white dot, that is where the trail goes. Yes, that's right, the trail goes right UP the side of a rock. I attempted this climb, but walked most of the way up.

Living on the edge. It's my life, it's who I am.

A bigger picture of what the mesa looks like as a whole.

Apparently they thought we needed a quick reminder mid-way through the ride of exactly what trail we were riding on...

At one point we stopped and our TA showed us where some poor man had driven his jeep off the mesa and committed suicide. That little hunk of metal in the middle of the picture is what's left. Crazy.

We rode the south rim for about two hours until we reached the point of the mesa, and then we took a break. At this point, we met up with the advanced group who had come a different way and all hung out for a couple of minutes.

I investigated further into a cut sustained earlier in the ride. It was the perfect injury: it didn't hurt too bad, but still looked really cool.
Looking down at everything from the top of the mesa...
On the way back from the point, we took the north rim trail.
By the time we got back it was around 6:00 p.m. and we had been riding for about four hours! It was an awesome learning experience to improve my technical riding skills and I'll definately be coming back. Afterwards, I felt like I could do anything.

After a night of camping, we packed everything up and drove back down the mesa to another trail in the area. This trail was called the Jem trail and was a totally different moutain biking experience. For this trail, we parked our cars at the parking lot that was at the end of the trail and rode our bikes on a very LONG uphill climb to the trailhead. From there, it was mostly downhill riding through the desert and then a stretch along the Virgin River Gorge. A totally different experience, yet equally as enjoyable.

This is the rattlesnake we ran into at the beginning of the ride. I'm being totally for real right now, it was a REAL, LIVE RATTLESNAKE just chilling on the side of the trail. It scared me half to death, but of course I had to stop and take a picture.

The Virgin River Gorge.

The advanced group, I rode with them on the second day!

Look at that farmer's tan! Unfortunately the thought didn't dawn on me until the second day that it might be smart to roll my sleeves up. Oh well.

Beautiful.

Gooseberry Mesa was a beautiful place and had some awesome mountain biking trails, it was a great place to spend an entire Friday and Saturday. Chad and I are planning on going back down in a couple of weeks so that we can BOTH experience it, so stay tuned for an update!