Utah's Dixie

I've had to sift through all of my pictures over the last few weeks for work, and I was reminded of some forgotten rides and scenery that I figure should see the light of day. Over the next little while I'll try and post some of my favorites. I'll start off with pictures from the St. George area. We lived in St. George for only 6 or 7 months before moving to Cedar, but it was enough time to get good and "lost" in the desert more than a few times.
Above: view from the top of the Zen Trail toward the Beaver Dam Mountains.

Headframe at the Apex Mine in the Beaver Dam Mtns.
From the top of Gooseberry Mesa looking toward Zion.
Collapsing rock ledge along the Hurricane Rim Trail.
View of the Virgin River in Timpoweap Canyon along the Hurricane Rim Trail.
Crossing LaVerkin Creek on an exploritory ride.

Sky over Warner Ridge east of Washington Fields.

Moenkopi Formation in the Warner Ridge near the Utah-Arizona border.
Sinkhole in Big Round Valley near the Virgin River south of St. George.
Dead tree (above) and mud cracks (below) in Big Round Valley.

View into the west fork of Snow Canyon from atop the Red Mountain Jeep road.
Flow banding in basalt at Snow Canyon.
View toward Beaver Dam Mountains from the top of the Barrels Ride Trail. View toward Ivins from the top of the Barrels trail.
Dunes at the base of Sand Mountain in Warner Valley.

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The Ultra Widowmaker

Snowbird has traditionally had two cycling races in the past - both hillclimbs and each considered to be a true test of stamina. One is a road-bike race from Sandy up to entry #2 at Snowbird which ends up being about 3500 feet of vertical in ten miles. The other is a mountain bike climb from the base of the resort up a service road to Hidden Peak at 11,000 feet. That's an astounding 3000-foot gain in about 3.5 miles! We're talking 13-14% grade all the way to the top.

So I was estatic last year when Snowbird announced they were going to combine these two races into one! 6500' in 14 miles - now that's my kind of race.

Due to lightning strikes on Hidden Peak last year, they had to cancel the mountain bike portion of the race, so this last weekend was the 1st annual "Ultrawidowmaker" hillclimb and it didn't disappoint. Here, I've just come over the finish line for the traditional Hillclimb and I'm hopping off my road bike. About ten second later I was cranking up the ski slopes on my mountain bike. Susie, Dad, and the girls did an tremendous job of cheering me on and having my bike ready to go at the transition area.

On the dirt portion, I passed several riders that had smoked me on the road bike. Many were walking with shaky legs up the steeper and looser parts of the course. Somehow I was able to make it to the top without puting a foot down and still felt pretty fresh.

I had been preparing my bike and my legs for this event for a few months and really feel like it was one of my best races to date. No, I didn't even come close to winning but I finished well and had a blast doing it. No nasea/puking, no mechanical issues, no getting off course - nearly a perfect race for me.

Results: Road hillclimb to Snowbird TIME--> 59:34 placing me 22nd out of 61 in my class

Ultrawidowmaker TIME--> 2:17:34 placing me 15th out of 35 overall

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Ahhhh, Another Day at the Office: Rock Fall in Zion National Park

A large rock fall smashes a truck near the Oak Creek maintanance facitlity in Zion National Park. NPS photo.

We have been spending quite a bit of time down in Zion the last couple of weeks. The Utah Geological Survey has contracted with the Park Service to produce a series of geologic hazard maps. Much of this mapping can be done with existing data sets and sophisticated GIS software, but, thank goodness, there is some field work involved.

One of the biggest hazards we are concerned with is rock fall. Compared to places such as Yosemite (where people have died due to falling rocks), the hazard at Zion appears to be a bit less but still a very real possibility made evident by the amount of rock-fall boulders near park housing, roadways, and even the Zion Lodge. Buildings have been struck and roads have been damaged but we are not aware of anyone hurt or killed by a rock fall in Zion (other than stories of big-wall climbers).
One only needs to look a few miles down the road to see the devastating potential of a large rockfall. Above is a picture taken by my boss in 2001 in the nearby town of Rockville. The boulder came within inches of the then-sleeping residents' face in the early morning. Just beyond the yellow tape you can see a deep crater where the massive boulder bounced before finally coming to rest in the home.


Some key things that are investigated in the field in order to properly characterize the rock-fall hazard include identifying what formation the boulder came from, the angle from the boulder to the source area, and the size of the boulder. Some boulders are small enough to carry, but others are as big as a house. Vincent and Julien, two very helpful volunteers from France, were more than eager to climb and measure some of the more monstrous boulders in 110-degree heat for the sake of science.

The small and angular shards of rock above are good evidence for a recent rock fall. Other rock-fall boulders are anything but recent. If you click on the panarama above, you will see several huge boulders that are too far away from the cliff face to imagine being recently deposited. Our theory is that these boulders fell when the cliff was much closer and the canyon much narrower; but over the last several thousands of years, the cliff has eroded back to its present location leaving the boulders "stranded" out in the middle of the valley.
Above is further evidence that most if not all of the very large boulders way out in the middle of the valley are very ancient. It would be basically impossible for the small boulder above to roll from several 100 yards away and come to rest on top of the larger one and have the bedding be the same orientation. A more plausible explanation is that these two boulders are the eroded remnants of a once much-larger single boulder that fell when the cliff face was much closer eons ago.
Anyway, it's been fun working in Zion and I look forward to a few more field days.

We came across a few interesting things traipsing around off the beaten path including some petroglyphs, and some peculiar etchings (below) that appear to be some sort of Native American calendar(?) - also, we found a purse amongst the boulders that we turned into the Park, and later found out it was tossed out a car window after a smash-and-grab job from a few weeks prior.

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