I can only work so many 12-14 hour days in a row without a significant drop in productivity, so when my motorcycle riding brothers planned a trip up Hobble Creek canyon yesterday afternoon, I thought I'd best join them. We ended up riding 72 miles round trip and I'm so glad I made the right choice.
After all, autumn is here and it won't last forever. The best seasons - spring and fall - are far too short in Utah, and with autumn just begun, time is already running out to enjoy it, to get outside and find that perfect spot among the blaze-red and yellow leaves. That perfect view edged by magnificent mountains or a peacefully-still private meadow. The place where a crystal creek spills endlessly over rocks and roots and makes you forget to be in such a rush all the time. Where you remember to stop living in the future or past and land smack-dab in the ongoing present moment, at least until you climb back in your car and drive home again.
I hoped to find a spot like that somewhere along the singletrack dirt trails we would ride - Kirkman Hollow, Pumphouse Ridge, Sawmill Canyon, Packard Canyon, reaching the end of the trail and turning around to retrace our steps all over again.
Some of the trail is steep, curvy and rocky. Knobby tires grab the dirt and climb the rocks and the feeling of power rumbles in the engine and through your muscles as well. Some parts of trail are smooth and fast with elegant curves following one after another. Branches hang low and brush the handlebars or snap against your helmet.
Every now and then the trail is strewn with yellow carpet where one of the first trees to turn has shed its leaves. Every mile or two, the trail opens into a sprawling meadow with sunlight spilling everywhere. In the distance, a row of trees and shadow, then row upon row of ridges and mountains rolling away toward the distant sky. Once I drove over a small rise and there stood a giant bull moose in my way, perhaps seven feet tall, 30 feet down the trail, its flat antlers spreading over five feet wide.
Finishing the trail in the dark changed the sense of beauty from vast and expansive to close and immediate. The headlight lit only the nearest tree branches and after a steep rise, there was only blackness ahead until the light pointed downward again and showed the way.
Back on the paved road, I stood tall on my foot pegs and shifted up to fifth gear. We usually stand to cool off in the breeze on a hot day or because we're tired of sitting and bouncing over miles of rocky trail.
But tonight was different. Tonight was cool already, and standing made me feel almost uncomfortably cool. But it felt good. It felt alive. That's just what autumn is best at - its brisk mornings and afternoons, are like a soft slap in the face, snapping you out of your summer lethargy, waking you up to your senses again.
So I stood on the pegs and felt the wind crawl around my roost protector, through my jersey, and across the cool skin on my stomach and chest. I felt my feet in my boots, my hands on the handlebars, and the muscles of my shoulders and hips and legs. I felt more aware of every sensation that is always present but almost always unnoticed and unappreciated.
All the pressure of work and duties, schedules and opportunities, had fallen away somewhere along the trail and all that remained in the pit of my stomach, in my heart, in my clear mind, was peace and satisfaction. Everything was swept clean and the only thing that remained was 'right now.'
That's it, right there. That's the spot I was looking for.
After all, autumn is here and it won't last forever. The best seasons - spring and fall - are far too short in Utah, and with autumn just begun, time is already running out to enjoy it, to get outside and find that perfect spot among the blaze-red and yellow leaves. That perfect view edged by magnificent mountains or a peacefully-still private meadow. The place where a crystal creek spills endlessly over rocks and roots and makes you forget to be in such a rush all the time. Where you remember to stop living in the future or past and land smack-dab in the ongoing present moment, at least until you climb back in your car and drive home again.
I hoped to find a spot like that somewhere along the singletrack dirt trails we would ride - Kirkman Hollow, Pumphouse Ridge, Sawmill Canyon, Packard Canyon, reaching the end of the trail and turning around to retrace our steps all over again.
Some of the trail is steep, curvy and rocky. Knobby tires grab the dirt and climb the rocks and the feeling of power rumbles in the engine and through your muscles as well. Some parts of trail are smooth and fast with elegant curves following one after another. Branches hang low and brush the handlebars or snap against your helmet.
Every now and then the trail is strewn with yellow carpet where one of the first trees to turn has shed its leaves. Every mile or two, the trail opens into a sprawling meadow with sunlight spilling everywhere. In the distance, a row of trees and shadow, then row upon row of ridges and mountains rolling away toward the distant sky. Once I drove over a small rise and there stood a giant bull moose in my way, perhaps seven feet tall, 30 feet down the trail, its flat antlers spreading over five feet wide.
Finishing the trail in the dark changed the sense of beauty from vast and expansive to close and immediate. The headlight lit only the nearest tree branches and after a steep rise, there was only blackness ahead until the light pointed downward again and showed the way.
Back on the paved road, I stood tall on my foot pegs and shifted up to fifth gear. We usually stand to cool off in the breeze on a hot day or because we're tired of sitting and bouncing over miles of rocky trail.
But tonight was different. Tonight was cool already, and standing made me feel almost uncomfortably cool. But it felt good. It felt alive. That's just what autumn is best at - its brisk mornings and afternoons, are like a soft slap in the face, snapping you out of your summer lethargy, waking you up to your senses again.
So I stood on the pegs and felt the wind crawl around my roost protector, through my jersey, and across the cool skin on my stomach and chest. I felt my feet in my boots, my hands on the handlebars, and the muscles of my shoulders and hips and legs. I felt more aware of every sensation that is always present but almost always unnoticed and unappreciated.
All the pressure of work and duties, schedules and opportunities, had fallen away somewhere along the trail and all that remained in the pit of my stomach, in my heart, in my clear mind, was peace and satisfaction. Everything was swept clean and the only thing that remained was 'right now.'
That's it, right there. That's the spot I was looking for.