Dropping deeper into the drainage, we ride into a young aspen grove, the quaking leaves the color of the fire that ripped through 12 years earlier. Still, with fiery death comes life, and the forest floor is green with new growth, signaling a new biological generation.
#INTAKE MOUNTAIN SHRED COMPANY FREE#
While the surrounding trees bear the scars of Mother Nature’s angrier side, Eric enjoys a short section of trail free from fallen timber. So when we reach the first, then 12th, then 80th tree along the barely visible path, what should have been a few easy down-hill miles turn to long hours of suffering. When it’s over 200 downed trees, most charred black, it’s soul-crushing. To a mountain biker, carrying a bike over a downed tree is disheartening.
The resulting inferno torched over 14,000 acres, and in the decade since the trails in the burned area have been neglected. Wildfire, much of it human-caused, is a regular visitor to many parts of Utah, and in 2002 a group of unsupervised Boy Scouts decided to have a campfire in one of the nearby drainages. That is, high-speed until we roll into the burn. We are forced to stop and add air to each, but luckily soon reach our first trail junction and first descent, a classic, high-speed downhill through high-Utah forest. As we slog upwards, the extra weight of our packs swings side-to-side as if trying to pull us off our bikes, and our suspension and tires compress like a Taiwanese scooter carrying a family of four. It only takes a few minutes of climbing with a 40-pound pack to understand why many photographers refer to their camera bags as “angry midgets.” It takes even fewer minutes of descent to understand how angry that metaphorical midget can actually be.Īfter splitting up gear at the trailhead, the morning of our departure we spread out the map on the hood of our truck and look over the climb that will kick off the trip. Without the thousands of dollars, months of planning and multiple travel days an expedition usually takes, we would venture into a far corner of our backyard and hopefully find ourselves as equally off the map.
Thankfully, as Neil, Ian and Eric settle into camp, it’s only the sky that’s ablaze.Īs far as we knew it hadn’t been attempted, and many of the trails we intended to use were all but forgotten. It’s been 12 years since a fire in ravaged the area, and the trees are only starting to recover. We’d ride one mountain pass per morning, aiming to arrive at each spot in time to throw some flies, and, theoretically, catch enough fish to fuel our pedaling. The concept was ambitious, but in theory simple: connect multiple drainages in the Uintas, traveling by bike and carrying everything we needed on our backs. The Uintas are riddled with trails and trout streams, and after poring over topo maps we came up with a plan for a perfect shoulder season adventure. We do have two things in common, however: we all love trout and we all love mountains, especially the nearby Uinta Mountains.Īs fellow Utah residents, we’ve all spent time among the Uintas’ 11,000-plus-foot peaks, and so during the late summer of 2013 we started dreaming about a way to combine the two. Neil and Ian Provo, on the other hand, are fish whisperers, and much like my fishing they’re equally new and equally ambitious to the mountain biking scene. Words by Eric Porter | Photos by Ian Provo Despite hearty efforts and owning my own fly rod, I am not much of a fisherman. sites/freehub/files/artwork/BellyoftheBeast Brook trout, although native to the eastern side of Canada and the US, populate many higher lakes and streams in the west.
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