Video: How I Spent My Summer MTB Vacation in Park City

I had no idea until I climbed nearly 2000 feet up the Spiro Trail in Park City Utah on Saturday, September 11th, the Mid-Mountain Marathon would crowd the Mid-Mountain trail from Deer Valley to the Canyons Resort.  I planned on riding Mid-Mountain from the Spiro to the Canyons.  It is an "epic" ride, an IMBA epic in fact, a ride I kept in the back of my head throughout Cincinnati's hot and muggy summer.  I was bummed...for a few seconds.


When I got to the intersection of the Spiro and Mid-Mountain at 8:45am with frost on the ground and my breath visible in the air, I realized there was no way I could share the trail with the 100 or so runners.  I asked a cyclist from White Pine Outfitters, the best bike shop in PC in my opinion who was on the mountain side cheering for his running wife, what I should do.  He was riding a sweet XTR equipped Cannondale Scalpel.  Certainly he knew how to resurrect my ride.  


He recommended I continue up the mountain on the Powerline Trail to pretty little Shadow Lake, then take the flowing Keystone trail to Apex to the Steps, where I could intersect the Mid-Mountain again and head toward Deer Valley.  Aside from the nut buster baby head rock strewn climb up Powerline to 9000+ feet (where his advice to "just relax and climb" was dead-on), it did not disappoint.  With the vistas and sweet flowing trail of Keystone and the switchbacks of Apex and The Steps I couldn't help but pull out the cell-phone camera and capture the scenery.  On the way back to Main Street, I tossed in a Park City favorite, the Tour Des Suds as my descent from 8000 feet.  


Here's my video diary of the day.