4 Wheels 4 Girls

On Tuesday, April 26th, we got up in the morning at a nice campground in Kodachrome Basin State Park in Utah. I wasn’t very excited about the day to begin with, but every bit of positive energy I had in me melted away like dripping ice cream cone when I heard that Dad was making us go on a bike ride. Normally I would be somewhat happy about biking, but there were many reasons why I didn’t want to go on this one. For one, we had just been on a tough six-mile hike the day before, and my legs were still aching from it. Second, it was COLD. I mean like I’m-in-a-ton-of-layers-but-it’s-still-freezing kind of cold. I loved my warm bed and I would be perfectly happy to stay in it all day long. But I dragged myself up anyway and got ready despite all my contradicting feelings.

Then a crazy thing happened. It started to snow! Actually, it was a mix of rain, sleet, snow, and hail, and I tell you, it was GROSS. I was very unhappy when our bike-riding plans were not cancelled. Dad would not give up and he went outside to get the bikes down from the RV. After a lot of complaining, we were ready to go on this horrific bike ride.

Preparing the bikes in an unexpected snowfall.

By the time we were all outside the strange snow had abruptly stopped and the sun was shining although it was still cold. We left the campground and biked a little ways down the road to get to our trailhead. When we biked just a few feet on the sandy 6-mile trail, every single one of us realized that it was going to be a very hard bike-ride. The trail was sandy and hilly and just terrible. Even though the trail was awful, Dad was determined and he wouldn’t turn around. He wanted to complete the full six miles. After biking a bit on the difficult sand, Stella and Ellie were incredibly discouraged. I was actually starting to like the ride ’cause we all hated it together. I even went with Dad on a little off-trail that led to a place called Panorama Point. It was so steep that we had to get off our bikes and walk the rest of the way to the point.

Exhausted at the top of Panorama Point

We had to bike really fast to catch up to our family, and I tell you, biking this trail was hard work. We were in our lowest gears and it was still so tough to pedal through the thick sand. We sometimes had to get off our bikes and walk them in the middle of a hill because it was too steep to bike up. When we caught up we had to stop for a bit because Ana’s chain had fallen off her bike. Also, we had multiple wipeouts so we had to stop for those too.

Stella, Dad and I went on another turnoff called Cool Cave. We had to leave our bikes along the trail for that one also. It was a little slot canyon with a big circular room in the middle. It was really neat.

This cave was really a small slot canyon. The white in the walls is calcium carbonate.

We caught up to Jean, Ellie, and Ana and we biked for quite a bit until we finally came to the end of the trail! Haha I wish. We came to the place where we split off for Panorama Point, and this was a huge letdown. Everyone thought that we were getting close to the end, and then we find out we’ve still got a ways to go. We eventually made it to the end of the trail, and we all cheered for each other as we passed the “finish line.” You’d think we’d be done, but we still had a little further on the road before we got to the campground. My sisters hated this because the long stretch was uphill and we were biking straight into the wind. But we did make it, (YAY!!! :D) exhausted and hungry. Lunch sure tasted good after that!