Ah, the season begins.

A sunny Saturday in April after a snowy week. Dan and I greedily decided to take all the Salt Lake Valley had to offer and set off with the bikes for Stansbury Island, which isn't really an Island, but once was in the days of dinosaurs.

The ride quickly turned into the usual affair -- a quest for something new which nine times out of ten involves pushing bikes up some horribly steep trail in hopes of finding an undiscovered perfect piece of singletrack -- yeah right.

It was no exception on this adventure, but the day was so glorious it didn't seem so bad as we pushed up over one false summit, then on to another and another, finally arriving at a ridge where we could see the lake on three sides: East, West and South.

If all goes well there is some big payoff after a grueling hike-a-bike -- I mean why else would we do it? And yes we did have the pay off. A ridge ride through a prehistoric looking landscape weaving through a little forest of dead trees -- my pictures don't really do it justice.

Then -- no more trail -- oh well -- did we care at this point? No. So we just made up our own trail, riding back down a rocky hillside onto another ridge and then into a long winding gully.

Once in the gully things didn't look to good -- lots of dismounting as we picked our way down through loose rocks. But then a cow trial appeared -- things were working out. Pretty soon the cows also appeared and we herded them down the gully like pioneers until we hit the main trail again.