Day 9

If I followed the previous post's directions, we will be in Red Canyon this day...home of Thunder Mountain and close to Bryce Canyon. Thunder Mountain trail is a pretty rough ride, with amazing scenery and some lung sucking climbs. At one point, the trail tops out at just over 8000 feet, making it slow going for us sea-level based creatures.

The hardest part will probably be the initial ride from the Red Canyon campsite, up the paved trail to Coyote Hollow, and then to the TM trailhead itself. Although paved, the climb is slow, gradual, and definitely going to zap a lot out of you. My hope is we can find some other bikers with whom to share a shuttle with- in other words, have someone drive up to the CH trailhead, and then once the ride is done, drive that person back to their car. We shall see. Otherwise, it will be a rough ride. It's only a total of 14.7 miles, so if the girlfriend is in shape, we shall be able to do it without any major issues! The unpaved portion of the trail is only about 8 miles, so it isn't all that crazy.
After riding Thunder, we may not have much gas to do anything else, so I figure this would be a nice quiet evening by the campfire.