Extra 9 - North Valley With Friends

North Valley is a ride that I never get tired of — in spite of the "skydive" over the cliff on my 2-wheel drive rig at Aztec formation rock. [For a free Google Earth file of this route see: Extra 9 - North Valley]

The funny thing about snowbirds is that once we are here, we want all of our friends to be here too. I've been begging friends to come "share the wealth" for five months now and finally I wore them down.

This weekend not only the Koford's but the DeGroot's came down as well. We only had the afternoon, so the best ride to take from Snowbird Headquarters was North Valley.

It seemed as though the kids were in "seventh heaven" climbing the tanks, hiking the hills, smelling the cactus! (Of course they were careful to watch out for the Pumas.)

I've never ridden with a six-seater before but they do the trails with the greatest of ease — and make a great way to extend the experience to the whole family.

Of course we stopped at Keyhole Rock and saw Ray's Cactus Garden and the Petrodroppings before we rode over to the Aztec Rock cliff. The six-seater went down first and watched from below as I came down with my lowly 2-wheel drive Kodiak.

Frankly, I was too busy to be watching the looks on their faces as I was skydiving down the cliff; but, when I got to the bottom they decided that if it was going to be like that they didn't want their daughter to do it alone.

Rod hiked back up and rode down with his daughter, which turned out to be unnecessary. Neither of their two 4-wheel drive Kodiak's had any trouble at all.

The knack of learning how to fly is to learn how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
Douglas Adams

The best way to describe what it feels like on my rig is sort of like snow-skiing. There is no low gear, and no traction so the most you can hope for is to keep it a controlled fall down the mountainside just hoping the next mogul doesn't flip you over.

Unfortunately, none of the cacti or yucca's are in bloom yet, and with the noise we were making we didn't see any of the Roadrunners.

Once out of the valley it was getting late so we headed back across East Bunkerville Flats to Powerline and back to the trailers.

To cap it off we went to the only good Mexican restaurant in town for dinner — Los Lupes, and finished the day like only good friends know how to do.

It was great to have them down here and I've already started working on them for next year — there is sooo much more to see! I just hope I can somehow make it so they don't have to spend their lifetime, like I finally have, learning that nobody ever says, when they are old, "I just wish I had spent more time working!"