IMBA World Summit - Park City, Utah
Monday, June 23rd, 2008
June 17-22 marked my trip to Park City Utah to attend IMBA’s World Summit and of course do some riding. It was great to see some old friends again and meet some new ones as well as work with the great people at IMBA.
As in the past, the Summit days started off with a plenary session for all delegates with a few guest speakers. I must say the quality of theses sessions were the best I’ve seen and very motivating and inspiring. Then the day continued with break out sessions for the remainder of the morning then lunch and more break outs in the afternoon wrapping up around 4 pm for the guided rides.
Checkout out this view and that can only mean some really sweet downhill is in store, woo hoo!
Now considering Park City’s elevation starts at @ 6800 ft (2,072 m) the air is already thin for us west coasters who live at sea level, then we had to climb to get to the good stuff. The trails were hard pack buff dirt in most cases with the odd rock thrown in, not west coast technical but fast and flowy. Daytime temperatures were in the 30 C/86 F range but very dry however, nights cooled off nicely to 8 C/46 F.
Did I mention, the trails were dry and dusty, I look like “Zebra Man”!
The last day was the big 20-25 mile (32-42 k) ride on some of the IMBA Epic trails around Park City ending off with lunch and Polygamy Porter by local Wasatch Brewery, Why have just one!
The area is filled with over 300 miles of trail, some old school contour trails. Lots of sage brush and I’m sure the odd rattler to keep you on trail.
Park City, site of the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics ski jumping does have lift access but, with trails like this and Whistler in my back yard, why bother. My armour stayed neatly tucked away in my kit bag.