Okay, so before we "dive" into that story, lets talk a little about the bike ride. It was a pretty amazing ride after all.
Riders (from left to right): Joeseph, Petro, Tom, David, Wade, Coby (me taking the picture)
We rode the Crest from Scott's Bypass at the peak of Gardsmans pass down to the upper bigwater trail in Milcreek canyon Saturday July 30th, 2011. We we got gathered up at my parents it was 330 and looking like we were going to get soaked; It was a 50% chance of "heavy rain". I was a little apprehensive, considering what can happen with
much lower chances of rain and from past experience (being hailed on and chased by thunderstorms) on this trail. As we got up there is was looking iffy but looking closely at the storm clouds and checking in on radar via phone revealed that the storm was likely to pass right by us headed north east as we went due west. The First thing you do when riding from Scots pass is climb slightly and then drop quickly as you head towards the saddle that takes you up puke hill.
From there its a pretty miserable ~1000 foot 2/3rds of a mile climb up puke hill to the ridge top.
Here is Coby and Petro Walking it. I walked it, tom walked it, Joe walked it. David and wade...did not.
Once you get to the top you ride a double track trail until you get to the single track that doesn't let up until the end. The nice thing about this ride is that you really only climb twice, and never more than the first hill, then you descend.
Petro (left) and David (right) on one of the smaller climbs on the single track.
Taking a small break about 5 miles in.
So its more or less the same trail for the next little while; awesome view, amazing single track and clouds heading behind and away. Things are looking good.
About half way in, just behind the Ninety Nine ninety lift (at 9990 feet elevation) is the sharks fin. Called that because its a jagged outcropping of rock, just like a shark has.
Tom walking the Sharks fin. (and not looking at what might be a cool explosion behind him)
Looking down into desolation late towards Golbers knob and Mt. Reymond (center and left of center)
Most people walk the sharks fin because much like a shark, its scary and misunderstood. Dustin, Wade and John All conquered it; unlike a shark. It was Dustin's umpteenth time, but wades first. Good job wade, I've only done it once in my life. Because I'm no lover of rock face.
After that its a short uphill ride through the quakies to the top point of the ride. Its not actual the high point in the ride, but its the last time you will ride uphill.
Its about here things start to go wrong for Wade.
Coby, David and Joe went first with Tom and Petro shortly after. Wade and I hung back because we wanted a clean shot at the downhill. We decided that Wade would go first because his full suspension bike would cope with the numerous rock gardens we knew were up ahead better than my hardtail (David was on my full suspension). As i rounded the corner on a particularly nasty looking spot...
I saw Wade on the ground about where his feet are mumbling something. It sounded something like "oh, smit!" or "I spit" or something like that... Having heard similar noises of distress in times previous I knew he really had a bad fall.
He apparently got hung up on the last set of rocks and decided to dive into the mountain, unsuccessfully. We thought he might have broke his arm or bruised his spine so we called the doctor (David) to see what he thought.
He hit pretty hard and was complaining about pain in his neck and back and a slight tingle in his fingers, also a pain in his arm. we took a good long while there waiting to see if it would get better, tried David or Joe again (no luck) and gave wade the only medicine we had (Thanks to Tom for being prepared!) 400 mg of ibuprofen. We decided that since there were no signs of a concussion and he seemed to be walking and talking just fine that the best course of action would be to cautiously and slowly continue riding down the mountain. I went ahead to find Joe David and Coby to see if David had any advice we could phone back up to Wade, Tom and Petro. We all met up at the top of milcreek saddle.
Where we found some nice hikers which had 400 mg more of "Vitamin I" and combined with the Tylenol that Tom had (which I learned you can take with Ibuprofen) we had Wade pretty pumped full of drugs hoping it would help him cope down the mountain.
The saddest part of the tail is obviously Wade's injury, but him missing out on the descent into Milcreek was only slightly less sad. It helped that he had just ridden this ride a week earlier. If you haven't done it, riding down into millcreek is almost spiritual.
One of the many bridges on the descent into Milcreek canyon.
One, if few, of the perks of the new pace we were going was the opportunity to take more pictures and video. Something I'm usually not inclined to do on 2000 feet of uninterrupted downhill into bliss. Wade made it down the trail alright, David and Joe talking to him the whole way to keep him focused on something besides his crash.
Wade at the bottom.
When we got back Wade called Bri to let her know that he was injured biking with Pat...again. After we got home Wade went to the hospital to check out his crash on the advice of his father in law, a doctor.
Wade, after surgery
I wish I had the picture Bri took in the waiting room because it was a lot funnier than this one of him after a 6 hour Surgury to remove chunks for former neck from him. Turns out that crash chipped a vertebra in his neck (c6) and one cracked one in the Thoracic to boot.
So Wade will be sporting this fashionable neck brace for the first 2 months of his newly adopted child's life. That's right, Wade is going to be a dad, starting tomorrow! Congrats buddy! Sorry about your back, I guess you can't
eat spicy foods for a while. Here is hoping you get better soon and let us know what we can do to help you out. Also, there was movie footage taken on this ride, it should be in in a few days.
