Weekly Newsletter: December 2nd-8th, 2024

This week, we visited the largest Christmas market in the Salt Lake Valley. 🎅 Keith also went on a long, highly demanding winter training ride. 🧊 🥶

Check out our new posts and videos 🆕 🎥 📝

Camino de Santiago: Our Journey’s Inspiration

In September, Keith and I arrived in Porto, Portugal to walk the Camino de Santiago. Just 4 months prior, we had never even heard of the Camino! How did this trip come to be and why?

Keith and LindseyLindsey Huster

Christkindlmarkt SLC 🎅 🎄

On Friday afternoon, we drove to Salt Lake City to check out the Christkindlmarkt SLC, a massive Christmas market full of local vendors and amazing food options. The event takes place at the This Is The Place Heritage Park which is a beautiful park dedicated to the founding Mormon pioneers.

We arrived as early as possible in order to beat the crowds. We were somewhat successful but the event was already becoming jammed packed with visitors. Thankfully, we found a great parking spot and quickly made our way up the hill to the main event. Our first stop was to get a famous Chimney Cake Roll from the main food stand. These sweet treats consist of a dough that is specially prepared over hot coals on a custom roller. Once cooked, the dough in rolled in your choice of decadent crumbles (we chose S'mores). The Chimney Cake Roll was delicious and such a fun experience to see made.

We then made our way through the main vendor area. We didn't spend too much time at any specific vendors since we really weren't looking for anything. It was a lot of fun though seeing all of the unique, artisanal crafts on display. As we made our way through the crowds, we ran across a soft pretzel vendor that Lindsey couldn't pass up. I do have to say, the pretzel was fantastic. We did have to wait about 20 minutes for the pretzel but that gave us just enough time to enjoy the Christmas parade.

At this point, it was getting dark and very cold. Keith was hungry since he had not yet had a real dinner. So, we made our way to the Huntsman Hotel to get a plate of Schnitzel and Spaetzle. This gave us the perfect opportunity to sit, relax, eat, and warm up before heading back out to the market.

We then worked our way back down through the long line of vendors towards our car. All in all, the Christkindlmarkt SLC Christmas market was a lot of fun and a highlight of our Christmas activities this year.

No skiing this weekend 🎿 😔

Unfortunately, we didn't end up skiing this weekend. This was due in part to several factors; Lindsey wasn't feeling well, the weather has been warm and snow is melting rapidly, and Keith wanted to go on a long-distance training ride.

We had initially planned to only ski on Sunday since the open terrain at Snowbird is so limited and what snow there is isn't all that good. I know... we are becoming snow snobs! 🤣 Lindsey ended up coming down with something on Saturday, possibly a result of being out in the smog on Friday evening, and it still hadn't fully cleared by Sunday. Keith had also been craving a long-distance training ride so rather than ski by himself, he decided to head to Park City for a training ride.

Keith's difficult winter training ride 🥶 🥵

The smog trapped by Utah's inversion has been awful this week. It has been so bad that it hasn't really been safe to exercise outside. Keith has been feeling a bit cooped up and craving some good outdoor riding time. Park City is on the east side of the Wasatch Mountains and is at a slightly higher elevation which makes it somewhat immune to inversion season. So, Keith packed up his bike and headed to Park City to attempt a 60+ mile (96.6+ kilometer) gravel route.

Keith has ridden this route a few times before but that was always during the hot, dry summer. Keith was unsure what the trail conditions would be like in the middle of winter. The initial phase of the route is mostly on a paved bike trail that travels south from the Jeremy Ranch area to Park City proper. This section was great and only had occasional snow/ice patches to contend with.

The route then turns north-east and heads out of town along the Historic Union Pacific Rail Trail. This trail is mainly gravel and not maintained in the winter, as Keith quickly found out. The trail itself was quite muddy and covered with chunky ice pockets. This made riding very difficult and at times, impossible. Keith considered turning around at this point but he decided to press on, hoping for improved conditions. Unfortunately, the next 20 miles (32.2 kilometers) to Coalville only got worse. This put Keith into a deficit, both in time and exertion due to the extra effort required to ride in such miserable conditions.

After a quick stop to refuel in Coalville, Keith decided to forgo the remaining 5 miles of rail trail and hopped on the adjacent road to complete the section around Echo State Park Reservoir. This was a smart choice considering Keith was already over an hour behind his planned schedule and a small winter storm was rolling in. Thankfully, the ride around Echo Reservoir went smoothly and Keith was able to regain some miles and time.

The next big challenge was the climb out of Henefer, UT towards the East Canyon State Park Reservoir. This climb consists of about 1000 feet (304.8 meters) of elevation gain over a 5-mile (8-kilometer) distance. Keith's legs were pretty cooked from the difficulty of the ride into Coalville so he knew this climb would be challenging. Thankfully, Keith was able to complete the climb successfully without too much difficulty. This set him up for the thrilling road descent towards Jeremy Ranch Road.

Jeremy Ranch Road was concerning for Keith as he knew that it was a real possibility for this road to be in as bad, or possibly worse condition that the rail trail was in. Keith crossed his fingers 🤞 and plowed on towards this final leg of the route. Thankfully, Jeremy Ranch Road was mostly frozen over with a hard packed ice/snow layer. This meant that Keith would be able to ride the road with a reasonable amount of effort. This was such a relief since the sun was setting as Keith started this final 10 miles (16 kilometers) of the route.

After successfully arriving back at the Jeep, Keith took some time to reflect on this route. Due to the nasty conditions on the rail trail and the mess it made to his bike (think mud, gunk, and ice everywhere), Keith decided that this is not a good winter route and should be reserved for summer riding only. Keith will have to keep searching for a different route that is outside the reach of the inversion layer.

Upcoming posts and videos 👷‍ 👷‍♀️️

Lindsey has recently wrapped up a series of posts on our Quick Trip to New York City. If you haven't seen that yet, you should check it out. Lindsey has also started working on the post series from our three-week adventure along the Camino De Santiago, Portuguese Route! Those posts will be published soon. We also have several prior trips that we haven't yet shared, so be sure to subscribe to our blog if you haven't done so already.

We hope that you are enjoying our newsletters. How do you enjoy the winter/holiday season? Do you have any fun holiday activities planned? Let us know in the comments section below.👇 💬