Saturday morning dawned bright and early as I jumped out of bed, eager to get the day moving! I geared up in my new Columbia clothes, including an Omni-Freeze Zero performance shirt. I met everyone at basecamp for breakfast, and then we all parted to head out for our separate day activities. On Saturday, there had been three options to choose from: hiking, mountain biking, or yoga. I chose mountain biking, along with Jon, Katie, Gina, and Steve.
We headed to the front of the Hilton to catch our sweet, sweet ride:
Yes, please! (Did I mentioned I love Jeeps?!) We all piled into our vehicles, along with many different reporters, and headed over to the Bike ‘n Bean, an awesome local coffee/mountain biking shop. We had two options for difficulty groups: moderate and advanced. I really thought about joining the advanced group since I do a lot of MTB here in Colorado, but when I looked at that group and saw only four or five male reporters, largely from Colorado, I decided to go with moderate. Those guys just looked like they were going to be huckin’ cliffs or something! (As it turns out, I wasn’t that far off!)
We took off on the trails, and it was awesome! Yes, the trails were hot, dry and dusty, but the scenery was stunning. Red sandstone cliffs towered over us, backed up with crystal blue skies.
We all took turns wearing our GoPro cameras, but in true Heather fashion, I have yet to figure out how to edit video footage 🙂 I’ll get right on that, and once I do, y’all will be the first to see it!
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| Photo cred to Heidi |
As per Columbia’s style, we found a few beautiful people on the trail, waiting for us. These two were similar to the peeps I had encountered at the airport on Friday. Luckily for me, I FINALLY realized that these individuals were models, hired by BeCore, the event planning company that put on the entire production for Project Z. There was seriously a 24-hour window where I could not figure out why so many people in Arizona were so beautiful! Once the model thing was explained to me, I felt like an idiot, but at least I was in the know!
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| Spraying us down with water to further activate the Omni-Freeze Zero technology |
Once our guide realized our moderate group was more skilled than he realized, he took us on a few loops that involved some more technical drops and climbs. Naturally, I loved this section, and I pinched myself a couple of times just to make sure I was really, actually in Sedona. Fact: I truly was!
After a full morning of riding, our group returned to the Bike ‘n Bean, covered in red dirt and full of laughs. Our Jeep driver then took us on a mini-tour of Sedona, allowing us to check out some of the major tourist sites.
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| We got used to dressing all matchy-matchy 🙂 |