Breaking Bread
Richfield // spinal tap, creekside oasis
Nights out: 2 Miles driven: 338 Soundtrack: vincent neil emerson
cast iron therapy
Camp pizza, Spinal Tap, creekside camping, cast iron breakfasts, and two nights of breaking bread in the Utah desert.
Day: -2
This trip started before the trip. I’ve been spending a lot of time cooking, eating, and making a tailgate kitchen. To be honest, convenience wins most of the time when cooking outdoors — easy prep, easy cooking, and quick cleanup. This time around, I wanted to stretch my kitchen legs, throw on the chef clogs, and actually cook a decent meal. I’m not sure why, but I genuinely enjoy feeding people, and this time around I had a handful of new folks to meet and feed. I started two days early by prepping some pizza dough, sauce, and toppings. The dough would sit in the fridge, developing flavor for the next two nights until we got to camp.
Day: 1
Last year, a wrong turn led to an unexpected discovery of our campsite. Caleb found this desert oasis complete with a babbling brook, turkeys gobbling at dusk, and an impossibly tall red-rock cliff as a backdrop. We pulled in, spent too many minutes(hours?) leveling trucks, and strung hammocks over the creek. I christened my new skillet with steak and eggs as my first meal on this trip. Slowly, the rest of the group started pulling into camp and unloading gear like some sort of pickup truck circus. As dusk fell, we sat around a fire, exchanging stories and eventually wandering off to our own grown-up tree forts as the flames died.
@ Caleb Leftwich
Day: 2
The day started with the warm glow of the sun hitting my tent as the turkeys invaded camp. After kicking out the interlopers, I fired up my stove and seasoned my new camp skillet with a healthy dose of sizzling bacon. Hoping for that perfect, glossy black finish by the time I was eating my crispy breakfast.
We lazily gathered our gear, loaded up the bikes, and hit the road, heading toward the day’s destination. We spent the better part of the day picking our way down Spinal Tap, which happens to be an absolute elite showcase of Utah desert MTB trail building.
We had worked up some appetites, so I pulled the dough from the fridge and fired up the pizza oven. I started stretching and shaping a handful of pizzas as we gathered around the flames and created various combinations of the potluck-style toppings. We broke bread around the fire, skipping the small talk and sharing real conversations instead, becoming fast friends.
As with the night before, the creek running through camp serenaded us to sleep as the stars rose above the trees.
Day: 3
After two nights of sleeping like a little princess, I woke up feeling fully reset, ready to fire up the stove one last time. I had prepped French Toast at home. Counterintuitively, French Bread makes exceptionally mediocre French Toast, but the camp food effect added a couple of points.
All in all, this one was less about the photos, the adventure, the exploration, and more about food being the catalyst for connection. Without sounding too precious about it, good food, shared with good people, is a good way to live.
A few practical notes from the richfield trip
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We spent most of the day riding Spinal Tap, which honestly might be my second favorite trail in Utah now. It’s an absurdly good showcase of desert MTB trailbuilding.
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I hauled my Ooni pizza oven into the desert like a complete lunatic. Totally impractical. Totally worth it.
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This trip was the first real outing for my new Zempire stove and Lodge carbon steel skillet setup. For the first time, camp cooking actually felt like real cooking instead of survival food.
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Steak and eggs. One pan, easy cleanup, hard to mess up, and somehow it always tastes better outside.
Keep Wandering
More desert mountain biking: Captain Ahab
More bikes with more community: New Boot Goofin’
Wandering weird desert landscapes: Goblin Valley
