The 15th Annual Yeti Tribal Gathering Report

The "Tribe" consists of Yeti employees and anyone who owns a Yeti. The gathering moves to a different town in Colorado each year. This year there were 250 in attendance, likely the first year of an attendance decline compared to the year before...mostly due to the relatively remote location. Last year was in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

The 2016 gathering took place July 21-24 roughly 25 miles outside of Montrose, at 9500 feet, in an opening of a mountain Aspen grove. Tribe, as Yeti refers to it, was a camping, socializing, riding, and rip roaring party taking place over 4 days.

By virtue of my purchase of a 2015 ASR-C Yeti (quite possibly the best purchase of any kind that I have made in my life), I am an official member of the Tribe. I had been eyeballing this trip for a while, and having known riders who attended in the past, anticipated some epic riding and more than epic celebrating of outdoor and mountain bike culture and amazing bikes.

I arrived on Friday afternoon after flying to Denver, and driving through Montrose to the site atop the Uncompahgre Plateau. The Uncompahgre Plateau includes about 2,290 square miles (5,900 km2) in five counties, and is bordered by the Colorado, Gunnison, San Miguel, Dolores and Uncompahgre Rivers.

The plateau is a geographically diverse area, as we experienced in one of my favorite ways - on a screamin mountain bike!

I was greeted in the check-in tent by a few girls who were incredibly organized, dialed in, and all of about 10 years old. This set the tone for what turned out to be a very family (and dog) friendly event. They took my name, asked me to fill out a waiver, had me sign up for the Saturday ride shuttle, and got me my swag. It wasn't the last we would see of these kids....what they had in check- in skills was eventually eclipsed by their amazing riding skills.

Swag was really generous and included an IMBA hat, stainless coffee mug, t shirt, and a pile of stickers, a pair of which were custom printed with my name and the Yeti logo on them....most folks put them on their bikes, so during rides, everyone knew each other's name...Colorado cool.

The encampment was already well populated with RV's, tents, and campers, which were randomly scattered amongst the Aspens on this US Forest Service land. I found a nice spot and set up camp in plenty of time to get out for a nice hour long ride on the trails that criss- crossed the camp. I arrived back at camp to the wonderful smell of the first of several 5 star meals provided by Big Delicious Catering.

Big Delicious somehow got a 40 foot mobile kitchen back to the clearing by snaking it through rutted, narrow, and in places muddy and sandy dirt roads. We were the beneficiaries of this feat and also the culinary talents of their staff all weekend. They also had two full gas cooktops/ovens, and a full griddle top with enormous saute pans to create their fresh and wonderful fare.

Folks at dinner were friendly but a little subdued by travel, I think, and the anticipation of the Saturday Ride. At 9500 feet, I know I was not the only one a little zapped by the elevation as well. After the meal I crawled into my Big Agnes tent, and comfortably rested on my brand new Big Agnes mattress and pillow....enjoying the 40% (!) discount we received on Big Agnes gear for attending the gathering. That bargain easily paid for the entrance fee, and aside from the savings, this gear is also some of the best I have ever owned. I was asleep in about 30 seconds.

The next morning I was awakened by the smell of sizzling sausages and potatoes...Big Delicious staff must have been up way before dawn as it was only 5:30 am. I crawled out and made my way over for a cup of coffee, which I enjoyed while watching the culinary show.

Early riders (the shuttle left at 7am) emerged from their nooks, and by 6:30 the tent was full and we were feasting. Yeti wisely divided the shuttles into two groups - 7 am and 9:30am. I chatted with folks from all over the US...even a group of guys from Norway! It was great relaxing and eating in anticipation for my 9:30 shuttle.

At 8:45, I was kitted up and riding to the bike load area. Yeti had 4 huge Budget trucks for bikes and 3 school busses for the Tribe. The routine for the weekend was meeting the next friendly Tribe member, and asking where they were from. As I slid in the seat next to a dude about my age, we traded that greeting and discovered we were both from Minnesota, as was his pal across the aisle! Vito from Minneapolis and James from Zimmerman. We shared Lebanon, Murphy, Elm Creek, and Cuyuna tales as we drove through spectacular scenery.

Small world...small world.

The drive to the ride start was about 30 minutes, and from the gathering info packet description of the ride, was nice in an anticipatory sense. We were looking forward to a 28 mile (or 17 if you chose) point to point excursion through 4 different ecosystems, with a net altitude loss of about 4000 feet. The discussion was mostly about the climbing, (there is always climbing in Colorado), at least between us flatlanders, and gory descriptions of the Steamboat 2015 ride surfaced. Typical of Colorado riding, I heard about hour long climbs and technical hike-a-bikes, which I got the vague impression were somehow similar in theme to fishing tales.

This ride has been dubbed The Whole Uncalada, in reference to the Whole Enchilada ride near Moab Utah. I later met the local gent who helped Sarah Rawley, Yeti Tribe planner, choose and mark the route. He told me that up until this point, the route as we were doing it had only been actually ridden about 10 times. Man did they do their homework. The course was fantastic. I could see it becoming a destination ride, with great and free camping nearby and pretty easy shuttle possibilities.

The 11 hours of sleep Friday night served me well, and as the ride started on a thankfully flat section of moto two-track, I had the sense I would be more than ok. Elevation affects me differently each time, and sometimes it turns out to be two days of nausea and splitting headaches, spent curled up in a ball in the hotel room. This trip was different - I felt great.

Every group "ride" ends up with a somewhat competitive edge, and this was no exception, especially given the amount of early 20's testosterone rolling down the trail. In light of that, it was very friendly and very casual and it thankfully in no way felt like a race. Rather it was riders finding their natural pace, politely passing one another to find just that.

I was on one of the very few cross country Yetis... I counted two others all weekend. Yeti has a downhill racing influenced line of machines...all you have to do is look at World Cup enduro and downhill results to solidify that fact. Recently they have dominated the podium in those disciplines, and the bikes play a significant role in that success.

So as the trail turned downward, I got to witness some incredible riding! Fortunately this section was two track, mostly formed by motos of various kinds, as well as the elements, and recent rains had formed fun and challenging ruts and washouts, which were plenty wide enough for passing, even at daring and blazing speeds.

I saw a whole lotta turquoise blurs flying by me as I worked hard to heat warp my rotors and stay within my skillset. I really, really like my collarbones just as they are, thank you.

The vibe during this ride was so great....it must have been the mountain air. I started letting the bike go. The ASR-C has some great descending genetics - it is a Yeti after all, and the harder you push it the better it rides. The one-two combo of this incredible bike and the surrounding incredible riders elevated my game to a level I've never felt before. It was like my Tribe-mates were saying this is how you descend, this is how you have fun on a bike!

When you describe a ride that drops 5000 feet, net, all folks hear is descent. But there were plenty of climbs in this ride, too. And as promised, we dropped and climbed through 4 different ecosystems….aspens, then hardwoods, then pine forest, then high desert. While it was a combo of jeep track, dirt road, and singletrack, as we descended we were mostly on singletrack.

It was announced before the ride that there would be an unrideable uphill section of rocky singletrack….and a challenge to all to clean it. When I got to this section, there were riders spread out along the section, some resting in the rare shade of the high desert, some barely pushing up it’s steep and to most, unrideable track. Some were cursing right through their smiles.

Upon reaching the plateau in the hot and dry afternoon sun, I was baked from pushing the bike up rocky switchback, and jumped on and started riding – mostly to cool off. From there the ride was singletrack, easy and fun high desert ala Mary’s in Fruita.

In a few miles the gradual descent ended with the view of a flatbed water truck with coolers of Oskar Blues beer ringing it’s perimeter, and a sea of Yetis laid carefully in the lot. A guy took my bike, encouraged me to grab a beer, and hop on the waiting bus. I did oblige.

On the bus, I sat with 3 Betis, women riders who race enduro and downhill on Yeti’s namesake model. Young strong women who just love to ride and do so amazingly well. The Betis and everyone else were tired and happy, and anticipating the traditional night of fun ahead.

There were a lot of Yeti Beti bikes in attendance. The Beti comes in a few flavors – the ASR-C, which is the women’s specific version of my bike, and the SB series, which was the ride of choice this particular weekend. The common paint was pink, which is the only remotely dainty feature of this bike or it’s riders.

Arrival at camp found the newly formed sea of Yetis in a field, and I was surprised how eager I was to re-mount and make the short ride back to camp. That’s fun riding when that happens.

The atmosphere in camp was festive, and the first tent was swarmed with riders slurping “Hoogeritas”, the signature drink of one of the Yeti owners. My new Twin Cities buddy James was anchoring the group, and somehow talked me into ending my 37 year ban on tequila. When it went and stayed down, that margarita represented something of a victory over a long time adversary….so I had another.

We drifted to a circle of riders in camp chairs and happily joined in the post ride story time. I met some really great guys and heard everyone’s ride raves…what a fun time.

I knew mid-night cramps were in order unless I started pushing water, so I drifted back to my tent, and found my well placed gallon of now hot water on the roof of my rental Jeep. A quick douse and wipe down got me so I could stand next to myself. I drained a different half gallon and mixed some electrolytes up and got those and a few bananas on board as well.

Dinner followed, another five star event at 10,000 feet. Wow again.

Post dinner, a company called Pro’s Closet, which sells used gear and will be opening a vintage bike museum in Denver soon, screened a movie which covered the early days of Yeti featuring founder John Parker. The movie gave an entertaining view back to mountain biking in it’s infancy and revealed the genius of it’s pioneers. So we are watching a mountain bike movie 30 miles in the back country, and at elevation. What a country!

Fun speeches and recaps from Yeti folk followed, with and award for the two downhill racers who cleaned the hike-a-bike….and humbly admitted to dabbing.

So true to what the Betis on the bus described, what is known as stupid human tricks followed, featuring kids races, adult races on the same bikes, bike toss, dab contest for kids then adults (the adult version became fairly high contact)….think roller derby on bikes with no directional rules.

The 10 year old girls who had handled the Friday check-in were fantastic in all disciplines, with particular strength in the dab contest. I hope to have those skills someday. What an entertaining cap on an epic day.

On Sunday morning, most folks packed it in after the last gourmet breakfast, tired and happy and anticipating Tribe 2017. I for one will be there!