Some Noble Canyon and BLT Play Time

Time to catch up on some photos that have tried to get lost over the last few weeks in a smorgasbord of work, holiday parties,  family visits and a cross country road trip (non-biking..but some intel was gathered).   A few days before I headed out to the east coast to start all of the festivities, I meet up with some of the SDMBA folks and Leslie Kehmeier, IMBA’s Mapping Specialist.    Noble Canyon is one of IMBA’s Epics and Leslie while on a Southern California swing wanted to refresh the information of Noble Canyon and check out the trail for herself.    Mark (SDMBA’s USFS Liason and Board Member)  had put together all of the logistics together for the ride and a great day out in this awesome area soon followed..

 

The route that was put together for the day was a point-to-point route from Red Tail Roost in the Big Laguna Recreation Area, down into the Big Laguna Meadow proper and then onward to drop Noble Canyon.

Leslie is an avid photographer and was sporting a DSLR along with a couple of lens.   I know first hand what a pain carrying that gear can be sometimes and she was carrying around more stuff that I normally do.   Here is Leslie getting some monkey action on to get the shot on the Gatos Ravine trail.    Some of the pictures in this post are from Leslie.

Los Gatos near the top

Big Laguna Meadow has brown up for the winter but it is certainly still pretty.  At the time of this posting, the meadow is most likely covered in snow.

Mark working the “Stairway to Hell”

A shot by Leslie of me on “Stairway to Hell”

Leslie working through the chunk of “Extra Credit”

Mark riding the “Roman Wall” near the bottom of the trail.

Back to playing in Alpine

With my various travels over the late summer and fall I have not spent too much time riding in the usual SoCal spots.      Home was home base long enough last week to allow for a bit of playtime out at one of the usual haunts in Alpine, Anderson Truck Trail.

The weather was pretty freaking awesome for December with perfect temps and great winter afternoon light.

I always find it interesting how the rocks look bigger upon my first return out here after some time away from the place.  I was quite happy to stick to two-wheels-on-the-ground play for the day. Whenever I ride while on work trips I make a point to not push my technical limits as the last thing I want to do is have to make a phone call to tell my boss and tell him he needs to fly someone halfway around the planet to take over for me because I jacked myself up out on the trails. All this riding well within my limits makes jumping back into the pushing your limits in the technical arena a bit of a mental adjustment.

Steve of course was up to his usual airbourne antics.

Brian was sporting some air time himself.

With the shorter days we finished up the ride with a only a handfull of minutes of daylight left in the day.    It was nice to be back on some local tech stuff and catch up with some friends I had not seen in quite some time.   I am pleased to report that the beers at Alpine Beer Company still are mighty tasty.