{"id":44,"date":"2008-03-18T09:53:50","date_gmt":"2008-03-18T17:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mountainbikebill.com\/blog\/?p=44"},"modified":"2009-04-05T17:44:25","modified_gmt":"2009-04-06T01:44:25","slug":"goat-camp-goodness-goes-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mountainbikebill.com\/blog\/?p=44","title":{"rendered":"Goat Camp Goodness Goes Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday was a climb up into the White Tank Mountains west of Phoenix.\u00a0 This area was incredibly awesome with the vibrant colors of spring going off.\u00a0 The trails of the White Tanks are extremely diverse.\u00a0 We did a loop that included some burly climbing on the Mesquite Canyon trail before things mellowed out to mostly smooth benchcut singletrack interspresed with technical bits.\u00a0 There were some\u00a0impressive views along this trail.\u00a0 From the Mesquite Trail we connected to the Willow Trail and enjoyed some more springtime desert goodness.\u00a0\u00a0 From the Willow Trail we connected to the Ford Canyon Trail which had us busting out a switchbacking climb up to the junction of the Goat Camp Trail.<\/p>\n

\"Greg<\/p>\n

The Goat Camp Trail had been on my to-do list for a long\u00a0while as people who are much better riders than me have all said it is one of the gnarliest trails they have ever been on.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The trail did not disappoint.\u00a0 It starts off really scenic and pretty as you work your way over a couple of ridges before coming to the final descent.<\/p>\n

This is where things get incredibly technical.\u00a0 The opening\u00a0descent is a\u00a0steep loose monster that is quite shaly with big chunk a plenty.\u00a0\u00a0 Our guide and all-around awesome guy for the day, Greg, described it best when he said “If you touch\u00a0your front brake just a little too much, the earth opens up and swallows your front wheel”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The middle section gets more firm undertneath you but the trail\u00a0is just impressively\u00a0rugged.\u00a0\u00a0 It is hard to put a pucker factor on this section.\u00a0 It is more like a continual state of colon lockdown.<\/p>\n

\"Kevin<\/p>\n

There is a really tricky feature known as the Spiral Staircase.\u00a0\u00a0 There is a bit of a chunk gate to get into the feature followed by steep left handed roll down into a really tight righthander that exits into either a spine roll or a chunky\u00a0set of stairsteps.\u00a0 JD impressively\u00a0flashed the entire thing after a quite look see of the line options.\u00a0 I kept having problems at the bottom as I could not get through the bottom right hander smooth enough to get onto the spine roll.<\/p>\n

Below the Spiral Staircase is another just mean section known as \u201cJack Hammer\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was somewhere along this section that I blew a move and went off the bike and unfortnately smacked into a sharp-edged rock with my face.\u00a0\u00a0 OUCH!!!!!<\/strong> I knew it was bad as soon as it happened as I could feel the left side of my face move in the \u201cwrong\u201d direction and then go numb.\u00a0\u00a0 Behind me was Kevin and when he gave the question we all get asked sooner or later \u201cAre You Okay\u201d, I had to respond with \u201cNo, I\u2019m hurt bad\u201d.<\/p>\n

Here a Carnage Shot (WARNING: It is quite icky\u00a0\u2026) <\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Like myself, Kevin has been offically trained on Wilderness\u00a0First Aid and he did a great job sizing up the situation and getting all the supplies out and starting the work of patching my lower and upper lips back together with some steri-strip wound closures.\u00a0\u00a0 I know the poker face and measured repsonses\u00a0 medics are trained to give in situations like this and I knew Kevin was concerned.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure some of you are already thinking \u201cDid\u00a0he film that?\u201d\u00a0 Yes, I was filming when it happened.\u00a0 It is mighty hard to see you\u00a0own face so I used the camcorder with the\u00a0screen flipped so I could see the\u00a0damage myself.\u00a0\u00a0It\u00a0was not pretty at all.\u00a0\u00a0 After getting patched up, Kevin and I walked down the rest of the trail.\u00a0 It was not too far before we JD and Greg where waiting for us.\u00a0\u00a0 I could see the concern in\u00a0thier eyes as well.<\/p>\n

\"Kevin<\/p>\n

We had\u00a0some gear spread amongs a\u00a0couple of cars, so JD and Greg went on ahead to get everything setup for my exit.\u00a0\u00a0 I walked some more until the trail got\u00a0pretty tame\u00a0in comparision to the rest the trail.\u00a0\u00a0 I made a point of going very gingerly as I did not want to elevate my heart anymore than needed.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On the way back we came across\u00a0a few hikers who gave some quite truthful responses like \u201cHoly S#$T\u201d and Oh My F#$king God!<\/p>\n

Once off the trail, I got my chamois off as I knew I would otherwise have it on for a long and end up with a bad case of monkeybutt.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 JD got me to the ER straight away.\u00a0\u00a0 This was the first time I had the term \u201cThough and Through\u201d used outside of a CSI show on TV.\u00a0\u00a0 Both the upper and lower lips where lacerated in that manner with the lower getting the worst of it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I walked out of the ER four hours after arriving with 19 stitches (some inside and some out) and a hankering for a smoothie!<\/p>\n

Jerry thankfully had taken a catnap while waiting for me and he drove back to Orange County so I would only have to deal with about an hour of driving from the OC down to North County San Diego.\u00a0 It was way freaking late when I got home.\u00a0 Even though the Novacaine of long since worn off, a good portion of my face was disturbingly still numb.<\/p>\n

\"After<\/p>\n

It has been a few days since the crash.\u00a0 I had thought about posting earlier about this but was just not feeling up to it.\u00a0 The good news is that I can tell the nerves are starting to heal and the feeling is starting to come back into most of the area.\u00a0 The bad news is ……The feeling is coming back into the area!\u00a0\u00a0 The inside of the left side of my mouth feels like a have a cold sore the size of a quarter and few of the bits of spare change.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m already shopping\u00a0for a full-face helmet for my technical trail excursions.\u00a0\":-)\"<\/p>\n

-Bill<\/p>\n

More Stuff Like This<\/h3><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Vacation and Laguna Mountains<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t The Monarch Crest Epic<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Arrrgh\u2026.Swabbies get yer CPO Jersey<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t New trail goodness at Black Mountain<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n<\/div>