Trail Wanderlust
Trails in General
It has been pretty hot as of late so a dawn patrol ride was in order. Lake Hodges was the place.
My sweetie joined me on this ride as well. We pretty must did the north side trails as an out and back.
It is definitely summer with pretty much all the vegetation in dry hot weather mode. There was some surprises. The cacti for example has just recently flowered which I expected that would have happened much earlier in the year.
Bill and I did a ride on the Wildhorse trail near Big Bear and connected it up with the Santa Ana River trail. We typically do this as a point-to-point ride. This logistics of this takes over an hour at both due to the length and the long high clearance road you need to drive to get to the top.
We mixed things up on this ride and met up the evening before and left a vehicle at the bottom and camped at the top.
Since we were camping just for the night we both went pretty minimalist on the camping gear. One area we did not skimp on is the refreshments.
The next morning we came up with a novel idea. We need to start setting an alarm clock to tell us to go to bed. We had stayed up into the wee hours of the night having tasty spirits and trying to solve all manner of the world’s mountain biking problems. (The world has plenty of working on that pesky hunger thing)
Neither one of use were exactly moving quickly in the morning, but we still managed to get rolling earlier than if we had not camped.
Wildhorse did not disappoint and the SART was in good shape. Surprisingly we made really good time on the SART portion. I think we were afraid the wheels were going to fall of the bus of our hangovers so we should keeping movung while we were good.
A little hair if the dog at the bottom and all was well. It was a great day to be out on a bike.
I have been off the bike for quite a chunk of time with lots of competing interests taking up my time. I have a slew of home projects, a long overdue visit from my parents, some difficult work in town as well as some work travel.
It was not bad, just not mountain biking. I worked in Hawaii for a month which included having my wife out for a week.
I did not doing any mountainbiking in Hawaii on this trip but I did do quite a bit of hiking.
It was however quite nice to get back to San Diego and hit up some hometown dirt again.
What is not to like about this kind of trail action.
Here are some pictures of some playtime with Steve and Rodney on a trail in Santee known as Spaceballs. Don’t go looking for it on official maps.
Spaceballs!
There is still some spring left out one of my local rides here in North County.
I was stoked to have a couple of my Colorado buds roll into town. In addtion giving them a place to shack up and bourbons to sample we got in some riding.
We had some rain to deal with o. The second day so we went out to Anderson Truck Trail
The skys looked ominous as we were driving out to the but the there was a large patches of blue sky to the southwest which was where the wind was coming from so I felt pretty good about our chances. Things looked good early on.
The skys turned pretty quickly and before we knew it we had hail bouncing off our heads. Now we have a bike ride!
Pretty much by the time we got to the top of the trail the hail and light rain was over and we were back in some sunshine. Time to go back down.
I was so stoked to be to return some hospitality back in Kevin and Greg direction.
I spent most of January working in Jacksonville, Florida. Below is a picture from the commute out to the jobsite that seemed out in the sticks.
Once back in town it was time up one my old reliable trails, the Lguna Mountains.
The skys were super clear and we could see Point Loma and the downtown skyline some 40 miles away as a crow files.
We did not do a particularly good job of chasing the sun and pretty much finish the last minutes of the day. There are worse things to be bad at.
So I have not been riding much as of late.
Nichol and I managed to do a traditional vacation that included a handful of days in Hawaii.
Now Nichol and I have been to Oahu numerous times related to work but this was our first time there in a strictly vacation fashion. We have both done most of the “mandatory” tourist things on the island in the past so we were under no pressure or schedule to do anything. It was really nice.
In addition to vacation, there has been lots of house stuff that has been capturing my interests and time as if late. Man caves don’t build themselves!
But that does not mean I have not been riding. I have been hitting my local “off the books” ride here and there along with getting out to the Laguna Mountains. I just have been hitting the trails with as much regularity as I normally do. Pretty sure I’m gonna pay for that later.
Our final day of the weekend trip had me waking up to stiff legs.
We both desired to get back home at a reasonable time, so we opted for something efficient and fun. After breaking camp we parked at the JEM trailhead at the base of Gooseberry Mesa.
The last time I rode your when doing this as part of the Hurricane Rim Loop that consists of the Goulds Rim, JEM and Hurricane Cliffs trail. Since then there has been a lot if trails added in this area, it is now its on system.
We ended up riding JEM, More Cowbell, Dead Ringer, Goosebumps, Cryptobionic, and some of the JEM Loop Route. (Not in that order) What a fun time we had. After a celebratory beer it was time to get back to the land of playing working stiff. It was another great adventure in Utah!
Day Three took us out to Grafton Mesa which I had heard lots of awesome stuff about but had never been out on.
Sean on More Money
Grafton did not disappoint.
Sean on Show Me The Money
Sean on Dig-It!
We also did the Pigs In Space and Meanderthal trails along with a portion of Reach Around.
You know you are some good trails when they come with exfoliation services.
The drop in spot.
We did not take the techno-gnarly trail off the mesa as we had not made any shuttle arrangments and were not feeling up for major dirt road grindage to get back up on the mesa. Clearly I will have to go back!