Riverside County – The Ramblings of MTBBill

A new take on Thomas Mountain

I was first introduced to Thomas Mountain and the Ramona Trail in December of 2003 when Mike Kim showed me the route. Oh Crap! That was nearly 23 years ago. Does that mean I’m an OG? <Only the if it means Old Guy 🙂 >

I can’t say that Thomas Mountain has been a perineal ride since 2003 as there are lots of MTB options in the greater Garner Valley, Idyllwild area and its a bit of haul from San Diego. It has however been in the rotation and I have it up ever year for the last four or five years.

During the most recent outings I have been adding the spur up to the summit proper into the mix. The normal loop gets you so close you might as well take that little extra to take in the summit.

I have noticed some some little dotted lines on old maps as well some more recent digital ones. On this outing Drew and I decided to investigate to see if those dotted lines correlated to some of interest in the real world.

It did! At the summit we found a faint trail right where the map intel showed it. Shortly off the summit it was better defined and rather easy to follow.

View of Anza Valley and Cahuilla Mountain to the south

This looks like a very old jeep or moto route that momma nature has nearly reclaimed with the occasional foot, hoof, bike or moto keeping things at singletrack width.

It was mostly downhill and quite fun. The trail followed the ridgeline from the summit east-southeast for about two miles before popping out across from the Toolbox Spring Campground at the top of the Ramona Downhill. It was certainly a nice variation on the classic Thomas Mountain, Thomas Mountain Bike Trail and Ramona Downhill Loop. Here is my ridelog that contain this trail. Not a Trailforks person, here is the Strava

We discussed for a moment climbing the remainder of the fireroad again to catch the Thomas Mountain singletrack we had bypassed with the upper ridge route. The final vote tally was brains/ego – 2, legs – four.

We hopped on the Ramona downhill and enjoyed some nice singletrack goodness through the pines before the trail transitioned into the more open sage brush.

We enjoyed some well earn beer and tasty burgers and the Paradise Valley Cafe before the drive back to San Diego. It was a might fine day to be on a bike.

Idyllwild 2022 Video

The trails out in Idyllwild were in fantastic shape during my most recent visit there. It was also my first time on Neepa Flow and boy of boy is that an great bit of trail. The builder really did a fantastic job of using the terrain. My page on Idyllwild:

Palm Canyon Epic

I recently got back out on the Palm Canyon Epic after a couple year hiatus. I have took the RV out to Palm Desert and setup basecamp for the weekend. My wife took us up to the top and it was quite nice to not a “commute” to do after the ride. It was a great day out of the bike.

Video from the day

Thomas Mountain Video

I had been sitting on this footage for quite some time and finally put it together. It was a good climb followed by a good downhill. I did find the Ramona trail has been tamed down since the last time I had ridden since 2006. This kind of stuff happens and I feel that the trail has lots a little of its sumpin sumpin. It is still a good ride but it is not the same.

Herkey Creek 2007 Video

One more of the old skool videos remastered. This video is one of first videos with an HDV camcorder and the optical stabilization was so not geared to handle MTB type action. I tried some stabilization with this video but the crop required is just no good. I plan to put together a video of a scouting I did out here back in May so I wanted to get this out for comparison later. I really hope this area can recover back from the fires to something akin to what it was in this video.

Hurkey Creek – Post Fire

Nichol and I spent this weekend at the Hurkey Creek Campground. While there I got a chance to get check out some the trails that were impacted by the 2018 Charston Fire. I am used to the shock of post-wildfire landscapes but I was particulary taken back by some of the damage nearly three years later. It was not all gloom because at least a couple of the trails I checked out are only a little worse for wear. Others are still a complete wreck.

At the northern end of Coyote Run just before it gets faint.

I put notes on all the trails I checked out on my Hurkey Creek Page. The most encouraging thing I saw was the Johnson Meadow trail as it was minimally impacted and is pretty good shape.

The most disheartening thing is the Keen Camp climb as maybe 50% of it is rideable and it will require a lot work to get it functional again. Without this trail there is no practical way to loop the trails together from Hurkey Creek Park.

I did see some flagging in the Keen Camp climb corridor so hopefully there is some work planned. I don’t know about you but I would down to help out with that effort. I hopento chase down if something is indeed in the works.

Updated Hurkey Creek Page

Idyllwild – Pine Cove

I was pretty stoked to finally be able to get a way from the house in the midst of all this COVID-19 BS. The plan was to take the RV up to the Herky Creek Campground and base camp there for the weekend Nichol and got up there on Friday afternoon and a couple of hours later my longtime MTB Bud Bill arrived. We spent the afternoon and evening grubbing out catching up and sampling tasty whiskeys. Bill and I have learned a thing our two about our proclivity to try and solve world hunger around a campfire at night when there is a bike ride the following morning. We set an alarm clock, not to get up in the morning but to go to bed 🙂

Base Camp Herkey Creek (This picture was from Sunday, Saturday was cloudy)

The weather was pretty foggy the following morning it looked like we might get some drizzle action as well. We had the right gear so off we went. Today’s ride would be Pine Cove and Hub Trails.

We took advantage of the spousal shuttle service leaving Bill’s truck at the Hub Trailhead while Nichol dropped us off up in Pine Cove

It has been more than a couple moons since the last time I had started from Pine Cove so it took me a couple of minutes orientate myself. I ended up taking the route I new and then later in the ride realized that few new connectors had been added that optimized your elevation loss/gain. Our basic route was a bit of Project X, Toptimater, Dreamwalker, Hard Sun and Tubs.

The cloud cover kept the temperatures at just in the comfortable range. We got ourselves turned around a couple of times snooping on some of the new stuff (since the last time I rode there) but that is all part of the fun of this area.

That evening was more tasty grub and good times. The next morning the sun was out and it was time for some more fun on two wheels to the east of where we were base camped.

The Pretty Cool Temps and cloud cover were gone for this ride and replaced with gorgeous sunshine and warmer temps.

Spring was still holding on in a few spots.

Bill harassing the locals

We had a great time out on a nice bit of trail. This was my second time out on this route and I was really stoked to show off some of the bits of trail that included some of the California Riding and Hiking Trail.

Back at camp we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon, before breaking camp and rolling back to San Deigo. I had reserved the spot for Sunday night as well, but I enjoy not having to be rushed out of the site on the last day. This was a nice weekend getaway and good opportunity for Bill to check out live in the RV for some of less local adventures I have planned with this rig in the future.

CRHT – Beauty Mountain Wilderness

The last couple of weekends I have spent some time riding and a little bit hiking around the northern part of San Diego County and into Riverside County. I was able to get out on the final northern section of the California Riding and Hiking Trail (CRHT) in San Diego County.

The California Riding and Hiking Trail splitting through the Beauty Mountain Wilderness

The CRHT is not in the wilderness through here but does split it right down the middle

Here is a traditional style CRHT marker. This is along Cooper Cienega Truck Trail

I did not expect to find a pond along the route but it was a really cool surprise.

Hmmmmm, going to have to take another look at this at some point.

This section of the CRHT is part of the Stagecoach 400 bikepacking route

This section of CRHT could use a bit more traffic.

The CRHT a little south of HWY 74 and just east of HWY 371.

One thing that has become obvious during my roaming along the CRHT and research. When the Pacific Crest Trail was first established in 1968 it “commandeered” quite a few sections of the then existing CHRT in San Diego County and the Anza area in Riverside County. In at least two locations I have found the traditional style CRHT markers along the Pacific Crest Trail. In the years following the establishment of the PCT the desired PCT routes were created/rerouted off the original CRHT, leaving the CRHT to wither away or left unprotected from future development/protection. The impact of this was not readily apparent until many years later when in 1988, the USFS dubiously banned mountain bikes from the PCT without proper public input.

Pulling back to a larger scale, from the area just east of Cuyamaca Lake to at least Paradise Valley (Highway 74/371) area the California Riding and Hiking Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail typically parallel one another to varying degrees. San Diego County has the concept of restoring the CRHT as part of its master trails plan but I see the PCT being nearby as a deterrent to getting this historic mountain bike accessible back country trail restored. I see the PCT sucking the bureaucratic willpower away from the CRHT effort. I am very supportive of the Sharing the PCT movement as well was the removal of the blanket bike ban in Wilderness being spearhead by the Sustainable Trails Coalition. You should take a look at what those efforts are trying to accomplish. If both the Sharing the PCT and San Diego County CRHT restoration efforts were to come to fruition the routes/loops that could be done with both of these trails would be absolutely amazing. We can all dream!

Hitting up the SART

It was mighty nice to get back up in the mountains near Big Bear again. Outside of the my recent ride in Flagstaff, it has been months since I had been out for a decent ride. This was just what the doctor ordered.

Ali, Bill and I started off on the Sugarloaf Trail and I was quickly reminded that the main muscle that I had been working out as of late has been my beer drinking arm. 9,000 feet of elevation and loose semi-chunky climbing soon found me gasping on the side of the trail barely able to see let alone breath. That kind of punishment was exactly what I needed. I had been a bad bad lard ass and I deserved to be punished. While it was not that far, it seemed like a long way before we hooked up with the loose chunky Sugarloaf connector down to the Wildhorse Trail.

Ali rolling through the ferns at the upper end of the Wildhorse trail.

Looking down along a part of the Santa Ana River watershed area from the Wildhorse trail.

Bill zipping by

Ali cruising through

Besides a bit of Where’s Waldo action, you can see a good bit of the impact of last year’s Lake Fire that came through the area. After finishing off the Wildhorse trail we did a bit of road cruising to the South Fork campground and hooked up with the Santa Ana River Trail for some more single track goodness. The SART was in just about as good of a shape as I can remember for this time of year.

Clowning around on the SART.

As usual good post-ride refreshments, grub and general shat talking ensued at the bottom. A great day to be out in the dirt!

Woodson, Hodges and Idyllwild

I had a pretty good bit of mountain biking over the last handful of days.

I made a return trip to Mount Woodson on Thursday to reacquaint myself with the other trails on/near the mountain that I did not get to the week before. I took the Fry-Koengle trail up to the summit and then took the Old Fry-Koengle trail on the way down. There has been a bit of trail sanitization going on parts of this trail but the trail is still plenty interesting. I only did a dozen miles but there was plenty of climbing done.

On Saturday, Nichol, Francisco and I did a ride out at Lake Hodges and then some. After doing the north side stuff, we continued past the dam down into Del Dios Gorge and then onto the Santa Fe Valley trail eventually over to the Lusardi Creek.

We did a small lollipop of trails in this area before heading back in earnest. We ended up doing right at 30 miles which was a new mileage benchmark for both Nichol and Francisco.

On the cruise back we came upon this fella (or gal – I can’t tell, and I not looking any closer to figure out either). I was pretty stoked that this snake posed so nicely for the camera while there was some good light to work with. This was rattler #11 for the year. (The following day I would encounter #12 that was quite uninterested in hanging out for a photo op)

Saturday I meet Bill up in Idyllwild to ride “The Hub” trails (currently called Alvin Meadows on my site). This place really rocks and there has been quite a bit of new trails out in this area.

I passed so many new junctions that I’m going to have bump this place up in trail rotation get all the new stuff figured out. I’m always amazed how you can feel like you being putting in huge miles out here and then you look at your mileage gizmo and you have done less than half of what you thought you did. One thing is for certain, the quads were barking on the last climb back to the truck. We definitely earned our tasty post-ride beverages!

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31