Cuyamaca Cruise

Today I went out for a quick spin in the Cuyamaca Mountains which rarely falls into the “This Sucks!” category.

An oak at the bottom of the Green Valley singletrack
An oak at the bottom of the Green Valley singletrack

I started from the East Mesa parking lot and took the East Mesa singletrack up to the visitor center where I connected to the Green Valley fire road.   I took this up to the Green Valley single track and work my way to the La Cima trail.

CRHT
I love this spot along the California Riding and Hiking Trail

The La Cima trail took me to the California Riding and Hiking trail, which I took south where I hooked up with the Stonewall fireroad and then over to the Cold Springs trail.

Great views in the Cuyamaca Mountains
Great views in the Cuyamaca Mountains

At the bottom of the Cold Springs trail I crossed HWY 79 and hooked up with the West Side singletrack and took it south back to the East Mesa staging area.    It was definitely a fun day on the bike!

An old friend gone

It is with a bit of sadness that I must pass on that this beautiful old oak tree has finally moved on from Daley Ranch.

From a year or so ago

On my Sunday morning ride, I found this tree toppled over completely blocking the eastern half of the Jack Meadow loop. Half of this oak had come down a year or so ago, but the other half finally we over as well. Considering that Daley Ranch has a staff to handle this kind of stuff I imagine the tree came down on Saturday. Good bye old friend you were a most welcome shade spot.

Website/Blog Recovery in Progress

I am in the middle of recovering from a webhosting transfer, backup/restore failure.   While the static webpages are back online (with the exception of interactive maps), the blog has issues.     The appearance has to be rewickered and entries from 2013 up to the middle of 2017 have to basically be rebuilt.

UPDATE – 11SEP18:   All of my data and photos have been recovered!!   Some of the external links are not going to work due to database index changes but the content is all there.   I still need to redo the appearance theme of the blog.

UPDATE – 18SEP18:   I now have a new blog theme, tweaked to mesh up with my regular site better.   You will find that it works much better with mobile devices than my previous setup.

McKenzie River Trail

Another trail from “The List” checked off today. The Mckenzie River Trail was simply amazing with pretty much everything I think a singletrack connoisseur would want in a trail. This excursion is in the discussion of the best 25 miles of trail I have ever been on. Props to Nichol for shuttling me to the trail and showing up at end with beer!

The north end of Clear Lake
The south end of Clear Lake
Superb lake-side section of trail
Sahalie Falls is just….WOW!
Koosah Falls is also amazing!
So much of this killer forest stuff!
You get plent of this cool log crossing stuff along the way.

Tomorrow it time to head home but we are most definitely going to be back to Bend!

More Bend Oregon

We were digging the scene in Bend so much that we extended our stay in Bend for a few more days.

We are vacation so no need to rush out too early.
Tumalo Falls
Tumalo creek
Happy bikes waiting for a shuttle up to the base of Mt Bachelor.

We did another super fun ride that included Dutchmans Flat, Flagline, Swampy Lake, Swede Ridge, Area 16, Upper and Lower Whoops, Phils Marvin Gardens and COD. It was a 35 mile day on tasty singletrack. A great day to be on a bike.

I think I can I think I can! Starting up the Flagline trail
Nearing the top of Flagline
Nice spot for snack break
Cool trail art!

Bend Oregon Opener

My work project completed on schedule and Nichol flew up with her bike to start our play project. Saturday we bolted from Washington to Bend Oregon for some MTB fun for a few days before heading to parts further south.

Nichol setup us up with a nice pad for the stay.

Wasting no time hitting the Bend Ale Trail

The opening day ride was a shuttle up to Swampys where we did the Swampy Lake loop to Swede Ridge, Area 16, Upper and Lower Whoops followed by some Phil’s and Bens.

On Swede Ridge
Hmmm I wonder where Nichol came up with the idea to put a beer in her ice filles camelbak bladder?

So I had told Nichol that route was 25 miles long. This was indeed true. At the Phil’s trailhead it was 25 miles. I neglected to mention the ride from the trailhead back to town. So for the last five or six miles Nichol accused me of trying to kill her.

Artwork along the Marvin Gardens trail
Killer trail sign
The girl knows her limits!

I think she did pretty darn well today and I did not hear to much protesting on the last few miles. (I did however ride a little further ahead which maaaay just have been slightly outside of earshot!

Once back in town all was better as we recounted the days awesomeness over tasty beers.