Maddog
Well-Known Member
Hey! I did the ride invite and now I gotta write the report too
?!?!?!?!? I teach PE; I'm not used to having to work that hard
! I guess I'm ready now. I needed a recovery day yesterday and since I was just lazing around my wife got the great idea to play the Hallmark Christmas Movie Drinking Game that she found online so I was a bit pre-occupied the rest of the day
! Well, here goes!
@Mikie and @Voodoo Tom responded to my invite to this great but often overlooked trail. After the easy paved part of the ascent came the 2 miles of hellish
climbing on dirt. I rode most of the 1st mile getting past the 3rd creek crossing but it was HAB for me after that! M and V were in casual cruise mode so I kept them mostly in sight until that point. Fortunately I was able to shorten their wait time for me when a sympathetic family of hikers came driving up in a flat bed truck behind me as I was trudging up the road. They offered to haul my bike and fat a$$ up for the last half mile. Being devoid of all pride and machismo at that juncture, I gratefully accepted saving M and V another 15 minutes of wait time! 
The Santa Ana winds were blowing very hard at Vincent Gap so we decided to head down Manzanita and add the extra credit miles to the end of the trail. The first 50 yards feature a steep left turn then a sharp right into a gully followed by a short steep climb. The gully was washed out but someone has been working on it so there was a lot of soft, dug up dirt that made walking through the gully mandatory. Once the work is done it will be ridable again. Trail work was evident on nearly the entire trail. It may be the Fenner Camp Crew working the trail and they've done a great job!
The rest of the trail traverses hard pack mountain sides, scree fields, rock gardens and even a small creek crossing with a bit of water flowing. I didn't see it happen but one particularly nasty scree chute got Mikie in the knee
but that was the only injury for the day! There's a couple steep sections with switch backs in between the long, more gradual parts. These have really been improved by the trail workers making them much more fun
! The final drop to the campground is some of the fastest ST around with some great switchbacks that really sneak up on you! We all pushed the envelope of control carving those turns
!
After that we crossed the dry Big Rock Creek on the High Desert Trail for an out and back towards the Punchbowl. 90% of the trail was totally fun! The other 10% was brutal HAB on narrow, loose, rocky, steep mountain side with a long slide down if you made a slight misstep! The quads were burning on the way up to the Devil's Chair junction with much more to go to get to the Punchbowl. Too much! We were all out of gas! So we started the ride/slide back down the 10%. That descent was precarious anyway but was made more so by a group of 15 hikers heading up
! They were very nice and awestruck at our impressive skills and lack of sound judgement
! Once past the human obstacles the rest was fun and challenging!
It was a great ride with cool guys to ride with! Manzanita and even the HAB parts were worth the pain and suffering but maybe next time I'll minimize that pain with a shuttle from Blue Ridge!
?!?!?!?!? I teach PE; I'm not used to having to work that hard! I guess I'm ready now. I needed a recovery day yesterday and since I was just lazing around my wife got the great idea to play the Hallmark Christmas Movie Drinking Game that she found online so I was a bit pre-occupied the rest of the day! Well, here goes!@Mikie and @Voodoo Tom responded to my invite to this great but often overlooked trail. After the easy paved part of the ascent came the 2 miles of hellish
climbing on dirt. I rode most of the 1st mile getting past the 3rd creek crossing but it was HAB for me after that! M and V were in casual cruise mode so I kept them mostly in sight until that point. Fortunately I was able to shorten their wait time for me when a sympathetic family of hikers came driving up in a flat bed truck behind me as I was trudging up the road. They offered to haul my bike and fat a$$ up for the last half mile. Being devoid of all pride and machismo at that juncture, I gratefully accepted saving M and V another 15 minutes of wait time! The Santa Ana winds were blowing very hard at Vincent Gap so we decided to head down Manzanita and add the extra credit miles to the end of the trail. The first 50 yards feature a steep left turn then a sharp right into a gully followed by a short steep climb. The gully was washed out but someone has been working on it so there was a lot of soft, dug up dirt that made walking through the gully mandatory. Once the work is done it will be ridable again. Trail work was evident on nearly the entire trail. It may be the Fenner Camp Crew working the trail and they've done a great job!
The rest of the trail traverses hard pack mountain sides, scree fields, rock gardens and even a small creek crossing with a bit of water flowing. I didn't see it happen but one particularly nasty scree chute got Mikie in the knee
but that was the only injury for the day! There's a couple steep sections with switch backs in between the long, more gradual parts. These have really been improved by the trail workers making them much more fun! The final drop to the campground is some of the fastest ST around with some great switchbacks that really sneak up on you! We all pushed the envelope of control carving those turns!After that we crossed the dry Big Rock Creek on the High Desert Trail for an out and back towards the Punchbowl. 90% of the trail was totally fun! The other 10% was brutal HAB on narrow, loose, rocky, steep mountain side with a long slide down if you made a slight misstep! The quads were burning on the way up to the Devil's Chair junction with much more to go to get to the Punchbowl. Too much! We were all out of gas! So we started the ride/slide back down the 10%. That descent was precarious anyway but was made more so by a group of 15 hikers heading up
! They were very nice and awestruck at our impressive skills and lack of sound judgement! Once past the human obstacles the rest was fun and challenging! It was a great ride with cool guys to ride with! Manzanita and even the HAB parts were worth the pain and suffering but maybe next time I'll minimize that pain with a shuttle from Blue Ridge
!
) Thought better to live and ride another day.
!
and smart phones
. Don't have the patience
. Nice Eagles reference but the truck was a Dodge with husband, wife, 2 kids and 2 dogs in crates with whom I shared the flat bed for the vehicular assistance. The Dodge barely made it to the top! I never would have accepted a ride with a Ford 'cuz it would have broken down 1/4 mile from the top. Regrettably it was not a Chevy which would have climbed faster and saved M and V another 5 minutes of wait time!
