Bloated Skiing

Oct. 15, Spy Photo - Greg Louie

You know it's getting close to ski season when you spot a photo of your favorite ski partner working the yoga moves. I better get serious about getting in shape. Looks like Greg is way ahead of me..

Greg Louie - watch out for the banana.

Oct. 4, Crystal Mt. loop

Hooked up with Ellie B for a Crystal lap. Trail was in surprisingly good shape for having no rain. Sandy sections were better than they are in August. Views of Rainier were great. The ski area employees looked like they were hard at work getting ready for our upcoming ski season.

Ellie rides the dirt on Lucky Shot.
Hopefully we will be back on skis soon.

Sept. 15, Middle Fork Trail

Need a good workout? It had been awhile since Francine and I had ridden the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie river trail. It seems to be in the once every five year rotation. I think it's the serious grunt factor that it requires, without any large downhills for a reward. We made a loop of this ride by riding out on the road about 11 miles then approx. 12 miles back downriver on the trail. Downriver is a bit misleading because you need to earn your way both going up the road then the up and down, off and on the bike, rocks, root,s and stream crossing littered trail. You do feel like you are on a real mountain bike ride. No big views, but nice narrow singletrack draped over by moss covered trees and an abundance of ferns fighting for their share of daylight. We cranked out the trail in about 4 hours.

Francine - Classic Northwet scenery

River crossing below Goldmeyer Hotsprings

Kevin tackles the roots

August 20, Blowout Mt. trail

This trip report is a little old, but my blog has been pretty non-active. Since Colorado we have been staying close to home and enjoying the recreation opportunities in our backyard, Snoqualmie Pass. We have been busy brushing out the trail network, and are even working on a couple of new trails. In August, I rode from the house towards Easton and hit Blowout Mt. trail a couple of times. This trail is tough enough that is stays very skinny. Views were gorgeous, unfortunately Mt. Rainier did not come out in this photo. The first trip I got stopped by a down log. The second trip I managed a 90 mile loop, including Manastash Ridge trails and exiting the Taneum area via.1321 (North Ridge Trail). Unfortunately 1321 has been heavily logged and is really not enjoyable. Overall a great ride. Next time I would exit via 1326 ( Cle Elum Ridge tr. ) to Woods and Steel Rd..

July 26, Colorado Trail - Kennebec Pass to Durango

Day 4 - Final day. Don and Val, the early risers, left about 30 minutes before us, and we didn't see them all day. No rain last night, so we packed up dry tents this morning. Rode down the rough, Champion Venture Mine Road to the Colorado Trail and turned right. For the next 3 or 4 miles, the trail conditions were a little rougher as this is a popular part of the trail to shuttle from town. After 5 miles of descending, we crossed Junction Creek started our 1,500 foot climb of the day, back up to 9,550 feet. Descended to pass the Dry Fork Trail and Hoffeins Connect trail to Gudy's Rest viewpoint. After this we had a sweet descent to the Junction Creek Road and end of the Colorado Trail. 20.3 miles on trail today. We then rolled into town for about 3-4 miles on pavement. Went to the condo building we stayed at for the 4 nights in Durango, for showers, and hit the road for 3.5 hours to spend the night in Moab with Don and Val.

Descending thru lush vegetaion

Dropping more elevation before the last climb

Colorado Trail - So Sweet.

July 25 - Colorado Trail - Corral Draw to Kennebec Pass

Day 3. Best day of the Colorado trail. Incredible views! 19 mile day.
A thru hiker stopped by in the morning as he was out of water. He couldn't find the seep last night. He said he found lots of muddy water, though. We told him to fill up from our jugs, as Alex was going into town to refill all our water. 3 more hikers came by just as he was leaving. They were very thankful to get all the water they wanted.

Val opted not to ride today, our hardest day. She chose to ride with the driver down into town for water and another hour or so back up to Day 3 camp. She and Alex were going to hike up to Kennebec Pass from camp, once camp was set up. Don left about 30 minutes before us.

Rode rolling singletrack for about 8 miles. Then we started a hefty climb to Indian Trail ridge. We were expecting a rocky, exposed trail on the ridge. We were pleasantly surprised with perfect, pine-needle, narrow singletrack in the trees for about 2.5 miles, before we broke out of the trees and found a rougher ridge trail.

Rolling, perfect singletrack for our first 8 miles

Gorgeous "Ridge" singletrack for 2.5 miles
on Indian Ridge

Where is the air at 11,500 feet?

Kevin with the next hill in sight

Hike-a-biking at almost 12,000 feet

This would be wilderness in Washington State

Little rocky for me (walking) - but not for the local
on the hardtail riding behind me

We caught up with Don at the top of the above rocky descent. He was able to video Kevin riding down the rocky ridge. Francine took a hard crash earlier in the day, so we should have met up earlier. Met up with Val and Alex at the top of Kennebec pass. They hiked up from camp. Good thing we had great directions from Val, as we would have missed the obscure turnoff to camp.

We had probably 4 ridges to go up and down, all above 12,000 feet

Don walking with Francine resting

Picking our way thru the rocks - yes there is a trail

Don - coming off our final highpoint for the day at 12,258 feet

Steep and rocky trail from the day's highpoint - 12,258 feet

Still walking down

Yeah - on my bike, descending near Taylor Lake

Descended off the ridge in the left background

Climbing toward Kennebec Pass - 11,680 feet

Descent off Kennebec Pass

Abandoned Muldoon Mine near Kennebec Pass

Final night camp 10,600 feet

View from our tent

No rain or thunder or lightning tonite. I'll take two days of the rain, to have one dry night. Deer came by the tent in the evening. We thought it was a bear sniffing outside.

July 24, Colorado Trail - Cascade Divide Rd. to Corral Draw

Day 2. Packed up the sleeping bags, clothes and tent. We thought we were riding 15 miles today. We ended up riding 19.9 miles. After it rained all night, we woke up to a clear morning. Climbed a mile up the road we descended to last nights camp, and turned left on the Colorado Trail. Don and Val left about 1 hour before us, as they are early risers. We rode on some of the most gorgeous singletrack, with awesome views everywhere. We saw hardly anyone on the trails.

Francine climbing the open meadow.

Francine reaching a saddle

Kevin - the views everywhere are gorgeous

Did we mention the narrow, beautiful singletrack?

Gorgeous meadow, probably at 11,000 feet.

And more climbing

Climb up to the pass (11,700) in the background and descend.

Descend into this valley, and climb up to another ridge, Blackhawk Pass (12,240 ft) in the middle background.

Wildflowers are only mediocore for us

Only a few more miles to camp.

We hit the 16 mile mark on the trail, and still didn't see camp. Climbed a hill and descended to camp at the 19.9 mile mark. They need to update our directions. Rode about 1-2 miles pass Corral Draw. What a relief to finally see the van and camp at 10,783 feet. We set up our tents, took sun showers, started cooking dinner, and then the thunderstrom and lightning hit. The rain/lightning was not as hard as last night, and eventually subsided. Had a nice, relaxing night at camp, and hit the sack early again.

July 23, Colorado Trail Day 1 - Molas Pass to Cascade Divide Rd.

Val Hecker on the Colorado Trail

The first day of our four day Colorado Trail journey. Supported by Hermosa Tour's driver, Alex, we would be riding from Molas Pass to Durango. Approximately 11,000 feet of climbing and 80 miles(73 miles of blissful singletrack) by the time we hit downtown Durango. Not to mention that we were above 10,000 feet of elevation, for the entire trail until the last day when we dropped down to Durango at 6,523. Each day the incredible scenery powered up our legs as we struggled to breathe the thin air. Highpoint today was Rolling Pass at 12,484 feet. 18.6 miles for the day.