September 17, Sage Hills - Wenatchee

Had a nice night at The Comfort Suites.  The hotel is relatively new and modern, with  a great breakfast.  We wanted to ride some new trail up by Mission Ridge, but it was 38 degrees up there, so we opted for Sage Hills, just up the hill from Walmart.  We wanted to ride a  couple new trails, Balsamroot, that was built last year, which starts at the bottom of Horselake Road, and Glacier View, Trail which is higher up.  We grunted up Balsamroot thru high weeds that were slightly annoying.

Francine taking a break on Balsamroot Trail

Climbing Balsamroot trail

More Balsamroot Trail

Then we hit Maiden Lane trail up to The Gut.  Up Little Moab to The Foothills Trail to its intersection with Homestead Trail.

We climbed up Homestad to Apricot Crisp and Upper Apricot Crisp.  Made our way up to Clouds, which has 3 steep uphills and three downhills, where we finally end up bushwacking to the the intersection of Lightning Trail.  Normally, we complete the loop by descending Lightning back into the Sage Hills system, but we wanted to check out the new Glacier Trail, so we continued on our loop going left on Lightning back to Apricot Crisp, where we then retraced our tracks to the start of Glacier View Trail.  The weeds and grass on Apricot Crisp were super high.  At times, you could barely tell there was a trail.

High weeds retracing our path on Apricot Crisp Trail

Apricot Crisp Trail

Glacier View was a fun descent.  It put us on the road that descends to the farmhouse, which is kind of a waste of elevation.  We took the road back to the upper Horsehead Parking Lot to take Foothills trail over to the bottom of Homestead trail and retraced our steps to the car.  Fun day.  21 miles and over 4000 feet of elevation.