Transrockies week 6 Training

This week was a return to training after the annoyingly bad training during the power outage. Not a very high number of hours total, but effort put in was quality training time, so I felt good about this week.

Total 9.5 hours riding and 5.5 hours trailwork for a grand total of 15 hours of exercise.

Mon Dec 25 2.5 hours
Rode to base of Teneriffe. 58 minutes to the gate, was two minutes faster than nominal time. Once at the base, it was late and I was really cold and low energy just a half hour before sunset, so I decided to turn around and not do the climb. Wanted to do a longer day involving night riding, but still felt this was a great ride to return to the training program after the snafus due to power outage.
Tue Dec 26 1 hour
Spin class, moderate pace. Should have done 4 hours in the rain as I had the day off from work.
Wed Dec 27 1 hour
Spin class. One helluva workout. Substitute instructor, Ruben, kicked EVERYBODY's BUTTS! The normal teacher Leanne totally rocks, so is not a fair comparison from excellent to excellent, yet I will definitely be looking for more sessions with Ruben.
Thu Dec 28 1 hour
Sent home early, so did Grand Ridge. Total time 2 hours 10 minutes. Trailwork time around an hour, ride time around an hour.
Fri Dec 29 ??? hours?
What did I do? I know I went riding, but being on vacation I neglected to log the ride. Penalty for bad bookkeeping, will not count the hours.
Sat Dec 30 1 hour
4.5 hours trailwork on Grand Ridge, then an hour of riding to look for my cell phone...
Sun Dec 31 2 hours
10 miles of Poo Poo point. Time is estimated cause I forgot to record start and end.

Fireroad damage to Poo Poo Point

This is why I love fireroad climbing in the wintertime. Who can resist the challenge of bursting your lungs on a climb with the snow by the road? You know the reward here is a very fast descent. Poo Poo Point alternates climbing and descending, it is not entirely easy on the return.

The fireroads around Tiger Mountain are getting hit hard this year by the wind storms and especially erosion from the heavy rains. I've noticed along the climb to the towers on Tiger there is some heavy erosion from a steep hillside that is beginning to eat the road a little bit. Just a matter of time before it takes a heavy bite out of it.

The image below shows some minor damage to the fireroad leading up to Poo Poo Point, a favorite for paragliders. I would recommend leaving this tree alone, it is just a minor obstacle to the ride.

The last two images are at the 5 mile marker. Due to the washout, the road is closed to vehicles but a bike can get around it. Close to the edge, it looks like it wants to shear off even more road, so don't tempt fate by getting close to the edge.

Grand Ridge - where is the trail?

Below are two pictures I took of a tree blocking the trail at Grand Ridge. This was on the climb from the RR to the road. Everything you see was cleared except the tree itself. By clearing the branches off the tree, and clearing the trail, it is just a short hop to get off the bike and climb under the tree.

I cleared all of the branches in the way on the climb, but there are still around 5 trees scattered along the climb which could use a cutting. I think most can be done with a bow saw, but would take a lot of work and possibly require taking wedges out rather than a linear cut. I consider this a low priority, because other trails are screaming for tender loving care. Dave tells me that King County will be coming out in a week or so with a chainsaw, so we can in good conscience leave the bigger trees for them, and be happy that we did a lot of the busy work for them by clearing the branches.

If one wanted to work on this trail, I would recommend focussing on the derailleur grabbers (sticks under 2 feet long) and the excessive amount of mud puddles. I understand the WTA will be spending a month of trailwork in March here, so I would recommend to let them handle the mud puddles, and we should get the derailleur grabbers taken out, as a hiker group is not as concerned about derailleurs as we are.

Once done with the climb, the upper section of the trail past Grand Ridge Road needs A LOT OF RAKING to get rid of the derailleur grabbers. Dave and I cleared around two miles of trail past the road. We got the worst of the derailleur grabbers, but it is so bad out there you could rake the entire trail as if from the beginning. I would be delighted if someone would start raking right from the entrance at Grand Ridge Road.

For reference: my bike is on the trail...

I lost my cellphone, presumably on the trail. If by extremely slim chance anybody finds it, let me know. I went back and rode the trail looking for my cell phone, but was unable to find it. I think it is gone for good.

It turned out that just past the bridge where we stopped is a tree with lots of branches obscuring the trail. Having ridden the trail, my recommendation for others is to take a rake to the early section, or a saw past the bridge. Even though we did a great job at raking and getting the worst of the derailleur grabbers, it really needs to get the organic layer off for purposes of puddling - it seemed more evident riding it than walking it out.

This part is worrisome. Dave laid branches to warn of a hole in the trail around a corner, and an hour later somebody removed it! After the trailwork, I went home and returned to the trail in under an hour, and thats all it took for somebody to remove it. So, even though I knew of the hole, I was cruising at warp speed cause that is during a fast section of trail, and almost ran into it. I would emphasize that the hole is a hazard, not a technical feature, due to it being a deep soft hole where the front wheel will sink into and not return. I found a rotten leaner and pushed it over, and that gave me a couple of 5 inch logs to place in the trail to replace the branches. Hopefully the logs will be painfully obvious that they are there to warn people and should not be removed. It should be a priority to come back with a shovel and bucket and fill in that hole. It really is a short matter of time before the logs are removed again and someone goes flying into it.

Transrockies Week 5 Training

This week was off to a slow start due to the electric power being out from last week's horrid wind storm, and complications with getting the house warm while going to work made it impossible to get any ride time in early.

Overall I will have to concede this week was a bit of a loss of fitness, but circumstances made it hard to get any ride time. Training is essential, but have to keep the house standing and the career intact, but now all is good again.

Total ride time = 3.5 hours.
Mon Dec 18 - no riding
Tue Dec 19 - no riding, electricity finally turned on at 11 PM.
Wed Dec 20 - 1 hour
spin class, heavy gears and high rpm to make up for lost time. Felt really great.
Thu Dec 21 - no riding
Fri Dec 22 - no riding
Sat Dec 23 - 1 hour
CCC road. Had to cut ride short due to mechanical, Novara suspension was acting up. Rode in ruts of a car due to 2 inches of snow. Fairly decent climb, will have to get elevation profile of this ride. Ran into a cute girl who was trail running with two dogs, she said she did a lot of clearing of the downed trees, so thanks go out to her. Later, reports from several members of the mountaineers coming off Teneriffe told me the snow level is between 1600 and 2200 feet, so that will be cutting my favorite climb short, at least I can supplement it with other things. Interesting to note the mountaineers had ice axes, poles, and snowshoes for the climb up to Teneriffe. They said there was virtually no avalanche danger on the uppper part of Teneriffe.
Sun Dec 24 - 1.5 hours
Down the ridge twice to Preston and supplementary side trails. Really cold driving sideways torrential rain. I only had 1 pair of tights on, did not use my rain pants, and knees got about as cold as if I had been icing them for the last hour and a half. Strange, knees got really prickly and red once I showered to warm up, I think in the future when I get that cold I should warm up slowly. First climb up silent creek was 13 minutes, second climb was 14 minutes. Part of the trail is closed, as accessed by Bandera area, but Silent creek area is open.

Transrockies Week 4 Training (recovery week)

This was a recovery week, so not much riding planned, but a couple of snags along the way, just about brought the riding down. Wednesday nite I showed up for spin class and forgot my shorts. Doh! Afraid I would have to beat the ladies off with a large stick, I decided not to ride in my boxers (sorry ladies...), so I just called it a nite. Thursday was the beginning of the horror of the wind storm that knocked out power for the rest of the week.

The power went out almost 11 pm on Thursday. Too bad it didn't go out an hour earlier, as I had to endure watching a terrible defeat by the seahawks, major screwups in the last few minutes...

Mon Dec 11 -1 hour
spin class, light weights and high rpm.
Tue Dec 12 - 2.5 hours
Nite ride with Justin and Jon at Tokul West. Barely beat the huge rainstorm, so conditions were great. Finished shortly after 9 PM. Couple of climbs got the heart rate up to 175 briefly, which was good.
Wed Dec 13 - no riding
Thu Dec 14 - no riding
Fri Dec 15 - no riding
Sat Dec 16 - no riding
3-5 pm training seminar in Seattle with Herriot Sports Fitness
Sun Dec 17 - no riding

Transrockies Week 3 Training

Well, this week I fell short again on the goal of 18 hours of training, but I saw some encouraging gains. Spin class is very good for the heart, and 3 days of outside riding was good. I definitely sucked for bailing on Friday, but at least I was fresh for our big ride on Saturday. Always a possibility of losing a day due to recovery or other reasons, I'm OK with this Thursday off but it makes me realize I need to do more of stretching and PT style exercises to keep the back strong.

I finally got a heart rate monitor, and the Sunday ride revealed that I am riding on average about 15-20 bpm less than normal, meaning that the strong climb in middle ring is due to leg muscles, but I need to start pushing the heart a bit more. Having the heart rate monitor will help me to keep myself from sandbagging my own ride, as it made me realize I am not pushing as hard as I am capable of.

Doug is being really great about changing my nutritional habits during the ride, and it was evident on our long ride as I never was lacking for energy.

Next week is a recovery week of 11 hours, which is 1 hour more than what I did on a training week. It's easy to analyze after the fact how I come up short on hours, but basically I need to work on determination, as even a short day can get me off schedule. Always keep the clothing and equipment ready to ride. I think I will just forego the recovery week, and see if I can increase hours next week regardless. Will take the recovery week next time the schedule brings it that way.

Mon Dec 04 - 1 hour
Evening spin class. Great hard workout. Pushing heavy gears and endurance / hills
Tue Dec 05 - 2.5 hours
Morning ride. Rode to Rattlesnake Lake and back. One hour 13 minutes out, 6 minutes riding around lake, 1 hour 6 minutes return. Out was a slight gain in speed, return lost 6 minutes. Although I had breakfast, was super hungry on the return. Should have stopped for energy bar. Weather was cold but nice. One bridge was slippery due to compacted ice, but rest of trail was in great shape.
Wed Dec 06 - 1 hour
Evening spin class
Thu Dec 07 - Day off. Inflammation in lower back sent me to the chiropractor. Lots of stiffness there, I will need to start stretching that area better.
Fri Dec 08 - Day off for stupid reasons.
Sat Dec 09 - 4.5 hours actual ride time, 5.5 hours total.
Sno Ridge - Millpond - Reinig - North Bend - Teneriffe. Did the climb up Teneriffe for 45 minutes to the overlook around 3000 feet. Doug and I then headed over to Rattlesnake Lake. Realizing we could make a 50 mile day of it, we went up Ironhorse trail for 2.5 miles before turning back. Turned out to be a 49 mile day, with 6200 feet of climbing. Cold and rainy, but we are tough as nails. The last 8 miles I was out of water as I drank 100 ounces along the way, but was fine. Only counting ride time of 4.5 hours, but the extra hour of taking in food and other reasons counts for something as it was more time in the cold and rain. We actually saw a guy and a girl riding up Teneriffe as we were descending. I wonder how far they went, I have a hard time finding people willing to ride up that extremely steep trail.
Sun Dec 10 - 1 hours 9 minutes
Tiger climb to Preston TH, then over to RATT east towers. Middle ring the whole way. Super rainy and cold. Finished at 4:22 PM, 5 minutes after sunset. Actual climb was 55 minutes, descent for 14 minutes, could not descend as quickly as I wanted to due to darkness and much rain in my eyes. I've middle ringed it before to Preston TH, but I was stoked as this is the first time I stayed in middle ring up to the towers.

Total = 10 hours

Transrockies Week 2 Training

Cold all week, outside riding only on weekend.

Mon Nov 27 - 0.5 hour rollers. Big ole snowstorm and cold outside. Too snowy to go to gym.
Tue Nov 28 - 0.5 hours rollers
Wed Nov 29 - 0
Thu Nov 30 - 0.5 hours rollers
Fri Dec 01 - 0
Sat Dec 02 - 3.5 hours
Ridge to Ridge with Doug, 36 miles and 3600 feet
Sun Dec 03 - 2 hours
Ethan @ Griffin Creek

Total 7 hours, goal was 18. Not enough riding, but extraneous circumstances of snowy cold weather and family illness cut into my weekday riding.

Transrockies Week 1 Training

This is my first actual weekly summary of training. I will try to make it more interesting as the weeks progress. Actual stories of some of the rides can be found from the blog posts a day or two before.

Mon Nov 20 - skipped day. Excuse: 5 hour lunch break for cleat adjustment. Got almost 3 hours of personal coaching from Matt Hill who has done TR twice and Transalps once.
Tue Nov 21 - skipped day. Excuse: had to make up work for slacking on Monday
Wed Nov 22 -2 hours 15 minutes.
Rode to Rattlesnake lake and back in the morning before work. Roughly 30 miles of gravel and road riding.
Thanksgiving Th Nov 23 -2 hours 20 minutes.
From my house I took the back way from Millpond road to Reinig into North Bend, a little of SVT, and then the gate to Mt Si, for a strong hour. Then 15 minutes to the base of Teneriffe. The ride back rounded out the time for 2 hours 20 minutes. Conditions were very rainy and windy, in the dark, and hit just about snow level. Perfect training ride for base fitness.
Fri Nov 24 - Skipped day. Excuse: Sister visiting
Sat Nov 25 - 1 hours.
Tiger climb, quite a bit of snow past the 2 mile mark
Sun Nov 26 - 3.5 hours. North Bend past Rattlesnake Lake and almost to McLellum Butte. 26.6 miles. Snowy, Sleet, driving wind, cold, and rain added to the ride.

Total: 9 hours training.

Analysis: definitely fell short on time, 6 hours from goal. Must get training hours in early week so as to ensure goal attainable by end of week, especially considering lame'o excuses due to social obligations and work and shopping. Need to do more rides in 3+ hour range. Despite short time, good work on speed and riding in horrible conditions. Good discipline on taking care of equipment (clothes and bike) right after riding so as to ensure preparations for next rides.

Ironhorse in a snowstorm

Ethan and I rode from North Bend up to Rattlesnake Lake, and connected to the Ironhorse Trail for a round trip of 26.6 miles in 3.5 hours. Conditions were very rainy, windy, snow, sleet, and cold. There were actually quite a bit of, well, lack of precipitation, I would hesitate to call it the occasional clear skies, but some was found. We had a great time, who knew that a ride up the Ironhorse trail could have the word "extreme" in it? It is a beginner ride, but the weather was a bit extreme to be out for 3.5 hours, so we are calling it a fine day!

Waking up in the morning was a bit ominous, there was enough snow in my neighborhood that they had to drag out Mr. Plow!

Conditions were so bad that people were chaining up before North Bend! I literally passed hundreds of cars that were putting on chains. I think they just did not know how to drive, but to some extent is an indication of the weather.

One of many bridge crossings.

I get to make first tracks.

And Ethan gets to make first tracks as well.

Just imagine close to 30 miles of this. Add in your frequent rain snow and sleet and I wonder what could be finer (other than drinks afterwards)?

This posting seems to be limited to only 6 pictures. I will try to upload more later if possible. We got some great pictures of riding in the snow, but, you get the picture?

More snowy Ironhorse pics

Continuing from previous post, here are a few more pictures that are just too cool.

Ken crossing bridge.
Ethan.
Bridge before Butte (McClelum?)
Cars heading to Snoqualmie Pass as we are high above them.

Snowy Tiger Mountain

I rode up the fireroad to the Preston RR trailhead and down today (no trail riding today).

At MP 1.5 I saw the first traces of snow At MP 2 there was about an inch on the side of the road, but still fine.

At MP 2.5 there was around 2 inches of snow, and the only way to ride up the trail was in the ruts of a vehicle that had been up there earlier.

At the T where to turn right to finish the RATT climb to the towers, the road to the towers had enough snow that one would have to hike it to go any further. There were tire ruts but too icy and snow, possible I suppose if you have studded tires. Instead I turned left to reach the Preston trailhead.

At the Preston RR trailhead, there was over an inch of snow affixed to the seasonal closure sign. My contribution to trailwork today was to wipe the snow off the sign to discourage poachers. Sure its only 10 seconds of trailwork time, but if you include travel time by bike.... well, ok, it was nothing but a fun yet short ride.

On the descent I was able to get first tracks by riding the 2-4 inches of snow between the ruts of the car tracks. Unfortunately I cannot claim a first winter ascent because I saw tire tracks from another bike, looked like someone else went up yesterday by the iciness and partial snow covered tracks of the other bike.

Timed it perfectly to get back to the car at twilight (in other words I goofed off all day before deciding to ride my bike).

Dress warm!

Transrockies Week 0 Training

This is before official training, but got some training time in.

Sat - Teneriffe to Rattlesnake lake - 4.5 hours
Sun -

Little Bald Mountain

Clancy, Deb, and myself drove over to Whistling Jacks in Cliffdell, WA on Friday nite. We got there just after 8:30, when they stop serving food, but they were sports and served us anyway. A few beers and a steak later, we backtracked a few miles on 410 to get to our camp site, which was called Halfway campsite, or something like that. It was right at the base of the ride, so was very convenient. Saturday AM we returned to Whistling Jacks for breakfast, and realized it had a very nice view of the river.

Eventually, Tim and Walter met us at the base of the ride, where we started the shuttle. It was exactly 15.0 miles up a forest road to the start of the ride. The conditions of the road was very good for the most part. A couple of spots were rough for my car, but we got by them fine. Walter and I were wanting to ride up the road, but had second thoughts as it seemed we would be splitting the group. No biggie, the ride down was plenty fun for the day.

The start of the ride had a significant amount of climbing and scree fields. That was a surprise, being at elevation and having a few beers the night before, and a heavy breakfast, I was quickly pegged as there was no warmup. The ride down even was a good workout, as most of it required pedalling as it was not very steep - the 2800 foot descent was drawn out over 15 miles, so it had a lot of flat spots and even a few more small climbs. The views were fantastic, as was advertised in the guidebooks.

At the start of the ride, my rear brakes were rubbing, so Tim and I adjusted them, thinking it was a simple matter of being off center. There was a small amount of warpage. I wasn't too concerned at first, as the last two rides (Mt Margaret and Tiger Mt) they were performing great. Soon, it just went kapooey. Brake squeal started to sound more like metal on metal, and they were stinking. I was fairly certain I was about to ruin my rotor, but there was no bailout on this ride and I figured I would rather pay the fifty bucks for a new rotor than to waste a great ride. Later in the day, I pulled the brake pads out, and found the left pad had much of its metal scraped off, and the clip was missing. It looked like much of the rotor was gone.

I was wanting to do Cowiche the next day, but having no rear brake it seemed wise to just go home Sat night and go bike-part shopping the next day. It was nice to stop at the Mint along the way. The hard part was passing by Ranger Creek and not riding it. It was a fun time on Saturday for sure, but I really would have liked to start the day earlier and ride up the road to make for a more honest loop.

Clancy

Deb

Beaver Lake: Microsoft Day of Caring

60 of my colleagues and myself spend the day doing trailwork at Beaver Lake. This was my first time there. The trails were in fine condition, for MTB singletrack. The goal was to make the trails better for multi-use, including horsies and hikers. Half of my coworkers focussed on a new parking lot area, where they did a lot of landscaping. The rest of us hit the trails. Most of us doing trailwork were trimming the sticker bushes (salmon berry bushes or whatever). Despite the multi use, there was not much horse crap. Next time I would like to see a bunch of rakes, as that would have made cleaning the trail of dead organic matter a bit easier. Lunch was provided and we all got XL t-shirts. This made for a very nice day. I think we only hit about a quarter of the trails, but that is fine because the trails were really not that bad condition to begin with.

Whistler XC + DH Riding!

Ethan and I headed up North on Friday nite. Too late to buy beer for the campground, we hit the Grizzly bar in Squamish. Got into camp around 2:30 AM, so we bailed on the tents and just slept under the stars. Saturday, Ethan and I rode Kill Me Thrill Me trail just a few miles north of Whistler. Afterwards we capped it off with a few hours on Comfortably Numb as an out and back. Saturday nite was memorable :). We hit Earls bar in Whistler, very cool place and great food. We stayed at the Alpenglow, which I thought was very good accomodations especially for the low price that it was. Sunday breakfast we discovered that when you order a crepe, you get a crepe. Didn't matter, loss of appetite and this just made it easier to focus on the coffee. Once the coffee kicked in, we did too, and had a great day of downhillin at Whistler. I get a lot of comments by taking a Ellsworth Moment to the bike park, but wow, Ethan gets a lot of credit for riding the park with a 5 inch suspension. Finished the weekend up at the Longhorn before driving back to Seattle, got home super late but it was all worth the trip.

Middle Fork and Crystal Mt weekend

Clancy, Deb, Ethan, and I hit the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie, from the trailhead to Dingford creek. We spent a lot of time hanging by the river on the way back. At the end of the ride, we went for a quick swim in the river. A bit on the cold side, but totally necessary. We hooked up with Ted later for dinner and drinks at a local bar.

Sunday, Ethan, Alexi, and I rode up Crystal Mt clockwise, and then down. Afterwards, we shuttled up Corral Pass road to get another ride in for the day. We rode down Deep Creek. All I can say is, what a helluva great ride. Technical steep downhill, yet I was able to reach high speeds on it.

Tiger Tent Days

The BBTC had a tent out tonite at the Tiger parking lot, to enlist more membership. I mostly enjoyed hanging with several close friends having barbeque food and a beer. Then.... Chad and Justin decided to do a nite ride. What a great nite for it! Kind of an adventure to climb up Tiger with beer, but it was all fun. Chad and Justin encouraged me to try the big log over the gap on Preston, and I made it for the first time at nite! Finished the ride around 10 pm.

Lima, day 2

After a long flight, I slept in at a hotel in Mira Flores. The rest of the crew, Miguel Glenn Kevin and Kim, arrived in the morning and needed to rest as well. Early afternoon we hooked up and went for a walk in Lima and ended up at a quaint restaurant. Super cheap food, and it included beer as part of the lunch order! Gotta love that.

Later, we went to the DoubleTree El Pardo hotel and tapped into my rum. Everybody in a happy mood.

Still early, we went for a walk down to the seafront in Lima. Cool area, we went to a bluff overlooking some surfers.

Lima, Peru!

I arrived in Lima Peru late at nite. Miguel and friends were supposed to have met me at the airport, supposedly arriving an hour before me. After waiting an hour and a half, it was evident they were not there. So I called customer service, paged Miguel. Some asshole taxi driver pretended to know Miguel and said they were at the hotel and had already paid for my taxi to the hotel. One helluva expensive taxi ride, but I arrived at the Hotel El Ejecutivo in Mira Flores, which actually was a nice part of Lima. Got a good nites rest and breakfast at the hotel was nice, but simple. People at the hotel were really nice, and there was free internet. I was able to email Miguel who confirmed that they were stuck in Miami and so we will meet up the next day.

At least I was clever enough to buy a really good bottle of Rum, that was essential for the festivities the next day...

Crystal Mt Loop 3600 ft elevation gain

Crystal Mt Loop

3600 ft elevation gain. Paul Smith, Glenn Rogers, and myself rode the Crystal Mt loop, counterclockwise. Reference: http://www.nwsource.com/outdoors/scr/of_detail.cfm?category=Biking&rt=41219 except in reverse of his directions. No snow on the climb. Lots of snow on the descent. Recommendation: do it clockwise to the top, then return the same way. I would wait at least 2 weeks before sending anybody down the way we did. The descent had lots of snow and navigation challenges just finding the trail, and even then it may be iffy.

The hikers we ran into were very friendly and spent time with us discussing routes and showing us a map. I'm sure we would have found our way out, but it was nice of them.

Currently, Crystal CCW to top and back would be fun. Doing CW or doing as a loop is strongly discouraged until the snow melts.

Mission Ridge and Chikamin

I met up with Clancy, Deb, and Brian at a campsite in Leavenworth. Two nights of camping under the stars, no tent, just open sky and a beautiful starry night.

Saturday we shuttled Mission Ridge. Very fun singletrack, a few climbs, just enough to keep us somewhat honest. After doing Mission Ridge, I don't know if I'll ever go back to the neighboring trail, Devils Gulch, this is much better. A swim in the river in Cashmere was all we needed to get clean and cool off. Later, dinner at Visconti's Italian Ristorante in Leavenworth was very good, I'll never go back to Gustav's.

Sunday, we shuttled again! At the top of the road to Chikamin Ridge, midway up Chikamin Tie, I realized I locked my bike to Brian's car and left the key in my car at the bottom of the trail. Doh! So, I gave everybody almost an hour head start as I drove down to retrieve my keys. I went into hyperdrive to catch them, which made for a thrill ride, as Chikamin Tie is very fast to begin with. Halfway down Minnow Ridge I caught up with the group. Still pumped, I cruised along and passed two other groups before doubling back up Minnow Ridge to ride with my friends. We continued down Lower Chiwawa. There was a creek crossing almost up to our knees, rather unavoidable as the bridge seems to have washed out years ago. Finished at Alder Creek Trailhead. The day was perfect to hit Lake Wenatchee for a swim afterwards and drink some hard Lime.

Ranger Creek 4100 feet Elevation gain

I rode up Ranger Creek today, up the trail, not via Corral Pass. Notes below are reverse from Zillys Kissing the Trail ride 48 guidebook. Ranger Creek is snow free till the shelter, as well as the intersection higher up. This is the intersection from Ranger Ck trail 1197 with Dalles Ridge trail 1173, reference guidebook, mile marker 9.4. Although I rode along the ridge a ways past that intersection, I did not see snow. A group of bikers had come from Corral Pass and hiked over a mile thru snow sometimes as much as 3 feet deep, largest section around a half mile, as I heard (I was riding solo, so not confirming their part of their report). They said you could ride about 1.5 miles past the intersection mentioned above before hitting snow.

My ride had an hour thru White River trail before heading up Ranger, about 45 minutes of riding along the ridge mentioned above (great views in both directions along the ridge), and the climb. As I was descending I ran into another biker so I headed up again as it seemed a bit safer to ride with someone as it was getting late. With all that, I was a lot more tired at the end of the day than expected. The trail is not crazy steep, but it climbs consistently for a long time.

Just to bring us to reality, myself and the other guy were two solo riders who hooked up near the top, and the unknown rider who joined me got all bloodied up from an endo. Just a flesh wound, he'll be fine. I love solo riding, especially for big climbs, but maybe it would be wise to start earlier (did not start till 12:30) so that in the event of having to hike out, there would be sufficient time.

A chainsaw would come in handy for a few blowdowns, but nothing to complain about.

I take issue with the guidebook rating this trail as expert level. Sure it takes a lot of energy, but this is far from expert level.

If you are OK with having to stop due to snow, or willing to hike thru a lot of snow, this ride is for you. Very fun day, a lot of singletrack mileage despite snow at the top. Reached very high speeds in big ring on the descent, woo hoo!

The picture is from the top of Ranger creek if you take a left on the trail to 1173, most people will want to take a right to continue on to Noble Knob.

Link to http://www.nwsource.com/outdoors/scr/of_detail.cfm?category=Biking&rt=41218 for guide book reference, but this is for sissies who climb up the road. It really is best to climb up the trail.