Saturday, November 25, 2006

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!

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