Wind. AGAIN! That’s it. We don’t care. We need – NEED – to ride.
We’re going to drive to the visitor’s center, because the wind would be brutal on the road there, as it was when we rode the other day. The VC is kind of protected, as are the roads leading from there to the trailhead. We’re riding!
Well, protection or not, it was still pretty brutal. Winds are BAD. Still 25 to 35, with gusts of 40 to 45, but we don’t care – we HAVE to ride, otherwise, what’s the point of the trip?
We head up to a trail that will lead us to Elliot Barker Trail. We’re going to go out Ho Chi Minh, until it meets up with Elliott Barker, then we’ll take EB around the mountain, and come back via Whoop De Doos, which parallels HCM. It was a hard ride up the road to the trailhead – even with trees on both sides, the wind whipped into us headlong. Ugh. We slugged the mile and a half to the top, where the trailhead was:
This goes downhill, even though it’s hard to tell. Right beside the trail were leftovers from logging:
Don’t know why they put the branches in piles – doesn’t make sense. Extra labor, for what? I’m sure there’s a reason – anybody figure it out, please let me know!
About a quarter mile down, we caught HCM, to the left, and immediately started to climb. It was rough, with the altitude and us out of shape, but we slugged on. I stopped to wait for The Bear (and to catch my breath, don’t think otherwise!) every hundred yards or so. There were a lot of dirt piles we had to ride over – water breaks, I’m guessing, and that made the going harder. Don;t know where they got the name for this part of the trail, ’cause there was no jungle. Anyway, on about the third or fourth stop up the hill, I heard some noise ahead, thought maybe a rider coming at us. Then I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye up ahead, and more, louder noises, of brush being trampled and broken, and then I saw a glimpse of a large animal, tan in color, moving left to right, about 150 feet ahead. I’m going with Elk, or very big deer. I hold fast it was NOT a very blond bear. Anyway, no more animals to startle us for the rest of the ride, but I did start calling out a lot, making noise. This track was on our trail near where the noise happened (yes, old track from when muddy, but still, probably same animal), with The Bear’s shadow for a size reference:
We did get a glimpse of our campground from the trail:
About half way through our ride, we came upon a little pond:
And just beyond it, looking back:
If we had turned right here, we would have gone up this:
But that was a shortcut, and VERY steep, neither of which we wanted to do, so we kept going.
The return was easier than the outbound leg, because outbound we climbed for most of the five miles, with a half-mile downhill to the half-way point. But on the return, on Whoop De Doos – I want my money back! We should have taken Ho Chi Minh – at least there the water breaks made for whoop de doos, on WDD, maybe if you were on a snowmobile doing 40 mph would they feel that way, as it was, it was a lot of gentle (and some not-so-gentle) climbs and descents. The descents not really long or steep enough to enjoy, and the climbs hard enough to be annoying, but thankfully not overly hard, except maybe one or two.
On the return, I decided to take Deer Trail back, instead of the road, because I knew it was all down hill (as was the road, to be sure, but trails are ALWAYS more fun than roads), and we made it back t the truck. Eleven miles, with 3,000 feet of climbing. We’re pooped!
Tomorrow – Durango, Colorado!