Walker Ranch Loop

Called new mountain biking friends last night to see if they wanted to go riding and they said they were going to Wyoming to ride and asked me to go along. It was going to be so much fun, but turns out they didn't have any room for me and I would have had to drive by myself in my own car and I need an oil change as it is so I wasn't able to go :-(.

I decided to sleep in until around 8:30 and then go for a ride at the Walker Ranch Loop. Got a little lost along the way, but eventually made it. Take Baseline west right past Chautauqua Park and up into the mountains. You'll eventually get to the top and reach a clearing; it's on the left. You'll see the sign.

The next two pictures are the views from the parking lot.





The first mile was a downhill section over which you drop 600 feet in elevation. Nothing too special or all that technical. It's all double track at this point and while the book says it's technicality is 4 (of 5) I don't remember anything too hard. There were a couple of rocky sections but nothing too hard.

These three photos were not even .5 miles into the trail. Beautiful landscape along the double track running throughout and along the South Boulder Creek and a couple of small streams running across the trail.





According to the book it's right at the 1 mile marker that you cross the South Boulder Creek (you WILL get wet) and then ride alongside the creek as it runs on your left. It's still double track at this point and nothing technical yet here either. You have however started climbing and won't stop before you climb before you ride 700 feet in two miles.




Since the trail is a multi-use trail and many climbers use it as well as bikers there were several break places like this off of the trail. It'd be nice to have a picnic next to the Creek.



After breaking away from the creek it gets...thigh-burning fun. It stays double track until the 7,200 feet mark; 500 feet after the ascent began. It wasn't very much fun to say the least. Most of the trail was rutty, rocky, and short steep sections. It was killing me. It was hard for me to stay on the bike at this point; most of it was un-rideable (to me). Every time I got to what I was the thought was the top of the trail it just turned the corner and kept going upward. I've never been more exhausted riding a bike than on this trail. Here are some pictures from the seemingly endless ascent to the top. Some are from the bottom looking up while others are at the top of sections looking down (obviously).

I'm supposed to ride up this? Right.







Once I reached the top I was pooped to say the least and I knew that while I had a nice downhill section I still had another uphill section back to the parking lot left. You know you reach the top when you come out of the woods and into a clearing. This will begin the descent of 1000 feet in 2 miles. Almost the whole descent is single track (only the last ~.2 miles is double track). The first mile or so of the descent was nothing too technical. A few rocks in the trail, but nothing overwhelming. Here are some pictures of the trail at that point.








After you reach the bottom (you'll know when you get there) you will then have to be very very very very very careful as you descend down a set of steps that takes you to South Boulder Creek. There is no way to ride down so don't even think about it; I don't know why you would. Just walking down carrying my bike it was a little intimidating. Here are some pictures of the steps down and then the creek itself.










After crossing a bridge at the bottom the double track climbing begins again. Some sections were easier than others especially at the beginning, but the farther up the hill you went the rocky the sections became. Definitely shift down as far as possible and keep cranking or expect to have to get off and start walking your bike up. And walking doesn't really make anything any easier. Here are some pictures from the bottom looking up and top looking down. It was definitely something that killed my legs. Probably all uphill for about a mile and then began a series of uphills and downhills; emphasis on the uphills though as they were longer than the sections of downhills that lead to the uphills. All of these pictures are what I climbed or will climb taken from the bottom.



This is the point in the trail where I took a wrong turn; actually I didn't turn when I needed to. Before you get to this point after climbing this ridiculously long and rutty hill...
I needed to turn left when I saw this sign, but I never saw it and rode right past it. As you begin climbing the before section turn left at this sign...


I should have just ridden the road back to the parking lot because I thought the climbing was done and over with at this point, but I couldn't have been more wrong. It's a very tight section of singletrack. The book says "it's no sin to walk this stretch." Oh, thank God, because I must have walked most of it. There was more climbing and it was like the first section of the trail with rocks and ruts spread throughout. I was dead. I just wanted to be done with the trail at this point. I had nothing left in me. I wanted to keep going because it was a good workout, but I had a hard time focusing and thus a hard time picking a good line and staying on it. Here are pics of the ascent.



iiiiii was really tired.

climbed/walked (mostly walked) up this too

stupid lens was half-closed


After reaching the top it was fairly easy squeezy. It was all riding out in the open with one short steep climb and then a fun winding and technical semi-descent of .6 miles back to the trailhead. Here are the ending photos of the scenery at the top.



ride up this to start the hilly/rocky section








that last one was one section of rocky downhill that was toward the end. Overall I thought it was a fun trail but definitely one of the hardest rides I've ever done. It wasn't as spread out like the other trails are. It's all about the short steep strenuous sections and that killed me. Hope all of this is paying off to keep me in shape. No riding next week as I will be in D.C. with Invisible Children. Check out www.howitends.tv to see exactly what I'll be doing. I just might be changing the world.

Hall Valley Ranch

Sorry it's been so long since I've last updated but the weather here on my off days hasn't been conducive to mountain bike riding. It's either rained hard the days before or the days of my days off work so I haven't been able to actually go for a ride. Then I saw that today was going to be stormy as well and I thought my weekend was shot with chances of riding.

I woke up early enough I thought I could miss the storms ( I never looked at what time they'd begin I just thought I'd give it a shot); turns out I was right. It was gorgeous this morning and I decided to check out another somewhat close trail at the Hall Valley Ranch in nearby Lyons. From the look of the book I talked about in the previous post, this was going to be a much harder trail than previous one at Heil Valley Ranch.

Of course once I got there I realized while I took my camera I forgot to put the memory card back in it so again...no pictures and that's a real shame because this trail lent itself to better pictures than the other trail.

I entered the trailhead parking lot from Highway 7 in Lyons. Short ride up to the beginning of the trail and another short little run until you hit anything technical. But once you hit the technical section boy is it technical. The first two miles are the most technical of the whole trail. I don't think I've ever ridden anything as rocky as this. It wasn't just riding up trails with rocks in the way but riding over the massive boulders that were actually a part of the hillside. These weren't just normal big freakin' stones but actually part of the mountain. Also mixed in were smaller rocks and some tree roots. While this section was really cool because you could see the wearing down of the rocks and what paths bikers had chosen through/over those rocks, this was by far the most difficult stretch of trail I've ever ridden. It was so difficult/I'm not an experienced enough rider that I couldn't ride up most of it and found myself walking my bike up these sections more often than riding.

It wasn't as if it was like this for the whole two (it's more like 1.3, once you get past the beginning section) mile section up but it seemed like it. It was probably more like a tight rocky section and then less rocky dirt section leading to yet another ridiculously rocky section. I wish I had photos.

At the 2 mile marker it already felt like I had ridden the whole 10 mile trail. Beautiful view from the bench at the 2 mile marker. At this point of the ride I already climbed ~500 ft. The next ~3 miles were A LOT easier but gained another 700 ft. of elevation. There were still some rocky sections but nothing even close to what it was in the previous section. Actually there weren't many but it was still a tough climb.

After ~2 miles I came to another trailhead were I could have gone left or right. Luckily other people were there resting and they suggested I go left. I climbed a bit more then dropped down into an open field where the Homestead Loop began and rode back up a little bit to another bench which apparently marked the middle point of the trail topping out at 6,800 ft. (I started in the parking lot at just under 5,600 ft. I asked a guy resting at the top if this was the spot where the shuttle takes us back to the bottom. I was so freaking beat after riding up, but the ride down was worth it yet again.

What a descent. Finished out the Homestead Loop by flying down 400+ ft. in ~1 mile. Didn't have to do much pedaling and even when it seemed like I wasn't descending anymore I was picking up speed. Then rode down some more to the trail that lead to the rocky section from the beginning. There's a short steep climb to that bench/open meadow area and then the real fun began. You get to ride back down the ridiculously rocky section that you rode up before. I'm not used to that kind of riding. I rode some of them successfully and otheres not so much. You have to have enough speed to roll through the rock piles/gardens because if you don't your front tire will get hung up on a rock and you will endo; obviously something you don't want. I came pretty close to endo-ing a couple of times on the rocks but never did. There were some sections I wasn't willing to try to ride through and walked it, but it was a fun technical section. It was something I've never really tried before because I've been too scared and I've never had the opportunity to. I was pretty proud of riding through some of the sections but overall I'd like to try the trail a couple of more times after I've had some more experience with those types of trails.

I just got out of the rocky section thinking about how happy I was I didn't biff and what happens...I'm hauling it down a smooth section about to come to a rock garden/climb and head to the main trail back to the parking lot and I stopped concentrating and my front tire spun out and I went over the handlebars. Luckily there weren't any rocks around but I had been sore from a work out class earlier in the week so that didn't help my arm muscles. I scraped up my legs and my back, but it really wasn't too bad. I took my time getting up and back on the trail, but when I did it was about ~1 mile left and nothing too bad as I rode through smaller rocky sections back to the parking lot.

Overall I really liked the trail even though the 1-2.1 mile range was ridiculously difficult to ride; at least for me. The trail started to get really busy later in the morning full of bikers and hikers alike. People need to be careful obviously. It also started to rain right before I got to the parking lot so it was perfect timing.