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.