bring snow, wind, rain and sun.
Well as usual no body showed but me but that's ok. First ride of the year at Beacon. I love the
windy 2 mile climb up, it's a great warm-up but today I'm kind of slow and low energy. The burn last
year is invisible as everything is spouting green.
The weather is definitely "variable" AS I leave the house snowflakes as big as feathers were flying
around. Then a slight sprinkle, then the sun came out. The ride was one of those where every time
you took a layer off the wind came up and every time you put it back on the sun came out.
Someone's been doing some well intentioned but strange trail work... looks like they took a Pulaski
to all the low places where pools collect so that they drain off to the side... not sure it's IMBA
approved technique, but then this area is kind of a no-man's land for who owns it and who uses it.
Also someone's cut some new trails to circumvent some of the fall line runs. Again, well
intentioned.
What I do love about this area is that is has so much granite so there are small and large ledges,
hump and bumps in the trail and things to play on. I drop off the face of a boulder that I watched
CutiePie all last season... all by myself, that was easy! There's a really sweet right twist area
that has switchbacks (very tight U's) that cause me a lot of grief. After four tries, I get two out
of three. Progress.
I didn't go as far as I usually do. I got kind of lonely and burned out so I bailed. Back out the
way I climbed... which means two miles of excellent banked corners through the forest.
For you DH's out there. if you go to www.ridemonkey.com PNW forum there are lots of photos there of
the DH course for the Beacon Bomber,. and the stuff that they play on.
Penny