I've been working on connecting the dots to form a big loop
near town for a couple of years. I now have something that
works, but is definitely a pretty big ride. I had a rare
chance on Saturday to get out for as long as I wanted. I had
some honey-do's, but figured I could just do them
afterwards. The weather was looking great and my window of
opportunity had arrived. My wife and kid were going to be
gone until abut 8:00 pm and it was only 10:00 am, and I
really needed to get out into it. I didn't call anyone. This
is one of those rides that isn't suitable for a lot of
people and I didn't want to deal with the overhead of
keeping track of another rider or negotiating time. So I
just grabbed the Epic (would be needing gears today, and
suspension wouldn't hurt either)
I also have a loaner GPS I have from a coworker. It's a very
basic Garmin eTrex but I've been having fun figuring out
what to do with it. I turned it on and put it in the mesh
pocked of my CamelBak and set out.
The ride starts like many I do, climbing the ridge to Signal
Peak. It's a fairly constant two track ascent up a ridge.
There are moments of flat or DH to catch your breath, but
for the most part it climbs 850 Ft. or so in under five
Miles. Then, just before the peak there's a very steep
straight shot that must be climbed in the granny gear. This
takes the vertical at this point to about 1000 Ft. with the
hardest push right at the summit. This last stretch always
hurts, and I've not even come close to riding it on the SS.
Then some nice rolling flat (ish) singletrack before a
descent into the next valley. This climbing and descending
cycle repeats several times. There's quite a lot of
singletrack, but it can be a little rough at times. I
snapped a couple of photos out on the far side of the loop,
looking back toward Signal Peak. This is an angle most
people don't ever see it from (the other side is visible
from town). This is at about the highest point in the ride,
9,434 Ft according to the map I made.
From this shot, I was going to return along the mesa to the
left in this photo and descent through the wooded section to
Signal Peak again. But after dropping into and climbing out
of the valley between me and the mesa. mattb.net-mattb.net-Open ↗
/images/routes/signal%20big%20loop/signal%20mesa%20vista.jpg
Here's an example of some of the trail I was following.
Designed by cows, which meant it would sometimes split into
many trails. I had to backtrack a couple of times to get
back on the main artery when I'd end up on a dead-end. http-
://www.mattb.net/images/routes/signal%20big%20loop/notexact-
lybuff.jpg
At the beginning of the final big jeep road climb I run into
a couple of guys I know. It's strange to see other people
out here and I rarely do. We exchange hellos and what routes
we're taking (one guy responded with "Wow, goin' epic!" to a
description of my route).
Shortly after embarking on the last big climb I ran out of
water. I was probably an hour away from home but on the way
back. Even though a couple of livestock tanks almost looked
tempting, I figured a little dehydration would be better
than whatever I might pick up from such a water source
(didn't bring my filter). I just tried to think about things
other than being thirsty which can be hard when you're
really thirsty!
Eventually, I rounded the bend to at Signal Peak and got
back on to some more established trail. It's such a nice
spot I had to take one more photo. That's the Anthracites
and Carbon Peak in the distance from the north side of
Signal Peak. mattb.netsignal%20biOpen ↗
g%20loop/signal%20trail.jpg
Finally I made the final descent down the Chicken Gulch
singletrack and spun back home on the highway, totally beat
and dehydrated. I still had a couple of hours to get my
chores done, but it was going to be hard being so spent. Oh,
well. This is the price I pay for my lifestyle!
Last night I finally got around to trying to map this stuff.
I had figured it was about 30 Miles and 3k Ft. worth of
climbing. I was a little off and it turned out to be just
under 27 Miles and 4,169 Ft. of climbing. It took about five
hours, two cliff bars, and 90 Oz. of water (a little more
would have been better). I'm not too concerned about this
getting crowded so I'm going to share the map. Come on out
and ride it if you dare! The map: mattb.netimagOpen ↗
es/routes/signal%20big%20loop/signal%20big%20loop%20map.jpg
Elevation profile: mattb.netsignaOpen ↗
l%20big%20loop/signal%20big%20loop%20profile.jpg
Matt