Little Pine Mt

On Saturday I did a nice mountain bike ride to a place called Little Pine Mountain. It was a grueling two and a half hour climb up a fire-road. This is the same ride I did last Memorial Day, and I crashed (HARD) which is rather rare for me. I've been jonesing to get back there and give it another go, and the opportunity was here so I took it.

I didn't wreck  thankfully, though it was QUITE WINDY as it has been for seemingly ages here. But it wasn't too cold back in the canyons, I didn't hit the big winds until I climbed up high. I saw a few mt bikers early on and that was it. This area is off limits to the usual myriads of off-road vehicles that usually populate it due to the water level at the crossing still being too high for vehicles. I crossed that at the very beginning carrying my bike and shoes/socks. It's down to about 14 inches or so now, but will still be closed a few more weeks until it gets down to about 8 inches I was told. After the crossing it's a short road-ride to the upper campground which was completely uninhabited right now, which is quite a sight for Memorial Day Weekend. It was SO quiet, it seemed like I was on another planet.

From the very start the road goes up up up.

At 11 miles is the turnoff for the Little Pine peak, and is also the connector trail that crosses over to the Santa Cruz trail. I passed this point and rode up for another 3 miles until I was fairly close to where my crash happened last year.

My turnaround point at the far right going around the point

 

The views back here are stunning, it's just SO remote. And things are still somewhat green due to all our rains and the near lack of any hot weather to date this year. AND, as an added bonus, the fireroad is in great shape due to the fact that the quads and dirt bikes haven't been allowed here all year. Any other time I'd be constantly greeted by the roaring sound of the quads and dirt bikes doing what they do best: roosting the road, shooting up plumes of dirt and dust with a simple twist of their wrist cracking open the throttles on their exhaust spewing noise machines. If you get the notion that I don't care for them, you are right. They devastate the trails and pollute the environment something fierce. Also they scare any wildlife away to the next county. But we must share the trails, and I support their right to choose their method of fun.

After I took the connector trail to the Santa Cruz trail I realized this piece of singletrack was a definite black-diamond piece of riding. I'm not averse to technical riding, actually I LOVE this kind of stuff....but this was technical AND scary, especially in the first mile.

Coming over the top of Little Pine headed for the Santa Cruz trail, looking down to the start of the ride.

The trail works it's way along the side of a very steep mountain (the one I just came around and over) and it's very narrow and quite overgrown at this time.

This is a NOT scary section. You can see the trail ahead on the ridge, and soon after that it starts to switchback down the face and it gets quite uhm, er, cheek-clenching fun.

It's the kind of trail that if I were to make a single mistake and my front wheel were to go off the trail, it would result in a long and horrible tumble down the mountain. In fact, it would most likely require a helicopter rescue to get someone out of here if you were hurt. I don't see any other way they could get to you and get you out. The basic premise here is DON'T CRASH.

The trail was a bit wider here, but the penalty for a mistake would be very high.

  I took lots of pictures but they just don't do justice to the scary-factor of this section, but they do show the beauty of Santa Barbara County back-country.

I just love this panorama. I need to go camping back here someday.

The scary factor doesn't stop the mt bikers...in fact, maybe because of it's difficulty they are drawn here...both groups I came across today were going to come down this very trail. I'd surely never bring someone on this trail that wasn't a very good mt biker.

Looking back up at the mountain I came over (the peak left of center). The ridge trail goes down to the left  edge of the picture, and then works it's way down/across this entire ridge to the right. AWESOME!

By the time I got back to my car it ended up being four and a half hours of actual pedal time, almost five and a half hours elapsed time as I stopped to take a lot of pictures and also chat with the other mt bikers en-route. It was a great day and I didn't crash....thus wiping the slate clean on this trail. I believe that makes us even.

And so. Memorial day is upon us. I had hoped to go for another ride today but elected to have lunch with Jeannie and her friends, and also do some 'clothes' shopping (ACK!) That my friends is the topic of my NEXT post, I won't go any further here. Have a WONDERFUL DAY!