Capital Forest - Greenline #6: Near Olympia, WA

Today my Big Brother Stu and I took turns shuttling/riding Greenline #6 in Capital Forest just outside of Olympia, WA. We drove up C-line and then tied into C-4000, and this lead us near the towers. I did the first run down Greenline #6, and it was sweet. The 20 minute decent took me down some primo-swopey-fast-tacky single track. The trails were in excellent shape. I really dug the berms on the switchbacks. I met back up with Stu where Greenline #6 spits out onto C-Line. It was so fun I had to do it twice.

I've ridden this trail a few times long ago on a full rigid Klein Attitude, but today I was riding Stu's Kona Stinky Dee-lux. This bike doesn't pedal, but man can it go downhill good. This was most fun I've had on a bike in long time, and I had some awesome rides lately.

Here's a vid of the day:

Click to play

A high res Quick-time version can be found here: Capital Forest - Greenline #6

6/26/09 Camp Muir - Mount Rainier: Washington

A visit to the northwest wouldn't be complete without a little skiing, and luckily have pair of skis here. What I was missing where poles, so I had to come up with set and I was relegated to buying some treking poles from Walmart in Yelm. Crickees they sucked, but I was able to get couple strips of duct tape from the ranger and that helped out. Since I was traveling solo today, I kept my plans pretty conservative, so I opted to follow the hoards of summit climbers up to Camp Muir (10,188 vf). Nothing technical about this hike up or ski down, just kind of a slog up.

I had gray skies for my drive from Olympia to Paradise, and the fog was really soupy in the parking lot. The parking lot at Paradise sits at about 5,400 vf, and I broke through the cloud layer around 6,500 vf. I split from the car about 8:45, and took my time getting up to Camp Muir. My walk up took 4 hours, but I swear I've done this in around 2.5 hours back in the day. There was snow right from Paradise, with only a few patches of rocks to cross over at Panorama Point and Pebble Creek.

It was a perfect day up there, sunny skies above the cloud layer, no wind, and not cold. I had my skins, but I just opted to walk up in my tennis shoes.

I pretty much skied down the Muir Snowfield the way I had come up, but when I got back to Pebble Creek, I headed towards the Paradise Glacier and strung together the strips of snow back to the parking lot.


The entrance fee into Mount Rainier National Park was $15.

Here's a vid of the day:

Click to play

A high-res quicktime version can be found here: Camp Muir 6/26/09

Hope Island - South Puget Sound: Olympia, WA

I rented a kayak today from Boston Harbor Marina (South Puget Sound - near Olympia, WA) for little paddle around Hope Island. The $30 fee got me a Eddyline Fathom, and it was actually very, very good kayak.

I took off on my paddle at about 8:45 from Boston Harbor Marina. The skies were a little gray, but the water was calm. Due to a new moon, the tides during this week were pretty big. The expected low tide was supposed to be -4.1 feet at 1:43, and this was going to be one lowest tides of the year. With big tides come big currents, and the area I was paddling already has sections where the currents are strong.

My route was simple and took about 4 hours. I paddled from Boston Harbor around Hope Island and back.

I saw loads of bald eagles around Hope Island, so that was pretty kewl.

Here's a vid of the day:

Click to play

A high res quick time version can be found here: Hope Island Paddle

Helipad Time Trial - South Mountain: Phoenix, AZ

The 'helipad trail' is a popular offshoot trail of Desert Classic at South Mountain, and a time trial has been set up to track how fast people are riding the last .8 of a mile section to the pad. Mike, the creator of the MTBikeAZ
set up the 'Helipad Time Trial' site.

There are some impressive times being put up. I've ridden down the Helipad prolly about 100 times, but I've pedaled up it less that dozen times. I usually go up the 'Goat Trail', because I like doing it as a loop. On 6/9/09 I road up it with Dave, Elno, and Kort and logged at time of 8:15. This is less than an impressive time, and considering how haggard I was a little slower than I know I can do. I was seriously hurting afterwords, and my lungs were bleeding for days afterwords. Of course it was about 95 degrees and really, really humid. I did it again for the video below, and logged a time of 8:20, but the surprising thing is that I dialed it back a notch, so I would have some steady footage. Heck, I didn't even break a sweat or increase my heart rate, so I know my next real attempt will be much, much better. I don't care who you are, putting out so much exertion that you get anaerobic and hitting maximum heart rate is really painful.

Anycow, here's a short vid of the Helipad Time Trial:

Click to play

May 22, 2009 Time: 6:54.

Double Bypass (short version) McDowell Mountains - Scottsdale, AZ

I posted up a last minute Double Bypass ride over on MTBR, and a four others (dirthead, DrHog, and Mr. & Mrs. dtownmtb)decided to join in on the sufferfest. Actually it was all good. The temps were really mild, and the climbing wasn't that bad, considering this was day 7 in the saddle.

We met up at Bell and 104th parking lot at, and promptly started the ride at 6:30 am.

We road up Gateway to Windgate Pass, bombed down the eastside of Windgate to Coachwhip, then tied into Dixie Mine, climbed back up Prospector to Bell Pass, and the screamed down Bell back home.

The 13.3 mile ride took about 3 hours, and had 2,200 vf of climbing.

Other than a couple of flats we had no mechanicals, but Mrs. dtownmtb bobbled on the first climb and ended up with rather gruesome goose-egg on her shim. And Mr. dtownmtb bit it pretty good on the way down Bell. I didn't witness it, but he had a few good scraps on him.

It was just a great day on the trail, and a great group to ride with.

Here's a vid of the day:

Click to play

A high-res quicktime version can be found here: Double Bypass 06/06/09