February 23, 2014

Saturday was an excellent day for a trail ride and that’s just what I decided to do. I met up with Carol Ann and we went out to Bear Trap Rd and did my favorite loop.

After all the snow and rain we have had, Carol Ann and I were concerned about parking and the trail condition so we though this location would serve well. The drive in is in a paved road, and Parking is on the shoulder. And there are miles and miles of fire road so if the trails were too wet we could just stay on the roads. After all, we wouldn’t want to tear the trails up if they were slippery.

But the fire road was in great condition and the trails were perfect. There were a few snow drifts on the mountain ridge and a few minor snow patches on shaded areas of the road, but otherwise it wasn’t even muddy.

Just a brief recap, this is my favorite loop. It consists of a mile ride in on the fire road, then breaking off onto a trail that follows an old, no longer marked or cleared, fire road. I was told by forest services it is a former logging road. It is marked on the map and does have a well trod trail going up it but is otherwise unmarked. It climbs up the mountain side for about a mile, eventually getting very steep, and pops out on the ridge top of the mountain. This is also an unmarked trail, that is rather well maintained.

This trail eventually comes out onto another fire road, but to continue the loop, users must turn onto another trail almost immediately. Blazed yellow this trail wraps back down and onto the original fire road, where some good ground covering gates can be worked before popping back out at Bear Trap Road.

This time I remembered to start my trail tracking app, Map My Trail. This is an awesome app I have been using for a while, although I frequently forget to use it when I go trail riding.

The loop measures 7.3 miles and took us 2 hours. Very cool.