| prev | contents | next |
Bootleg Canyon XC Plus
*sigh*
Now that was a tasty, tasty ride.
In case you didn't notice, I went back to Bootleg, and this time got a nice early start. I figured I could wrangle a couple hours of the XC trails that I missed, and then hit some the easier DH stuff.
I did in fact manage to hit *most* of the rest of the published XC stuff - I missed the frontside stuff near the parking area, and did managed to hit a teensy bit of the DH stuff 'n stunts but not much, I was running out of light and I did not think that doing that stuff with a headlamp would be a great idea.
But a very satisfying day.
Again I'll say it: Nice, nice network. Something for most everybody, with caveats.
To get the most out of these trails, you really need to believe in the traction of your tires. There's almost Slickrockian moments to be had. Thankfully, I've pretty much got a good stock of this and today all the weetle obstacles that threw me yesterday I nailed, plus a bunch more that I had not encountered yet - being that it was my first time on the trail.
Part of the improvement was the weather - the wind was calmer so I was less cold - part of it was my increased familiarty with the flavor of the trails - and part of it was just me being less conservative (sorry Maria) on these sections. They're really no more difficult than stuff we roll all the time around Austin, it's just that the "check" that will be "cashed" in the event of an involuntary dismount is a bit larger.
Today, my route looked a bit like this...
- Started up the road and then up Girl Scout, BUT jumped across the road when I saw the chance and... - Up East Leg (much more challenging than Girl Scout, but all doable, I didn't clean one or two places but who cares?) - Up Boy Scout - Up to the Lake Mead overlook (walked up it, being a nice boy, listening to the signage) - Down Boy Scout, just haulin' (stupid fun) - Caldera outer loop counter-clockwise - Caldera inner loop clockwise - Down East Leg, just haulin' (stupid fun), all the way to the lot. Slow n careful at *that* section though. Spooky-bad payout if you biff for a few feet. - Refreshments - Back up Girl Scount, diligent pace, single pull, almost no granny gear use...almost - Back down West Leg, haulin' (stupid fun), all the way to the connection with I.M.B.A. trail - Haul across to Par None - Down Par None, haulin' (stupid fun) - Up P.O.W. (*not* haulin', lots of granny gear time, getting tired) - Across I.M.B.A. to the lot, haulin' for the most part (yeah, stupid fun, tired of that yet?) - Some general pharting around the obstacles and stuff near the parking area.
(continued...)
There was some obvious non-biker trail "work" on P.O.W. that looked pretty iffy to me, potentially dangerous, placing of rocks in bad places during what are obviously meant to be high-speed areas. If Hikers are doing this to slow people down, it's a bad, bad, BAD, idea.
The TTFs (technical trail features) near the lot are lots of fun, what I used. There was a "huge" wooden ramp that I at first took to be a teeter, and boy would it have been bad if I'd tried it. I'm very sure I'm not up for a 6' drop off the end. :D
I would like to warn people though, readers that have not ridden Bootleg yet, that while the front trails that are marked green (POW, IMBA, Par None and I include Girl Scout in this) are so very all-rider accessible with very few real technical features, the other green trail that I rode (Caldera) has some good solid intermediate moves and sections that represent significant walking for the novice-ish riders. Much of Caldera will be fine, but expect the walking - mostly on the steeper hillsides.
Now, I could run probably five or six laps of going up various trails (Girl Scout, East Leg, West Leg, heck even the road) just to bomb down the varisou Legs - they are that much fun. I meant to bomb Girl Scout, but decided against it as there seemed to be a steady trickle of people cruising up it and I'd hate to surprise someone on a blind turn with me coming downhill at 15 mph (or more).
The 2x track that I saw up next to East Leg looked "neat" and was temping, but I was on a mission to ride so didn't divert.
Sadly, I didn't get it all done. I never really touched the trails of the Lake View pair so I've no idea what they're like, nor for the most part the DH stuff.
Ah well, is it a Vegas "thing" to always leave them wanting more? Works for me.
Ride Info: ~20 miles, 3600ft of climbing, 5:01 elapsed time.
The GPS tracklog is available in both GPS Exchange and Google Earth KML formats.
So, guess where I went today.
It should not be hard.
The direction I'm going
Up. Up. Up. Note that you can't actually get to that place, it's gated.
And this is an example of the Kenda Stick-E rubber in action.
This was not a construed example, this rock stayed here completely AFTER passing through and knocking on the fork arch. Seriously.
Bummer, no biking to the top of The View
Ah well, the maps says it's a go, so f'em ..
Seriously about the above: I walked all the way to the lookout, I was a good Bear.
View of the River Mountains hiking trail
As it goes down and eventually back around to the parking area.
Looks a lot like a good ride to me.
Finally at the top, a shot for the "epic" list in MTBR Passion?
And a Bike Dork with his Bike
Rollers in the Caldera trail, look like fun to you?
It sure did to me, and I was right. Some of them got pretty steep but it was really cool.
Back at the lot off the tail of East Leg, if you roll up to this...
... expect this
It's hard to see in the photo, I should have gotten down the hill and to the side, but it's a pretty good sized gap-jump. Probably 20-ish feet forward and 15-20 feet vertical drop to the landing lip.
Guess which trail this is near?
Yeah, right, P.O.W. I liked the butterfly too.
*sigh* two good days of riding BC at an end
Well done town of Bootleg Canyon and your trail builders, well done.
Tomorrow, I am off bright and early to Phoenix.
Gotta get in, get settled at a friend's place, and go find a bike shop for some SoMo info since the gent who was going to be leading a ride there Friday flaked out and went skiing instead. I can't blame him, having sampled Powder at this point.
| prev | contents | next |