http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BzU1sYPjzo
I have just spent a great weekend up in the Mountains, and a good weekend it was to leave the heaving metropolis behind. Down here in Redlands and the Inland Empire the temps got above 100f or about 40 degrees C. This is smoking hot and something we New Zealander's are not use too. The closest I have come to this back home is in the McKenzie Country and that's not all the time. Over here I can look forward to weeks of these temps and hotter in a row. Great huh...
I just got back from a ride after work to see if I could handle the heat. It went better than I thought. Prob around 36 degrees when I left work. It was strange though as I did not sweat as much as I thought because the heat and lack of humidity meant that the moisture just evaporated before it ran off me in small waterfalls as some of you fellows know occurs when I exert myself hard. Ever seen me after a lap of a 12 or 24hr MTB race??? Well you prob don't want too!!!
Anyhow on the Saturday just passed we tried to get out of the heat by driving up to Big Bear (via Onyx Summit 2600m) to try out some of the Trails at Snow Summit via the chair lift. We had a few newbies with us and some average bikes which meant I spent lots of time on a fully ridged 15yr old bike while Tabetha enjoyed the pleasures of the DMR. A bike I love having here as I have yet to see another one here in the States. Next time I will definitely have the Enduro up the hill also mind you. I did miss the full sus goodness.
Up the Snow Summit Chair lift with the bikes. Its a great learner Snowboard Mtn so I look forward to that after the 5 months of living in an oven.
Big Bear Lake (2100m asl)
Some of the Trails
This is steeper than it looks and is a great effort for the first time Mountain Biking... Hmm! must be the DMR :-)
The High Altitude glare off Big Bear Lake.
The Camry loaded up heading down to the 'High Desert'. We took the long way home. Some great Mtn roads to stretch the legs of my new old car.
So Big Bear was pretty cool to ride overall. Certainly not Downhill riding as such. It use to be but they stopped that due to erosion and because they got sued when someone broke there back or neck riding there a few years ago. Yep this is the land of Denny Crane. Still from an XC fun point of view its a good spot to go. I'm sure there are many more trails to find also. Bring on Mammoth Mtn in June, then Whistler in August. Can't wait.
The next day since it was yet another hot one I wanted to check out San Jacinto State Park. San Jacinto rises about 3000mm from the desert floor and is a big day climb/challenge called the 'Cactus to the Clouds' that I want to do at some stage this year. Idyllwild is the Mtn town in the Shadow of San Jacinto Pk and was our destination for Lunch before doing a small climb to a lesser peak in the sweltering heat. It was a lovely area and the Mtns seem really easy to climb in someways. Back home if you are above 2000m it is proper alpine and the tree line has long since diminished and you are either rock climbing/scrambling or on ice and snowpacks. This is not the case here due to different tree species and a warmer climate in summer. As you will see in the pics below trees cover San Jacinto Peak which is about 3300m high.
Leaving the Interstate and Palm Springs valley behind and heading up into the hills of San Jacinto State Park. The Mountains in the background are the San Bernardino's incorporating Big Bear.
This is a Trike. A 3 wheeler with a Motorcycle engine on the front. Strange alright but a cool way to travel and it sounded real good.
Speaking of small furry animals I managed to see a few chipmunks on our hike up here. Made sense as there were acorn trees everywhere.
Idyllwild is a great wee Mtn town just 1hr from my place. Can't wait to Mtb here. There is very good riding apparently.
Goes without saying. Had to take this since there is dutch blood running through my veins. Hey Oma I would take you here for lunch if you ever made it out here to see me :-) For those that don't know Oma = Grandma in Dutch
A lovely wee stream basking in the continuous weekend sunlight. There was no respite until it dropped below the horizon for the night.
San Jacinto Pk in the background. The Cactus to the Clouds climb starts in the Desert almost 3000m below the summit on the other side of this peak.
No comments:
Post a Comment