Blue Mountain

Today started off clear and cold, with the appearance of our long lost companion, the Sun. We hadn't been on a ride for way too long, so off we went. The goal: check out the trails at Blue Mountain to see if they were dry enough to ride yet.

We ride on a combination of road and bike path to get to Blue Mountain.
There was this persisent haze in the air, and some high cirrus clouds.

The haze and clouds made this beautiful ring around the sun.
Shot a few pics "blind" into the air and was amazed they turned out so well.

Julian spotted this "heblicopter" ...

and lots of animals along the way.

A field full of Prairie Dogs.

Cows with their calves.

This friendly horse.

So by the time we made it to the Blue Mountain Rd. turnoff to start the climb, everyone was in a great mood. We started the climb up the fire road past the frisbee golf course.

The first lookout above the Frisbee Golf course. You can really see the haze in the valley.

Up the hills. 7-10 percent grades.
Rene looks like he is on top of things on his singlespeed.

After climbing about 950 vertical feet we started seeing patches of snow
and encountered some mud. So when we saw this gate, we decided to take this
opportunity to ride some trails.

Trail conditions were close to perfect.

I had Rene take a couple pictures of Julian and I riding.

The Weehoo tracks very well on the trail.

We were hoping it wasn't all this wide and easy.

Mmmmm.... Singletrack.
No more pictures after this point. Too busy enjoying the ride.
First dry singletrack of the season.

The trails we rode were great. Plenty of twisty, moderately rocky singletrack, a fair helping of doubletrack and wide forest causeways, and enough trail features to keep everything fun. This is one of the shorter loops in the Rec Area, but due to the still soft conditions up high and the 10 miles of road riding we did to get to the TH, it was all we were up for.

25 miles, Topofusion says 1500 feet total ascending.
I cropped our huge road loop out of the topo image.
The loop starts at the West TH at Blue Mountain Recreation Area,
goes up the road, and down the trails.

I think it is safe to say we will be spending much more time up there as the season warms up and the crew gets their legs up to speed.