Convergence

That indescribable feeling when countless things come together to produce an experience. A sunny day. A smiling child. Steep, heavily wooded canyons. The desire to climb them. Springtime. Single speed bicycle. Zone 4 heart rate. Rushing creeks. Eerie silences. High speed descents. Laughter.

I wanted a hard day. I wanted to get home and not be able to walk. I wanted 3000+ feet of climbing, fast. Obliteration of all the mental driftwood. Today was a good lesson. We don't always get exactly what we want.

Low snow line... still. Julian has a limited tolerance for sitting on road rides. Give the kid a mountain trail, and I'm sure he would ride almost all day... but watching Dad grunt up the side of the road just isn't that entertaining. I needed to pack in some climbing by doing laps, with relatively little mileage. I decided on Pattee Canyon Rd. Ride up, ride down... repeat. I figured I might get away with two laps, and appease Julian with some hiking. That's pretty much what happened.

The climbs were difficult. I went out too fast on the first one and got burned by the 10% grade near the Rec Area gate. Stayed on the bike and toughed it out. The weight of the trailer and Julian made the 34x18 gearing a questionable choice. Made the first 1000 feet of climbing, turned around, and rode back to the bottom.

This is always the least enjoyable part for me. I just worked up a killer full body readiness to do MORE... and now I get to sit on the bike while it does 25mph down the road all by itself. YAWN. 

Purple mountains majesty.
The pointy one is Squaw Peak or Cha-pa-qnn or Sleeping Woman
or whatever the hell they call it these days. 

The climb back up was better. I paced myself a little more, the pathways were all open, and everything was firing in a coordinated fashion. I did reach the Sammy B TH ready to NOT do a third lap.... Okay... actually, I probably could have, but Julian had other ideas, and I didn't have the strength to disagree.

We decided to check out the condition of the Southside Trails since we were there and didn't see snow all over like we did the last time we were here. Overall, I was surprised at how dry they were. I winced in a couple spots as my tires left tracks in a soft section. We turned around pretty quickly. Should be firm enough to ride in a few weeks, depending on the weather.

See? Trail = Happy Kid.

We turned around, not wanting to damage the trail by riding on.

A quick descent down to the road, and we stopped at the Crazy Canyon TH for some nutrition and to let J stretch his legs and hike around. We hiked further than I thought we would.

(A little over a mile on some fairly steep trails is pretty far is you're 3, I'm guessing.)

Up the hills.

We totally need to do more hiking.

Conditions on Crazy Canyon were pretty good too. A few sections of mud, some water running in places. But the surface was firm and draining well.

Fortunately, only one spot, about 25 feet long, looked like this. 

This picture does nothing to relate how green it was.
I swear it was turning the air green. Enchanted forest.

We headed back to the bikes, and logged 20 miles and 2250 vertical feet biking and hiking around.

The forest was beautiful, my legs felt pretty cooked, and that mental driftwood I was talking about wanting to get rid of? It had a proper viking funeral and was duly incinerated on the ocean of effort required to achieve this much enjoyment.

Mission accomplished.

Sometimes it DOES all come together.

It LOOKS like a couple of boring road climbs and some screwing off.
Okay... so that's pretty accurate. But... I guess you had to be there.

PS:

I like this sign so much, I thought it deserved a repost.
Respect.

PPS: On the way back home, I realized how sensitive I was to the traffic.. There seemed to be so much of it. Maybe its just me. The more time I spend riding out of town, in the woods, the more hyper-aware of traffic I get. It is the hazard of its own kind of wilderness. In the woods I might watch my footing, make some noise to avoid startling a bear... I prepare... I know what the dangers are. In the city, these dangers are different, and they are everywhere, and they move fast. It is so LOUD that I am running on sensory overload and adrenaline, navigating the grid, attempting to flow through... I tell myself that it is just another kind of wilderness... what a stark difference from the place we just left.