The Alliance was out last night. We rode the Mud Flats loop up Right Hand Fork. I initially planned on getting out of town at 6:15 at the latest, but as any shop rat knows things don’t always go as planned. It appears that the public just doesn’t care if I am trying to go for a ride or not. They keep coming regardless, plus I had to feed the dog. We left around 6:30.

Arriving at the trailhead just before 7, there was group of equestrians. I couldn’t quite get the guys going and we got stuck behind them. Apparently a horse needs a full meadow to get out of the way so we were stuck going extremely slow at the bottom where it is flat and we should have made good time. Once the horse got out of the way we began to climb. I rode the uphill of this trail about two months ago and it wasn’t bad. Thanks again to the horses, the trail was trashed, loose rocks, dusty as hell and lots and lots of shit.

Kevin went down a couple of times in the rocks, due to his being new to clipless pedals. These rock gardens were wicked sharp and he lost the blood to prove it. We continued climbing, slowly, very slowly. Horsemen caught us as we go through a gate, turns out they are doing a cattle drive. This translates into horrible trail conditions and lots and lots of, you guessed it, shit. We were stuck behind them again for maybe ten minutes before the trail climbed up out of the canyon and they stayed low.

At this point, we have been climbing for about an hour. According to our guide book, we should climb for about half of the trail, which would be 4.5 miles. At an hour out we have gone just over a mile. It was time to kick it and kick it we did. We moved finishing the rest of the climb in another 20 minutes. We reached the high point of the trail at 5.1 miles at 8:23. It’s getting dark.

We begin the descent down the dirt road. Nothing technical, just high speed hammering to try and make it off the mountain before we can’t see anymore.

I come bombing down around a turn. Off to the left is a giant cow, yes a bovine. I’m really moving. The cow, due to the steep terrain to its left came onto the road. I was holding on for dear life and braking as hard as I could, gotta love Hope. I almost collided with a cow. Anson who came around the bend in time to see what was going on actually thought I had bumped my bars off its ass. No, I didn’t make contact but it was within millimeters.

We finished off the rest of the dirt road and hit the steep descent back into the canyon with no light left. Oh, I forgot to mention it had started to rain. Wet, muddy trail, no light, and slick as shit rocks, it was a white-knuckle descent for sure. But we made it.

Just another Alliance ride to go in the archives.

Peace.