Hayes and I have been heading to Tiger Mountain for some climbing on the mountain bikes the past four Sundays. This weekend and last we slogged through some snow at the higher altitudes.
We chamoised up at about 10 am and started up hill. After a solid half-hour of moderate paced climbing on the main summit road, we hit the snow and stopped for a food break. This time of year only the fire roads are open to bikes and sweet singletrack like the Preston RR trail are closed for another few months. No ribbon like trails for us until April 15th as the barrier in front of the trailhead clearly states.
Hayes plows forward in the snow on our way to West Tiger to some untracked fire roads.
We explored some new roads I haven't seen before and for the third week in a row ran into some strange characters. This week, two guys were hiking the road in the middle of nowhere. It was misting and cloudy so there were no views to be had. To add to the creepy factor, the guys were not wearing your typical REI issue outdoor gear. Rather, they were sporting stuff straight out of Soldiers of Fortune Magazine. I joked that the one guy was wearing the green poncho to cover up his automatic rifle. I guess combat boots must be comfortable or something. After that interesting encounter, I think we rode a little faster to put some distance between us and those guys.
On the way back, we hit the Crossover road and some serious snow on the north face of the mountain. There were some big watts being put out on the climb to push through about six inches of snow. You know its deep when you can step off the bike and it stays standing. The descent was some slip sliding fun as the bikes squirted around until we dropped below the snow level.
Hayes and I wrapped up the day by hitting some short and steep grinders on the Powerline cut. We rolled into the parking lot with about 3.5 hours of riding time in our legs. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday.
Blue Star
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