It was a long wait till tax day this year. My taxes were
done. The wait was waiting for the trails on 'Tiger
Mountain' (tinyurl.com9w8hOpen ↗) to open. The multi-use
MTB trails on Tiger Mountain close for 6 months during the
wet and stormy Winter. They open every year on April 15th,
tax day. Today was opening day and I needed to ride.
The weather was unsettled, meaning it was cool with the
threat of rain and thunder showers. Not ideal weather for a
ride, but it was opening day and I needed to ride. It has
been raining on and off for the last few days so the trails
were soggy and there were mud puddles to deal with. The many
roots on the trail were also slicked up due to the mud and
wetness just to add some added difficulty to the trail.
I got started late and arrived at the trailhead at 3:00 PM.
Time to put on the gear, stretch, give the muni a once over,
and start the ride. At
3:15 I was off.
The ride at Tiger starts with a 3 mile long climb on a
logging road that gains about 1140 vertical feet. In my
eagerness I attacked the climb at a faster pace than normal.
I normally give the climb more respect because it's going to
be an 11 mile ride and it wouldn't be wise to blow all my
energy in just the first 3 miles. But this was opening day
and I was excited after being denied the ability to ride my
trails for 6 months. The climb was going better than I
expected for this being the first Tiger ride of the season.
I was putting on the power to make it up the longest
continuous up section of the climb when tired legs and a wet
rock combined to give me a very quick UPD to all fours. I'll
have to edit out my exact comment immediately following that
UPD. Unfortunately the hikers just ahead of me got an
earful. The challenge of doing the climb with no falls and
no stops was gone. Nothing left but to trudge onward. The
good news was that I made it to the top in record time even
though I took an additional stop to pee.
At the top of the climb the Roach arm armour goes on and I
get ready for
4.5 miles of wet and muddy mostly downhill singletrack on
the Preston Railroad Trail. The Winter storms were not
kind to the trails on Tiger Mountain. There were more
large blowdowns than I could keep track off. The blowdowns
that fell across the trail had already been cleared, but
some of the blowdowns were right next to the trail and the
upheaved rootballs had taken part of the trail with them.
Some obvious trail work had been done to get the trails
ready and rideable. This 3.5 miles of singletrack is the
reason for doing this ride. It's over all to quick, but
boy is it fun. The wetness and the chewed up condition of
parts of the trail made the ride more difficult than
normal. Many UPDs, but fortunately none that caused me to
land in a mud puddle.
Next comes a 2.something mile ride on a logging road that
will take me to the Northwest Timber Trail. Halfway through
the logging road ride it starts to shower very lightly. I
optimistically hope that it will just shower and quickly
blow over. The misty shower turns to rain and just as I
reach the Northwest Timber Trail the rain turns to hail. The
hail adds and interesting twist and covered the singletrack
in white. After a half mile or so the hail stopped and I got
to enjoy riding through a trail of muddy white. The coating
of white made for an interesting ride. The Winter storms had
made some changes to the Northwest Timber Trail and there
were some new trail features to deal with. The new trail
features still need to settle in. They'll make for some new
challenges on the trail.
It's now a quarter till 6 and I'm back at the car. I'm
muddy, wet, my shoes are soaked. I discover that in my haste
to leave I forgot to pack the shoes and dry socks that I had
put right next to the front door. At least I remembered to
bring a spare shirt and shorts.
I love tax day.
--
john_childs - Guinness Mojo
john_childs (at) hotmail (dot) com
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