Let’s try this one more time. Yesterday’s post disappeared.
It’s been really hot here in Portland. Anything above 80 degrees is when it gets uncomfortable. So when it hits the high 90′s for a couple days in a row, all motivation comes to a halt.
But we’ve been working on a rock wall for the last couple of months and the plan was to finish it this weekend. So heat or not, we started out early on Saturday and Sunday and got it done.
We forgot to take a before picture, so this is from Google Maps.
So, working an hour here and an hour there this took us about two months. Now it’s ready to grow food.
Having accomplished all this, and being done at noon, I started getting antsy. It was really hot, but I needed to get out of the house. So I packed up Marv real quick like and headed to the Sandy Ridge.
If you haven’t been there, or it’s been a while, you’ll be impressed with the new infrastructure. Not only have they finished the bridge over Little Joe Creek, but they’ve installed signage, and built a map kiosk at the top.
I had been wanting to check out the new Three Thirty Eight Loop, and today proved to be a great day for that. Despite the temperature being a good ten degrees cooler than Portland, it was still really hot. After ducking into the woods, I quickly found a good sitting rock and refueled. Chamois heart!
The new loop is still undergoing development, but already shows signs of great design. I’m really anxious to see how this develops. Moving onto Hide n Seek, I found the trail in great shape, at least up top. The bottom section has a lot of pitting, but i think that’s due to the high levels of use and little to no rain to keep things solid. Currently the lower half feels very sandy. But up top still throws great riding. I really like the little root pops they’ve built the trail around. If you hit this one on the left side aiming right, it drops you into a perfect line for the berm coming up. It’s really sweet.
Things like this encourage faster riding and soon after I met my trail nemesis and we battled again.
See, near the bridge there’s a berm that feeds a sharp left turn that hides a large root that sits about two and a half feet high. It doesn’t sound like much, and I’ve cleared it many times, but recently it’s been giving me a hard time. Today it took another pot shot and I went overboard. But I’m not discouraged. I’ll be back soon enough to try it again.
From there I dropped over the bridge and rode the lower half of Hide n Seek a couple times before heading home. Driving home, Marv was running smoothly, the sun was really golden, and that post mountain bike glow was in full effect.