This message says it all! No wonder sudden oak death is spreading!

Mike

Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 21:26:09 -0800

From: Josh Moore <josh_moore@comcast.net>

To: "'ROMP'" <romp@ns.live555.com>

Subject: [ROMP] BARF Ride Report

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I arrived at Stevens Canyon and Redwood Gulch at about ten to ten. John was there already, and Rami was right behind me. We headed up the canyon, and Tom caught up to us. Our last Rider came down Grizzly to meet us, right around the first gate.

We set up the canyon trail at a good pace. There were a lot of branches down but the track was clear and relatively dry. We headed up Indian Creek. The trail was nice and tacky, but just as long and gruelling as ever. Since we were aiming for 5000 feet of climbing, we continued all the way up to the summit of Black Mountain. The air was super clear and we could see all around for miles. It was a bit windy do we headed down Bella Vista. There were a large number of hikers on Bella Vista, and a couple of really wet spots, but other than that the trail was in great condition.

At the bottom, we headed up towards the parking lot, only to find a brand new hunk of trail that rerouted the top of the canyon trail, up through the interpretive nature trail. It is about three foot wide and has some nice grade reversals, although the bottom was flat and had a fair amount of water on it.

Next, we headed up Page Mill to bag our next peak, Borel. It was really windy up there, so we headed down Ancient Oaks, to have a bite to eat. I showed my guests some of the SUdden Oak Death on the trees there. We headed on down, all the way out, up Hawks' Ridge. At the top, we decided to head all the way down to Rapley Ranch Road. That was fun! I forget how great those trails are.

Newxt we dropped into Crazy Pete's. That was super muddy, but at least it was not the sticky clay mud found on lower Alpine. We slogged up Alpine, in some soft mud. It was slow going, and at times I wished I had more of a paddle tread on my tires. We headed down Page Mill into the Monte Bello parking lot. We tried out the Sudden Oak Death Bike tire brushes. They seemed to work OK, but I am not sure they will make that much difference, as they did not remove a great deal of the mud, and the dry mud turned to dust and launched into the air.

At last! We headed down the Canyon and Home. we did about 29 miles and at least 5000 feet, but then again, no one had an altimeter. It took us nearly six hours.

Josh

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