Return to Starvation Mountain

I had talked with Jim about doing one of my favorite epics, Cooney Lake/Horsehead Pass, the following day. But it’s a bit of a drive, including a godawful steep, windy and pitted fire-road climb, and Moby’s painful big toe persuaded me that we should choose another path. I discovered in talking with Jim that, for all the times he’s raced at Winthrop’s Fat Tire Festival, he’d never done Starvation Mountain. I hadn’t done it for a couple of years either. No mountain biker should go through life without getting Starvation under the belt and on a regular basis. We headed out early the next morning.

I’ve been riding Starvation about as long as I’ve been a club member, but it had kind of slipped to the back of my book. You do something enough times, you think it has nothing left to offer. There are several ways to do the loop from Beaver Creek Campground, but the only one that I really give any weight to is up Lightning Creek, then a 5-mile fire-road climb to the heli pad, then up to Starvation and down to Blue Buck. You can also ride up the whole length of the fire road, which is an abomination that Zilly, for some unfathomable reason, actually recommends. Or you can shuttle, an equally loathsome alternative.

At Beaver Creek some yahoo had posted signs, “DEATH TO SADAAM!” on trees and draped a big American flag across a campsite with his trailer. Given that Moby has an “ATTACK IRAQ? NO!” sticker on the back, I figured we didn’t have a whole lot to talk about. But I wondered about the legality of politicizing Forest Service property. It was like he’d staked out a good half an acre with various posters and emblems. We parked up creek, toward the trailhead.

Lightning Creek trail is a great ride down, and not a bad ride up. It’s rideable pretty much to Sandman, a deep quasi-dune that keeps getting longer seemingly year by year. Then you cross the road, bearing right (counterintuitively) till you pick the trail back up again on the left and climb some more till you T out onto the road. From there it’s a Tiger Mountain kind of climb, only quite a bit longer and a bit more fatiguing, since the singletrack climb takes a bit out of you and you’re ready for the road to be over with at any of the interminable switchbacks.

Where the road ends you take a trail off to the side and climb up toward Starvation Mountain. It’s a nice view from the top, but nothing like Tiffany or Angel’s Staircase. It’s also always a bit chilly, for some reason. One year I started the ride in sunshine and a tank top, and was in a long-sleeved Capilene shirt with tights and windbreaker at the top, where it was snowing.

The nice thing about Starvation is that once you’re at the top, you’re pretty much done with the climbing for the day. You start down a series of moto’d-out whoops and sandpits — the lower jumps give you pretty good air even if you’re not much of a launch artist — and then reach another encroaching sand quarry, after which you bear left onto Blue Buck Trail for a long, 10-mile ride down. Blue Buck is just fantastic. A lot of screaming singletrack, some ledge work, some drops and risers — it’s got a bit of everything, but nothing so severe you need dismount or play kamikaze. “This is what I call a ‘zone’ trail,” Jim told me. You can just zone out, enjoying the experience in an alternate universe state of mind.

At one point we came upon a big shiny black lump speckled with red berry pits, smack in the middle of the trail. “That there is bear pookey,” Jim said in his Appalachian affect. “Big, fresh bear pookey.” About then I started flashing on a Gary Larson cartoon, with Jim astride his bike, turning back to look down at the trail, saying, “That’s about the biggest, freshest bear pookey I’ve ever seen,” while a huge Grizzly rearing in front of him grinningly lowers its jaws around his helmeted head.

A couple parts of Blue Buck have been thoroughly trashed by hooved critters. There’s a horse tie-down at one point, and a gully churned to pastry flour. Then, at the final switchback where the trail heads back to Lightning Creek, someone has been herding cows up the ridge. What a mess. It’s all undoubtedly legitimate, but all the mtbs in Whistler couldn’t do this damage if they spent the entire day trammeling the hillside.

I asked Jim which of the two 10-mile downhills he’d done in three days was his favorite. As I suspected, Blue Buck won hands down over Pot Peak. When I thought it over, I realized that the Starvation loop was a classic for good reasons. You can stay on the bike the whole time, yet you’re constantly being challenged enough to keep things interesting. It’s long. It’s lovely (by Fat Tire Festival time the larches are golden). If it didn’t exist, a huge hole would yawn in Washington’s mountain-biking itinerary.

Starvation Mountain elevation gain: 5350. Elapsed time: 5:15.

Red Warrior — Mars Ridge Loop, Sun Valley, Idaho

Regrouping, Valor Gives Way to Discretion; Return to Ketchum; The Extraterrestrial Mars Ridge and Rambunctious Red Warrior Beckon; Where Is Jason?

The next morning we did further consultation. At this point I was ready for a return to the comforts of civilization. The East Salmon Fork had seemed just too far out there. There were other rides I wanted to explore in Ketchum. I suggested heading down valley and regrouping at Corral Creek.

Jason went along with it – at least, it seemed that way. But he may not have been too happy with the arrangement, and maybe I was a bit presumptuous. We hadn’t done Boulder Creek-Fisher/Williams, one of the planet’s truly great rides. And there were other rides Jason wanted to “route-find” around Stanley. But I kinda steamrollered ahead, a bit insensitive, and came later to regret it.

Jason wanted to grab breakfast in Stanley, so Jim and I motored on down and grabbed Corral Creek campsite No. 9, which I mistakenly remembered as 7. After Jim pitched his tent we started back to town, passing Jason on the way and giving him the wrong campsite number. It was then that Jason laid a bombshell on us: He wanted to take a rest day. Hit the hot springs, hang out in town, collect his thoughts. Besides, he said, the rides around Sun Valley were all pretty much the same. The last comment was a subtle jab. When we’d been planning this trip as a free-form expedition around Stanley, I’d expressed pretty much that exact sentiment. But now that I was here, I didn’t really believe it. There was lots of exploring to do around Sun Valley. It was just a little needle from Jason, and I have to say I deserved it.

I have nothing against rest days in general. But on epic adventures to places like Moab, Tahoe, Bend, Sun Valley or wherever, all the rest I’m interested in happens between daylight. Jim is pretty much the same way. In reality we suspected Jason just wanted some time out. And although he was too polite to say it, we figured he also was mightily pissed. I realized I’d kind of run roughshod over his Idaho Escape. The rest of the trip I spent having a heart-to-heart with myself.

I wish I’d tried harder to talk Jason out of the rest day, but figured he knew best and we’d be able to cap off the trip with a mondo ride the next day. For the current day’s outing, Jim suggested Red Warrior, which neither of us had done and was at the top of my list. Every time I told someone I’d ridden in Sun Valley, they’d ask: Didja do Red Warrior? I began to feel like a tourist who’d gone to Athens and not seen the Acropolis. The route of choice took us up to Lodgepole Pine, then Mars Ridge, then back down Red Warrior. It looked like a good ride. It turned out to be something a whole lot better.

The ride begins with a creek crossing where your feet just have to get wet. Then there is a gentle climb with innumerable shallower creek crossings. Finally you start some serious climbing up Lodgepole, past Mahoney and to the ridge.

Jim and I had done Mars Ridge the year earlier, but I’d forgotten the nasty hike-a-bike sections and, for that matter, the astounding 360-degree view at the top. I’ve been on a lot of 360s, including most of Washington’s, and while the experience at, say, Juniper Ridge with its 4 peaks is uniquely inspiring, Mars Ridge goes everything a few steps further. First there’s the stark quality of the rock itself. The eerie sienna red, devoid of trees and shrubs, bracketed by mountain ranges all around, and mountain ranges beyond mountain ranges, and views for hundreds of miles. Wow. And the price of admission is just a couple of grunts up scree-laden risers.

It’s times like this I want to spend the rest of my life on a mountain bike. We stood there taking it all in and put off as long as we could the start of the descent. When you’re riding you always want to keep moving. But there are times when your head says stay just a little bit longer.

From the crest you ride down a straight and fast roller, then wind up some switchbacks, then down again, and up and so on. Eventually you come to the crossroads with Red Warrior. This is the section listed on the map as “Downhill Only,” and on the ride up I’d wondered why. In NorCal what that usually means is that hikers have managed to get what would otherwise be a great trail closed on the downhill direction to riders.

But Red Warrior is downhill only because it’d be nothing but a hike with wheels going up. The thing is steep. And rocky. And loose. Into the first couple of sections I was already going too fast for the Turner, whose tail was bouncing around like there was silly putty in the rear tire. They say to learn to let the bike do the leading, which is great until the bike leads you into a tree. I was trying to rein the Turner in. But at the same time, I was having way too much fun to want to slow down.

A couple of weeks earlier I’d ridden one of my favorite downhills anywhere, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride (Saxon Creek) at Lake Tahoe. Red Warrior has to rank close behind Toad’s. It’s not quite as sphincter-clenching and hairball as Toad’s. But it’s steep and it’s long. At the bottom I was laughing out loud and whooping like a kid on a carny ride. Hey, can we do that one again? Jim gave me a high-five and shouted, “If that’s what you call too much of the same, give me more!”

After the ride we checked out the hot springs, then drove back to town. When we got to the campsite, we found no trace of Jason. No car, no tent. Just a note on the campsite marker. I knew right away what it would say. Jason had left for Seattle. Too much to do back home, he said. He was planning a big ride in Switzerland and needed to pull together the loose ends.

I felt pretty bad, figuring Jason’s Dream Trip had kind of disintegrated from my bullheadedness. We do what we do. I left him voice mail apologizing and saying I hoped he didn’t hate us. When I finally got to talk with him, Jason was pretty cool about the whole thing. For those of us who tend to live in pigeon holes, Jason’s free-spiritedness can be kind of unsettling. But you can’t deny it: If your life had worked out that you could live every day exactly the way you wanted to, why would you bother with anything else?

Down the Up Staircase

In terms of a pure loop not involving shuttling or out and backing, Cooney/Horsehead is one of the toughest rides our fair state has to offer.The term "ride" may be used advisedly, since for me at least, there’s a fair amount of travel by foot. I’ve actually seen a guy, Pat Norwil, ride just about the whole thing counter-clockwise, even cleaning the hike-a-bike down toward Cooney (he did crash once). But Pat is a Trans Alp kind of rider with bones of steel and a hide of pure kevlar. Hiking up that section, it seems impossible to think someone could ride it down.

When Cary, whom I’d not met before, suggested taking off from the TH at 8:30 a.m., I had to chuckle. Art’s annual Horsehead ride always lists the putative start of 10 a.m. But the ride is popular enough, and Art is laid-back enough, that we’ve seldom gotten rolling much before 11. Which is fine. That usually leaves you 10 or 15 minutes at the end of the ride before total darkness descends. I may be kidding, but a BBTC ride starting at 8:30, while probably well-advised, seems like a fairy tale.

Atop Angel's Staircase near Winthrop WA

So I was taken aback when I pulled up to the TH around 8:35 and everyone looked ready to roll. Credit Cary with stellar organizational skills and the rest of the crew with the good sense to know a leader when they see one. Cary mumbled something about not having done the ride before and not wanting to take chances. But I had the feeling this gang was fast enough they could be back in time for a late lunch if they wanted.

I didn’t know many, and have to say that I didn’t recognize Bob when he said hi, it’s been that long. But one face did jump out at me, and there was a legacy to it. Peter Partel and I had first met on this ride, somewhere back in the ’90s, and here we were again, looking none the worse for wear. Well, at least Peter wasn’t.

Most of the crew was gone by the time we hit the trail, and I figured to be caboose on this tour. But Peter hung back and we had a great talk when we weren’t sucking dust. It was so dry that my "dry lube" (Purple Extreme, usually very reliable) had totally left my chain, which began rasping within the second or third mile. There are a few rolling downhills at the beginning of this ride, and I gave Peter wide berth. At the rate we were going we’d be coughing up Black Lung by the time we got to the top.

Peter said I should write a novel about mountain biking, which didn’t sound like a bad idea. At least I could justify all the time and energy I put on the trails as "research"! We started talking about some of the characters a novel might include. Let’s see… The plot would involve a fateful ride up to Cooney with a gang of mtbers linked by international intrigue and espionage. There’s a mad Russian named Igor who’s working with foreign mercenaries to steal U.S. military secrets. Igor has a secret plan on this ride to kidnap a seemingly laid-back aerospace engineer named Peter, who in reality heads a Boeing development project on a top secret surveillance aircraft. But Anthony, a misleadingly mild-mannered accountant who actually works for the CIA, has gotten wind of the plot and with his faithful assistant, the beautiful but dangerous Mire, has set up a strike team of off-road motos to intercept Igor at the final trailhead. Alas, Igor blasts through the roadblock … and hucks off a 50-foot precipice, seemingly eluding the frustrated intercept team above. LIttle does Igor know, however, that an FBI undercover named Art is waiting for him on the tranny below…

To pre-order your autographed copy, contact…

While Peter and I were outlining the next big international bestseller, the real riders were putting in miles ahead of us. By the time we got to the top, everyone looked like they’d finished lunch and were trying to keep from chilling down. Bob was his peripatetic self, scouting the shoreline and hopping to and fro, when voila! He spotted a big bristly marmot slinking along a creekbed in the meadow below. Never one to be bashful, Bob went up and engaged the little guy in conversation, and the marmot actually seemed to be paying attention except I think he just wanted a handout. Bob ran off some photos before the marmot popped into its abode below a big rock. Bob noted these are the famous "whistling pigs" of the North Cascades, namesake of that well–known meadow below Mad Lake.

The group was kind enough to dally while I got some lunch and got to meet some of the new faces. It turns out that Cary, the birthday-boy (never did find out what year) ride leader, is a former bike mechanic who was active in the 90s but took time off for some adult responsibilities involving work and family, can you imagine?! Whatever, Cary had sure picked the right day for this ride. It was great to connect some other faces to names on the BBTC list: Piset, Scott, Angela, Marvin, Stephanie, Jeremy, and some others I never did quite make acquaintance with. For most of the ride, they were too far up ahead of me.

I thought about jumping in again for a cool-down, but no one else seemed interested. There was a lot of sunbasking going on, though. As long as the sun is above the ridge, Cooney is a veritable spa.

Eventually we decided to assault the ridge, which includes an evil hike that’s almost like climbing a rock slide. If you’ve done Jacob’s Ladder in Moab you have a faint idea of what is offered above Cooney, but let’s just say that this would be hard enough in hiking gear. Add Sidis and the weight of a bike on your back to the mix, and the fun factor really kicks in.

But the views are unrivaled anywhere, and let’s face it. You’re scraping the heavens at 8k-plus elevation. I was feeling pretty light-headed at the top, but that line about riding with angels kept coming back. This was the biggest single group of riders I’d ever been with atop Angel’s Staircase. I knew they weren’t exactly angels in the religious sense, but Angels Staircase could easily double for heaven in my book.

Angels is putatively the highest mtb spot in the state, the arguable rivals being Pyramid Peak just to the south in Entiat and Tiffany Mountain to the north. Ironically, it’s not a 360, unlike Klone, Miller, Jolly and a handful of other spots. But there are spectacular views to the west, marred in this particular instance by rivulets of smoke swirling upward. They were far away and in obviously rugged, steep country, but you hate to see a fire anywhere.

I think on a past ride Armando cleaned all the switchbacks going down, and it only took him two and a half hours to do it (hey buddy, just kidding!). I don’t know if anyone made ‘em all this time (never one to back off, Bob took a header trying) but this group was a marvel to behold going down the up staircase. I’ve done this loop both ways, and although there are advantages to both (a chief one being the option of Foggy Dew downhill), the ride from Boiling Lake to the Angel’s cutoff is a real slog counter-clockwise. It’s virtually all uphill, and after climbing from the Crater to Horsehead you’re not in much mood for climbing some more.

Coming clockwise, though, the meadow is a joy. Again, dust was an issue, but most of the ride is rollicking singletrack in open vista. Then you pop out below Boiling Lake at a trail intersection, another good place to kick back. I should say that this leg was the only place we encountered other people, and they were hikers. No other mtbers to be found anywhere, another curiosity for this ride, for this time of year. All at Whistler, no doubt. I had a discussion recently by email with Cary on this topic, the gist being that you won’t find any rides approaching Winthrop in Whistler, but there’s no use arguing the point either. I’d rather let BC and Cali and Colo say they have the best rides in the world and keep our treasures for those with the chops to get to them.

The intersection still contains a little half-moon sign indicating an outhouse, and I hiked up the hill a bit to see that the open-air crapper still exists. In fact, the hikers apparently had taken good use of it.

It’s a quick ride up to Boiling Lake, then up a long switchbacked section of talus to Horsehead Pass. The group decided to explore the wonders  of Boiling Lake, which gave me an opening to avoid eating any more dust. I pushed on, climbing the ridge while watching the little ant people with their little ant bikes roam the perimeter of the lake. I thought of how Preston can ride this abomination up when it’s hard enough riding it down and was glad I was giving myself some distance with the group. If luck was with me I could get back to camp without inhaling any more powder.

Eventually I topped out and took one lingering view around. You never know with a ride like Horsehead if it’s your last time through, and I wanted to appreciate the moment. Horsehead looks less like a horse’s head every time I ride the thing, but Martin Lake and Boiling Lake and the endless ridges and drainages held all their usual splendor. I even tried to pick out Hoodoo Pass to the northwest, in honor of Juju, my carbon fiber Ibis Mojo. I’ve never heard of anyone riding up Hoodoo, but from the Green Trails map it looks like you could do so with a minimum of pain.

The ride down Eagle Lakes trail was a lot rockier than I remembered. I’m thinking the motos and global warming have just worn the trail out. There are lots of challenges, and you can get up good speed on some sections. But I’ll always like Foggy Dew better. It’s longer, straighter, and drops a lot more. In fact, my favorite configuration of this ride has become up to Cooney, then down Foggy Dew. It requires a shuttle or ride to the top, unless you want to do 7 miles or so of road climb afterwards. But FD as a downhill is hard to beat.

I figured I had 10 minutes on the group when I got to the top. Which was good, because I wasn’t back at camp more than 3 or 4 minutes when the rest of the gang started screaming in. Scott had cut his shin pretty bad on one of the rock steps high up, and it was interesting. He just let the thing ooze. I’d be after the Neosporin and cleaning it with soap and water and dressing it with the big patch bandages I always carry, and this guy is like Where’s my beer? But he’s a doctor! How do you tell him Dude, you should look after that!?

As we cooled down at camp and swapped stories, the halo effect was already kicking in. At one point someone finally did a reality check. Yeah it was a great ride, but what about the hike-a-bike? What about the switchbacks down the Staircase? And that horrific climb out of Boiling Lake?

"Were there any rocks? Did anybody notice any rocks?" I chimed in. Of all the photos taken that day, the one I wish I could’ve had most was of Angela’s face as she tried to figure out what planet I was on. After 7 hours in the saddle, irony gets lost a little too easily.

I had to head back to Seattle for those adult responsibilities, so had to offer my goodbyes way too early. I even committed the cardinal sin of missing Bob’s Burrito Bar. But the high from riding with angels stayed with me all the way back to town, and it lingers still. I can’t imagine I’ll ever have a better 3 days in Winthrop, although that won’t keep me from trying.

[We've gone riding! For 10 days Bike Intelligencer is mountain biking in places so remote an iPhone 4 can't even find a signal to drop. We'll report back on our return, but in the meantime we're running some "BI Classics" from past adventures. See you on the trails!]

[In Which Our Intrepid Heroes Get Lost Repeatedly In The Name of Route-Finding; Confront a Vicious Badger on His Own Turf; and Daringly Traverse the Forbidding Estate of a Famous '60s Songstress]

After breaking camp in Ketchum, the plan for our motley tribe was to connect back up at the Salmon River campground north of Stanley along, suitably enough, the Salmon River. In true BBTC fashion, things got a bit bollixed. Jim and I scanned the crowded Salmon River and Casino Creek campgrounds without finding Steve or Jason, then found a nice spot at the Riverside Campground further up. En route we passed Steve heading the opposite direction. That left only Jason, who we figured would come tooling along eventually.

A couple of hours later, with night falling, Steve determined that he should try to find Jason. He took off down the road and within half an hour was back. Jason had been waiting for us at the first campground – the one we’d passed earlier without seeing him. We’d figured Jason would come looking for us. Jason figured we’d come looking for him. And so it goes. While I’m not going to point any fingers, the mixup was clearly my fault.

In any case, Riverside proved a hospitable locale. Despite being close to the highway, its proximity to the rushing river pretty much drowned out passing traffic. What little there was – Stanley isn’t exactly an interstate crossroads.

The next day called for the most mondo shuttle I’ve ever done in support of a bike ride. The plan was to ride Fourth of July to Ants Basin to Warm Springs Creek to Robinson Bar. On the map it looked like a medium intermediate ride. The map can lie.

We all drove north to the campground road at Robinson Bar, where Moby and Steve’s truck stayed parked. Then we drove back south all the way to Fourth of July turnoff, off Highway 75 south of Stanley, and up a long fire road to the trailhead. Fortunately we were in Jason’s Forrester, which ate up washboard like it was cotton candy. Unfortunately, it was still a long-ass haul.

By the time we got rolling it was 11:30 a.m., two and a half hours after we left camp and a bit on the late side for a ride of undetermined difficulty. Right off the bat we made a wrong turn, climbing a fire road instead of the trail. But we figured it out soon enough and were back on track within 15 minutes.

The trail up to the lake is gentle and rideable, although starting at 8,000 feet it still left me puffing on numerous risers. We meadowed out at the lake and took our bearings. The trail itself heads southeast to Washington Lake. We wanted to go northwest over a saddle to Ants Basin, but neither trail nor saddle was readily apparent. Steve, a professional surveyor, gave a guess where the trail passed over. Jim and Jason guessed a different point. Me, I’m just about always lost on these expeditions. I couldn’t even guess who might be right.

Eventually we figured out there was no trail to be taken at all from the lake. We had to backtrack down to a Y and head off to the right. At that point the trail starts some serious altitude gain. Soon we were hike-a-biking switchbacks, with Jason and Jim giving me lessons on how to carry a bike, and me proving a poor pupil. Somehow when I carry a bike a bolt or component always winds up sticking me in the neck or shoulder. Or the pressure pops my drinking bladder. Or the weight distribution is all wrong. I’m waiting for a BBTC “How to Carry Your Mountain Bike” boot camp to come along. Then I’ll get it right.

As we made our way up the ridge, we turned away from the gap Jason and Jim had favored. Score one for the surveyor. Somehow Steve’s read had gotten it right. If you’ve ever ridden with Steve, you quickly appreciate his quiet approach to things. He doesn’t say much but what he does say is worth paying attention to. And the man has a unique style. His Giant full suspension rig had a rear rack carrying most of his gear. And he wore long-sleeved pinstripe dress shirts, ostensibly to ward off UV but hey, it added a touch of class to the proceedings.

Finally we crested, with another set of world-class views. In Sun Valley you’re smacked with so many of these things that your normal state becomes “stunned.” And just when you think it can’t get any better, the topper is always just around the next corner. We had a bit of lunch and then looked for a way to get back down the other side. The answer was yet another series of accordion switchbacks, really steep, really loose, really unrideable.

That dropped us into Ants Basin. When Jason had wondered aloud why it was called that, I suggested it was probably because it made you feel like an ant. Down in the bowl you seem small and insignificant. We traversed more rocky trail, doing some walking and some riding, before pulling up as we entered a grove of pines. “I think we’re headed the wrong way,” Jason said.

It certainly seemed that way. We were proceeding off to the right, northeast. It was obvious we wanted to be going left, west, down valley to The Meadows and the Warm Springs trailhead. It seemed we had missed a turnoff. But where?

Thereupon ensued a series of walk-offs and head-scratchings over the many and varied maps as we tried to figure out where we’d gone wrong. Please don’t talk to us about maps. We must’ve had four among us, and they were all wrong. None had a clear route from Fourth of July to Ants Basin, and none gave us a clue how the trail we were on was configured. We must’ve spent 45 minutes pondering our situation before Jim finally made the call. Let’s continue on the trail, he said. Eventually, at least, we’ll be able to tell if we’re lost. Best case: The trail hooked around and went down valley. Worst case: We give up and backtrack to Jason’s car.

It turned out to be the right move. Ten minutes later we were at the Born Lakes, and Jim was exclaiming excitedly: “Tire tracks!” We’d struck gold, in more ways than one. Not only had we found the right trail, we were headed almost all downhill from there.

But it was a long, long downhill. The trail itself was rideable but quite technical in places, sucking up all my 6 inches of suspension on the sections I didn’t dismount and walk. At one point the trail was washed out completely and rerouted around a massive gash in the hillside. I kept expecting to break out into The Meadows Any Time Real Soon Now, but mile after mile passed with no sign of the flats. When I’d ask Jim, he’d say, “Another two miles, I imagine.” It eventually became a joke between us.

The Meadows is as appropriate a name as it is prosaic. It’s huge – a great grassy field spliced by a cold rushing creek. A trail cut through it as well, but it wasn’t much, and it soon faded into a wisp of slightly matted grass. Once again it was time to put our heads together and figure out how we were going to hook up with Warm Springs Creek trail. After much cogitation, Jason and Jim were at loggerheads. Jason figured we could bear west and pick up Martin Creek trail to a crossroads that connected to Williams Creek trail. Jim thought the crossroads was quite a bit down valley. For the sake of some forward progress, we tried Jason’s route.

Jim had been right. There was a trail all right, but it ended in the woods. We had to backtrack once again, including a very wet creek crossing. Although rideable, it put the bike in water past the hubs. As it turned out, it wasn’t a good move to ride it.

We reconnected with the trail and found yet another obstacle. A badger planted himself right on the path and was not going to budge. If we approached the badger would trot ahead of us, then turn and square himself, flaring out at the sides like a linebacker going down on set. It was like the little feller was saying, “Hey, this is my trail! Go find a trail of your own!”

“You don’t want to mess with badgers,” Jason kept saying.

The others went cross-country but I liked the critter and figured hey, if I get too close I can always bail. Finally he skittered off to the left, leaving me free to go ahead. I’ve never seen a badger that close before. Heck, I’ve never seen a badger before.

By this point in the ride we’d been out around six hours and things were getting a little frayed. We were headed in the right direction but didn’t know how much climbing and “route finding” remained ahead. Jim had one encouraging observation. The trail pretty much followed the creek, and since the creek naturally lost elevation down to the river, we probably weren’t going to be climbing much more. The caveat was, as Jason noted, river trails often climb and drop and drop and climb along the bank. So we could still have some hammering to do.

Warm Springs was a pleasant enough trail, but the kind lacking what we call flow. About the time you got any speed up there was a blowdown or a creek crossing or a riser or something else sucking all the momentum out from under you. Within the first hundred yards my rear derailleur began throwing the chain into my spokes. Not good. I eyeballed it and decided it was either a bent hanger or a whacked cage. I did the fist fix, gave the derailleur a good yank, and started back out. From that point the chain didn’t go into my spokes, but it didn’t go into low gear either. I figured I probably slammed it against a rock on one of the meadow creek crossings, which is one reason why it’s never a good idea to do those things.

Warm Springs went on for what seemed like forever. We were all pretty tired. What had looked like a relatively light day on the map had turned out to be a death march. Finally we broke out on a piece of developed property. We knew now where we were: The estate of Carol Kane, the kinky-haired movie actress with a flair for quirky roles. Hollywood had been good to Carol – the spread looked mighty opulent, in a back country kind of way. But word had it that she was none too gracious to mountain bikers.

So we strategized for a while. The trail headed up a steep ridge and beyond, to exactly where we did not know. I decided I’d had enough route-finding for one day. Line of sight told me that if we walked a short but overgrown trench to the ranch road, we’d get out on the main dirt road down to Robinson Bar in short order. While the others stroked their chins and furrowed their brows, I started out, pushing my bike over the rocks and weeds. The place looked pretty empty. The worse that could happen would be some cowhand waving his arms at me, and me shrugging back like Whaaaa? And if the starlet herself came out, I’d already practiced my lines about how great Carol was in “Young Frankenstein,” or was it “Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother”? And wow, she hadn’t aged a day!

The trench was probably an old diversion ditch, Jim later speculated. At one point a big black rock blocked the path, but there was clearance around it. After that it was just a matter of negotiating the fence adjacent to the ranch road.

The others eventually followed along. We lifted the bikes through the fence, then broke down the road toward the main gate. Not a wisp of movement anywhere on the ranch. I was kind of disappointed.

The sun was all but gone by the time we reached our vehicles back below the Bar. We’d been out more than 8 hours, gaining nearly 4,000 feet overall, but at least an hour and maybe an hour and a half had been spent in what Jim called “dithering.” Jason and Steve still had a haul and a half back to Jason’s car. No way would they get back to camp much before 10 p.m. It’d been a long day. But we’d learned a lot in the process. I wouldn’t recommend this exact route because of severe logistical challenges. But Ants Basin and then down Williams Creek, that’d be something. Or Boundary Creek and then down Warm Springs might work, assuming you were bored with Williams Creek. In any case, this is a ride where you’re glad it’s done and glad you’ve done it. But it may not be one for the do-again list.

I later was relieved that we hadn’t run afoul of Carol. It turns out she wasn’t even in Young Frankenstein — OR Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother. I know I saw her in some movie a long time ago, but have no idea what it was. That would’ve made a pretty lame compliment to a famous Hollywood actress.

UPDATE: We’ve since discovered that it was singer-songwriter Carole King, not Carol Kane, who owns the estate — and she’s selling! It’s yours for just $16 million.