We finally pulled out of Truckee after two more days of Martis. We crashed at Nate and Natalie's house for a couple of nights after calling it good at 14926 S. Shore Drive. What a experience!! I feel like I've grown a lot, especially in the mountains during the winter. What a good group of rippers.......Kevin, Charlie, Peolie, Brian Bozak and Emily, Tommy, Rob Anthony, Noah, Jessie Whitecap, Warren, Nicole, Sarah, Glen Paulsen, and the list goes on. It went by soooo fast. 5 months. Done and gone. It snowed, then it cleared off and became sunny. There were long stretches of sun without snow. It taught patience, and the fact that there are LOTS of things to do, even if the conditions aren't perfect. You just have to make the extra effort. Get up early. Fight through sore muscles and doubt. Get out of the warm bed and put on the same clothes you know so well. Get the coffee going, even if it 4:30 AM. Some of the days we probably should have got up earliier......Pyramid Peak comes to mind with the death slog and thin coverage down low which slowed us to a crawl. Then there were the multiple Desolation trips. And Bridgeport with the Hulk Couloirs still smirking at the ass whooping it delivered to me multiple times. But it also taught me that anything less than SIX hours of skinning on firm sidehill conditions isn't to be complained about. Perspectives shift, and boy did they this winter. What is too steep or gnarly on a snowboard? 40 degrees? 50? Bulletproof ice or breakable crust?
Now we've stowed away the boards amidst the pile of gear packed carefully into the Toyota Previa (which still has a blown head gasket).
Daron, Lily and I rode Animal, Lloyd's, and even Martis before we bailed. Jessie Whitecap took us around to the snow-free trails- mainly Pinworm and Bear Market. He even showed us Coudegrais which had a techy uphill climb over rock to a hard R corner with seemingly strategically placed rocks in the worst spots possible. Then there was a snow patch which shut me down (until I sent it when the snow melted a few days later) to a steep rock chute, a L corner, then up onto an off-camber rock to diving board drop. The trail got a little wild after that with some blind jumps over rocks and logs. They needed some work and later that week ran into a guy fixing and cleaning the line (I was able to hit the step down to 2 new berms). Lily started throwing down on the creek gaps one day and had some ups and downs in her quest for airtime. Way to go girl!! Nate Dawg thought about some of the jumps more than Lily!! On Wed we rode with Nate again and had a funny string of events lead to us riding w/ Cameron Zink, the super badass biker. Nate's Jeep broke down, we ran into town to close the PO box, and then to Nate's for lunch. When we hit the top of the shuttle we ran into Jim (Hacksaw), Zink, and a buddy on a Sunday. We had a beer and bubbler and started to ride. I tried to get out ahead and get a few pics of the group and ended up munching my deraileur into my spokes off a 2' drop (WTF?!!!). Noooooooooooooo!!!!!! I knew what to do. Go chainless. I actually rode really fast and hit all the jumps on the trail each lap. It was a great experience to run into those guys. I gave Cam a good amount of PT ideas for his knee (which has had 5 surgeries) and even did some MET in the parking lot. We swapped numbers and I'd be stoked to work with him more in the future. We hit the road on Thursday morning-ish and drove to Ashland, OR after gaping at Mt Shasta (next time). We stopped by a shop that was really helpful and got lost momentarily before parking on Park St and riding up the paved/gravel road. Luckily we ran into Cliff who came up behind us. I caught up to him after eating a Gu, and was lucky enough to get a lot of good beta from him. We hit up Toothpick and climbed up Catwalk (pretty brutal singletrack climb) to Four Corners where we met Fish who was doing some trail work. We raged down Marty's trail which had a few nice jumps on it (I hit the last stepdown on my xc bike) then cut over to Catwalk, to Toothpick, then Caterpillar, and White Rabbit (which we skirted up to the fence trail). There was a HUGE sinkhole and a couple of gap jumps over it (b-i-g) which looked like they hadn't been hit in years. We grabbed some delicious dinner at the Standing Stone Brewery and drove back up the shuttle road to camp for the night. Today (Fri) we traded shuttles (I went first and hit Jabberwalkee), then went by the bike shop and fixed my rear der (w/ a used xo for 100$). On the way to the skatepark to meet up w/ the shuttle driver we pulled up next to Shawn D who had a cruiser bike on the back of a jacked up Jeep. We exchanged some glances then chatted a little while driving. He offered to shuttle us up in 20-30 minutes. We met up w/ him and Chase, Jason, and John and did a lap on the usual, but did BMI at the bottom. We packed up the rig, said some goodbyes, and went to the brewery for one last grub session. To North Bend, OR and Lily's folks house, then possibly to Blackrock or Post Canyon, then Marblemount, and up to Tonasket. THEN possibly to kamloops/Kelowna for some FR before that dreaded "W" word. Stay tuned.......
Pic descriptions:
1. Mt Shasta
2. Lily and Cam Zink
3. The Crib
4. Some of the fine beverages enjoyed this winter
5. Fireworks over our house courtesy of Kevin and Charle
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