Yeah! What a great day. Absolutely sunny and although it started out quite cool, by midday it was nice enough to ride without sleeves. A good route, great friends and the perfect day. The ride started with a 5+ mile climb that pretty much requires you to get comfy in the granny. No need to shift here...

From here we crested the ridge and left the forest service road and began climbing the ridge going south on an old jeep trail to the first lookout. This was kinda tricky as the trail was narrow, it fell away to our left and it was mostly covered in (slippery) snow. Extra excitement = extra fun.

Just a bit up the trail, Vince was like, "If you liked that, check this out" so we scrambled across the ridge and looked East.

Coming off the ridge is the first stretch of loveliness. A rockin' trail that has rideable switchbacks. You let it rip, and you haul it down for the corner. You do this again and again and again... Nice.

Finally (too soon really), you break out and can look SW again. From here you can see Suntop, Rainier, the airfield in the valley, the White River, everything. It was the perfect stop for food.

Lunch time. Getting fueled up for some of the best single track the NW has to offer.

We look pretty casual, but there is a 300' drop five feet to our left. Image is everything.

Even bikes get to stop for lunch.

Gosh, from here on in it's much too fast to take any pictures. As you dive back in the forest from the edge of the ridge, the fun really starts. And the light gets really dark too... Dark enough that I didn't see a hole and stuffed my front wheel into it and did a huge somersault. Ouch! a scrape on my right leg, a hole in the knee warmer but I saved my camera. After some jokes about how much air i got, we got back at it.

Well, I just couldn't leave it alone. It seemed that just as my speed had picked up again, I lost it crossing a root at a poor angle and stuffed my handlebar into my thigh. That one really hurt. Can you say "charlie horse" (is that one word or two...?) Oof, this time it took a tad longer to pick myself up off the trail.

Not wanting to feel left out, Vince smacked his both knees into a rock later on at a much higher velocity than I'd recommend he does again. No doubt out of sympathy for me...

See, this last section of descent is frequently unrideable. It;'s so rocky and steep that you have to continually dismount and carry your bike over sharp stones and big boulders.

If anyone has ever considered supporting the BBTC, do it. These guys were 5 miles into the trail moving HUGE boulders and practically paving the trail with loose rocks. Wow! Today the trail was a little easier to ride for sure.

Once you hit bottom, it's back to the car. Plenty of roots here and little, steep climbs and a couple of stream crossing, all the great stuff that mountain bike rides are made of.

Right then, this was so much fun, we (Vince and I) had to go back and do it again! In case you are curious, this is definitely the latest I would ever recommend riding in the mountains. Although the weather was quite nice (clear skys with upper 30s at the start and something like 50 at the top), it had been frozen once before and the it warmed up and froze again... Yep, ICE!

Imagine a 36" wide trail. Now imagine it covered in snow. Now imagine that under that snow is a couple of inches of sheet ice. Exciting for sure. On the north-facing descent, there were numerous sections that we just HAD to walk. Heck, even walking was not easy, once I fell and both my bike and I were heading down the trail towards Vince. "Catch my bike" I yelled because there was no way I was going to stop it, much less myself... A two-degree slope becomes a vicious sidehill in these conditions.

Not that it wasn't fun - it totally was! And once we got down below the snow line, the trail was its usual dry, twisty, turny, outrageous self. Here are the only two pictures I took (I guess I never felt that confident standing up, let alone using a camera):