A few weekends ago I headed east to the Methow Valley, one of my favorite places in the state to visit, with Chad, Lex, and good friends Tyler, Leslie, Tye, and Christine.
Tyler, Tye and I first got to be friends through working at the
ASUW bike shop in college, where we spent long, long hours pondering
life through deep conversations while attempting to learn how to work on
bikes. We've been great friends ever since, and have had many
adventures together, bicycle and otherwise.
Normally the snowpack this time of year in the Methow prohibits any kind of mountain biking, but this year's low snowpack and warm weather were an exception, so we figured we'd try our luck to see if anything had thawed out enough to be enjoyable. Local beta dictated that Pipestone Canyon would be the best bet for us to get our early season dirt fix. We headed east from Methow and, with me navigating, took the, uhhhh, scenic route to the trailhead. Eventually, we did manage to find the right fire road- we drove up it for a bit, but the slush got too deep for Tye and Christine's car, and soon it was stuck. After rocking it back and forth a few times, Chad, Tye and I got it unstuck- so we backed down the trail to a slightly drier place, parked, and got ready to ride.
Chad found a pretty established singletrack about 500 feet to the west of the road we were on. We all hiked up to the trail and started our ride there.
We followed the singletrack for about a half mile before it crossed the
road and headed up and down over a series of intense little rollers. We all pedaled quietly along, each rider enjoying the solitude and quiet of the area, legs pumping, wheels turning, hearts light.
We popped over a little ridge then enjoyed a long, gradual descent along
a narrow section of trail that had eroded into the ground about a foot deep. I nearly bit it when my right pedal hit the grassy bank- oops! Good reminder to keep my cranks parallel to the ground for the rest of the descent.
At the bottom of the descent, the trail rose steeply around an aspen grove in a deep gully and kept climbing to the top of a knob. At the top, we took a break to take in the scenery.
We pressed on up over the knob and pedaled out onto a large plateau. The southern edge of the plateau rose up into a point, so we headed that direction. As we got closer to the point at the top of the plateau, we noted signs posted telling us that we were entering golden eagle nesting ground. The trails were open for another month, so we pressed on towards the lip of the plateau. Although it looked to be a pretty gradual climb, it turned out to be pretty freaking steep, and we were all pretty worn out by the top.
The views, however, turned out to be quite worth the effort. As we approached the rim, we realized we were looking down into Pipestone Canyon:
We hung out on top of the canyon wall for awhile, but it was getting quite windy so we turned around and headed back down the trail we had just come up. Before heading back to the car, we took a few group shots to celebrate the earliest riding in the Valley in recent memory for any of us.
Back at the car, Lexi lived up to her reputation as scavenger extraordinare when we found her munching on a giant deer femur.
Although I don't share Lexi's taste for naturally-preserved venison (ick!), we were definitely both happy with the day's ride.
On day two of our trip, we decided to head to the same area, but ride from the bottom of the canyon up. Some of my favorite images from day #2:
It was a little shadier in the bottom of the canyon.
Singletrack makes me smile.
No comments:
Post a Comment