Wine Country MUni non-weekend

Upper-crust schools in California get “ski week” off in February, which meant that Chris had some time on his hands. We decided to take a mid-week break up in the wine country, trying a new trail near Calistoga (Oat Hill Mine Road), possibly its first unicycle descent. It’s a big out and back, and the bottom two miles or so aren’t anything special, but the top two miles are a lot of fun, with a bunch of chunky rocks in long segments, all totally rideable but tiring. It was super-quiet out there, and really pretty.

Then we camped at Napa Bothe State Park, which was beautiful but cold. (Overnight frost in the meadows). In the morning we headed over the ridge to ride our standard loop in Annadel. Annadel’s south side was significantly affected by the Tubbs Fire, but the area nearer Santa Rosa where we ride wasn’t burnt; we saw some fire lines but not much damage. We did a little bit of exploration of some social trails near the top of Cobblestone, and then tried to clean it all the way to the parking lot. I came off on a silly thing about halfway down, but Chris made it almost all the way, finally falling on one of the last difficult obstacles.

Here’s to extra leisure time!

Oat Hill Mine Road MUni

Oat Hill Mine Road MUni

Annadel MUni