Peak experience

We’re three weeks from a desert weekend, so it’s time to double up on our rides. Saturday we started out with a relatively mellow ride in Joaquin Miller and Redwood. The forecast had been for rain, and things were wet in the early morning, but it started to clear up just as we got on the trail, and turned out to be a beautiful day for riding.

I was inspired by Morgan Fletcher’s local blog (a great resource for history geeks) to visit Redwood Peak to find the carved names of Fred Barker and Clara Classen, Classen being the heir to the then-private land which included Redwood Peak. The inscription is from the late 1800s, before the two were married, and it’s low, set between two rocks, leading me to envison a blanket and perhaps some canoodling going on up there. (At the time there would have been little foliage on the peak; the first-growth had been logged and the second-growth forest we have now would have been just starting out.)

Redwood Peak

There were a few mud pits, but most of the trails were reasonably dry.

Campbell in the mud pit

All the rocky sections are quite tricky right now, as the dust has eroded off them with all the rain. The rock face on Little Big Trees, the bonus trail, and the middle bit of Cinderella are really nice.

Campbell on Little Big Trees

Never cancel a ride for the forecast!