The climb up was heinous yet acceptable for a route one hump from mt Stuart. A hiker lady said omg as I dripped and puffed up a stupid painful pitch. The truth is its mountain biking!
On the first climb up to the first major downhill: There were 5-7 trees a serious handsaw could cut in 2-5 minutes (13-18" pruning handsaw).
The first amazing downhill down to the jeep road had one tree. It was a good 10 minutes worth of cutting if you have said tools and time. The trail is MTB crack with views and careful riding in viewful conditions. And hint the de roux descent is even better but less views saddened us not.
A sawyer has been down the de roux trail which is adult mtb Disneyland for 2.5 miles and my critique is thanks just don't expect your customers to move your rounds. But really good work and those that follow should help.
The photos are from the first scenic descent. The only evidence I have of the below the lake trail will be my friends pix.
We'll be riding Esmy-DeRoux this Saturday if anyone's interested. Evergreen MTB Calendar
Also, doing a ride in that neck of the woods this Wednesday as well. Evergreen MTB Calendar
Did you swim ? Oh yeah, you were with Peter - thx, no photos needed LOL.
I hope you'll be proud of us Len - Our assignment (igor & I) was to climb up Columbia and saw out a large snag of blowdowns. Upon arriving I didn't think we could clear them all but several hours with hand saws and we got 'er done. Somehow I was not filled with endless enthusiasm to become a Francies Scout though. Maybe it will grow on me.
Fyi on the un-work side I'm trying to show I actually do ride a bike (without a trail tool) so smile on your brothers, everybody get together, try to "love" one another right now.
That said BBQ, Slop, and others you have data to help the ones that follow you.
That's a great baby heinous climb (compared to up Stafford or st Helens goat mtn) up from the end of the road.
A group of us rode Esmeralda yesterday (7/20) and DougC and I (well, 80% DougC, really) cleared all the blowdowns Len mentioned. It was blazing hot, so if you go, bring LOTS of water.
In many years of riding that loop, I have never seen sooooooooo many motorized vehicles on "Jeep Road to Hell". There was apparently an organized outing by Jeepers, and there must have been at least a dozen if not more Jeeps and their occupants headed up to camp at Gallagher Head Lake. We also saw bunch of 4wheelers going up and down the road, plus a couple of motos.
Slop left his pack at the lake and realized this fact when he got back to the campground and couldn't get into his car. So Slop and his carpool buddy, gglove, got lucky and descend De Roux twice, but only after climbing De Roux back to the lake first. Fun time
DougC cutting out one of smaller trees on the way up
Sorry I missed it Bruiser. I'll take "instigator" as the consolation prize though. Looked like a perfect day to be up. Went and cleared the River Ridge Trails some with one good arm instead....
We missed you too, Borneo, and bummer about your arm. I sort of figured that it might have been a sign that you need to slow down a bit from your whirlwind of summer activities including trail building/clearing/roughing in, but apparently it didn't have much impact on your pace... Heal fast!
I'm thinking of riding Esmerelda this weekend. Get an early start and beat the heat. Never ridden this one before. It looks from the trail guide posted in Evergreen that the route is fairly easy to follow. Any turns in the loop I need to watch for? Thanks.
Went on the ride this morning. No dust and ground nice and grippy due to the thunderstorms last night. Reporting a tree down about 3/4 of a mile from the bottom of Deroux trail. The site won't let me load a picture? I'm going to guess the tree had a 15" diameter. If I can load the picture later, I'll do so. Also a video of the ride when I get it done. Beautiful out there. I started at 7:30 so the temp was perfect the entire ride. Thanks for the trail tips.
I was hoping to see some pics from your ride. You must have been using the attachment feature which has been disabled for a few days now. Try using the insert image function and see if that works. Looking forward to the video as well. :thumbsup:
We did this loop yesterday - it's in good shape. Happy to see that it's not at all blown out or over-used. Lots boulders and babyheads on the trail, especially dropping from Van Epps to the foot of the climb to Gallagher Head Lake.
We wanted to climb up to Koppen from the De Roux intersection but the thunderheads swayed group opinion and we took the early bailout. A rider posted his ride on Strava in July and made great time on that section of trail so it must be clear and rideable. It's on the list to hit next time!
I was with the above yahoo and can concur that this was an amazing ride. The Teanaway is one of those places that doesn't get a lot of hype in the WA. mtb scene (beside Miller and Kachess) but if planned right will usually deliver great views and sweet trails and all within fairly close proximity to Seattle. My biggest gripe was that Deroux, the descent of the ride at less than 5 miles, was over too quick. I could have taken another 5-10 miles of that natural ripping goodness. As Dan mentioned there is an option to get more downhill on Johnson/Medra but the mountain gods had other plans for us this day.
All told it was about 20 miles and 3500 ft of climbing. For anyone in decent shape and with a sense of adventure this ride or some variation of it should be on your list, just saying.
I spent a lot of time riding this area in the early 90's and this was my first time back in many years but I will be pouring over maps and figuring ways to milk even more sweet dirty nectar from these hills. I will be back.
The trail from Koppen Mt. to Johnson-Medra was abandoned by the FS several years ago. I was up there four years ago trying to find it. There would be some sweet chunks of singletrack followed by 1/4 mi of nothing, then another nice bit of trail that would suddenly turn into eight lightly used game trails. I'm planning on trying to find again it this year, anyone have any tips? I was also thinking about dropping in to the MF and catching Johnson-Medra back to the NF but I've heard that the J-M can be a giant moto chundered rut climbing out...
Someone with some time on their hands needs to push/pedal up Johnson/Medra and see whats up. I ran up the exit to it after our ride and there was a hand written F.S. sign from 2011 saying essentially that after mile 2.7 the trail was unpassable. I'm going to call the Cle Elum district and see what they can tell me too...
I spent a lot of time riding this area in the early 90's and this was my first time back in many years but I will be pouring over maps and figuring ways to milk even more sweet dirty nectar from these hills. I will be back.
That's a BINGO. I've been discovering new rides in the T-way each summer. Really like Stafford Cr and some of the other N T-way trails. Plus, the riding starts around May down in the valley and along the West Fork and builds from there. Let's hope the DNR doesn't F things up when they take over out there.
First of all. Kachess is no where near the 'way... Other side of Lake Cle Elum. Bummed I can't get my Ezzy fix this year. Maybe in early October. It's possible to extend the ride in many ways, Skkokum and a few others and I did it as a lollipop from Big Boulder one year. You can add the drainages and amake the Ezzy loop the frosting on the cake too. Or, climb out of DeRoux to Middle Fork and take that all the way back down to the West Fork if you are so inclined... Conditions were indeed great out there post the best lightning show ever on Friday night out there. Maybe 30 minutes of hard rain and the trails were packed down...
> lollipop from Big Boulder one year
That's my favorite route as well, but be warned its a tough pull. You can also park at the bottom of Paris creek and ride up Boulder and come down Paris creek although I've been told that one section of Paris is supposed to be closed to bikes, God only knows why.
You can access this ride via Boulder trail as a lollipop loop. Boulder is pretty damn steep, but it's so worthy to descend once you get done with the loop.
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