Yesterday was looking pretty gray on the coast, and I've been wanting to get back to Cuyamaca for a while. My riding buddy Dale had more time than usual and agreed to go. I convinced him some fireroad riding would be okay for a change, and took him on a Short Tour (as opposed to the Grand Tour many have reported on).
Weather was gorgeous - 70 degrees, blue skies, gentle breeze. It turned out the Julian Death March went though here yesterday, but it was not a problem for us, as it wasn't a huge event, and they were pretty well spread out by the time they got here. All were spandex-wearing, 29er-rolling, long-distance pedaling machines. Well, almost all. A few looked pretty grim, but most were just steadily moving along. So we yielded to the Death Marchers, whether uphill or down, and they were all polite and appreciative. Oddly, we ran into three baggy-wearing trail riders like us, lounging at the side of the fire road, and they gave us shit for riding 26ers. Oh well.
We had parked at Stonewall mine, taken Stonewall Creek fire road to Soapstone, to the CHRT, where the really sweet singletrack began. Rode over to the Sunrise Highway, then south on the La Cima trail, which turned into the very fast downhill of the Upper Green Valley Trail, along the Sweetwater River. Some beautiful yellow fall foliage in a few places there. That whole part was a blast - all downhill with a few ruts and rocks. I had forgotten I meant to go past La Cima and hit the Lucky 5 trail, and wasn't about to climb back up there. So we then took the Upper GV fire road, which continued the high speed fun. I missed the two top gears -- which I tossed away a while back with the big ring -- more on this ride than any in the past couple of years. I usually avoid fire roads as much as possible, but we had covered ground so quickly I knew I had to add more to make the ride a satisfying length. So we took the GV fire road down to the Stonewall Creek fire road intersection. The GV road's lower section had been graded, so it was very fast, but relatively boring. At least the surrounding landscape was beautiful. But once we turned uphill on Stonewall Creek, it was no more fun for me for a long while. The surface for a few uphill miles was soft silt churned up by horses. But it was good again back on Soapstone, and there was more top gear fun to be head on the last leg back to the car. My guess is about 15 or 16 miles total.
We don't take a gps, or a decent camera, and hate to stop the flow for pix....so here's just one trail pic, at the intersection of Green Valley Trail and GV fireroad.
And here's the almost-done-with-the-ride pic, at the top of Soapstone and intersection with CRHT. The old guy and the younger, stronger guy both had a great ride.