Some pics from our Sierra Pelona/5 Deer Escape the Gloom Ride, Oct 23, 2005

Click on the pics for larger, higher resolution versions (250k to 600k) stored at mac.com

So, we had a ride planned for today. Saturday night I picked out a few rides and was going to run them by JD when he got here but waking up this morning I knew we had but one choice. Of the rides I was thinking about only a trip up Bouquet Cyn to the Sierra Pelona/5 Deer loop would get us inland far enough to get away from the oppressing gloom of LA and to these clear skies:

Jerry pointing the way:  Map

I'd heard great things about 5 Deer and I'd ridden by the trailhead many times on my way to ride the Pacific Cycling Trail on Sierra Pelona so it has been on my shortlist for quite some time. We usually skipped it because it shortened the ride considerably, some people do the main loop twice, but we ended up doing one loop.

We made it to the top in a reasonable amount of time, and after taking in the views of the Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys we continued on the next mile of fireroad to the trailhead. This was where disaster struck. I went to take a drink at the top of the descent but the bite-valve of my Camelback was stuck on the other side of the strap so I pulled the hose right out. After walking up and down the trail looking for the bite-valve for a few minutes with more hunters driving by wondering what we were doing I finally decided to just dump some water into the bottle on my bike and use that. I hate dumping water half way through a ride but the weather was nice and we only had a descent and some flat sections ahead of us. When I leaned forward to start transferring water I noticed the bite-valve at my feet, I guess it was stuck to me and it used that opportunity to fall off of me. Shortly we were on our way to what started out as an overly rutted by motos trail (I mean, I came around a corner to encounter a rut that was deeper than I am tall, that narrowed down to less than pedal width at the bottom) down the face of the mountain but it soon showed us the goods.

One of the many cruiser mellow sections.	Jerry through the grotto.	Jerry moving down a fast, rocky section.

After all the singletrack goodness, plenty of turns, some low tunnels, some rocky sections, and even a few roots, we hit the the fireroad for a high speed bomber run down to the Jeep. The conditions couldn't have better, about 75 degrees out and the top portion of the trail was shaded and on a north facing slope so there were still some wet parts from the rain a week ago.

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