Distance: Not far, a leisurely 10 miles
Weather: Sunny with an intermittent cloud early. Halfway point saw the wind kick up to where the clouds were moving so fast it looked like riding in a time lapse video.
Short summary: After last weekend’s attempt at finding a different trail resulted in almost running out of gas and turning tail to limp back to fuel up felt good to get on the trail. Wildflowers starting to bloom – seriously can you beat the Northwest at this time of year? Terrain started to change about halfway in from definitely western to hinting at eastern Cascades. Sign at the trailhead said recent bear sighting, but as it was gay pride parade day in Portland I figured any bears would be in the city. Good short ride that I’d do again if I had more time to go further.
The up: There wasn’t a ton of challenging uphill here, was mostly rolling terrain and gentle elevation changes. A couple rocky sections that resulted in getting off and pushing the bike through due to ridiculous pedalstrikes and riding Han Solo styley – didn’t want to break myself off with no one around.
The down: After a time check and turnaround the downhill was more apparent than the uphill – didn’t have to pedal much thru large sections of trail. Scenery went from wide open vistas and sidehill traverses to forested singletrack and back again. Great views of Mt. Hood. With the wind kicking up a lenticular cloud was starting to form over the peak. Had a nice pedalstrike on a rock around a corner kick me off the bike. Fortunately kicked me off to the right and not the left as it would have been a bit of a downhill roll otherwise!
 Elevation summary  Just another wildflower covered scenic vista  Landscape started to change a bit halfway in  Lenticular forming  Same scene slightly wider Quick vid I took of the wind after my pedalstrike to dismount
Pedal graffiti
 Next time take a slightly wider line Post-ride payoff
An old college buddy was in town this weekend before he started his new gig, figured as Saturday was supposed to be spring-like that I’d bring him out to Syncline as 1) it would be dry relative to anything else around 2) I like Double Mountain and 3) wanted to check out a few bikes at one of the shops in town that he was going to rent from.
Late start on the day as we had to wait a bit for breakfast in the city at Tasty n Sons (BTW, great hostess, great service, great food, worth checking out). Loaded up the new Rockymount Pitchfork for it’s first ‘further than 5 miles and freeway speeds’ test, into local shop for a rental (their rental fleet consists of Camber 29ers….not bad for $25!), onto the trailhead. Quick change and onto the ride.
Distance: Longer than usual due to world’s slowest rider not being there, but far from difficult – about 11.5 miles.
Weather: Heh. Started off nice and springlike, though a touch windy. Turned into what I can only imagine it feels like to ride into the eye of a tornado. 35+ sustained headwinds, rain, hail, thunder, etc. for the last 4 miles or so. Awesome.
Short summary: Good times with a touch of adventure. Tried a new way, had to bushwack for a bit + the full frontal weather assault finish made for one of those days you won’t soon forget. The a-man jinx has (thus far) been avoided
The up: Just the usual low speed/enjoy the scenery and bullshitting with old friends climb. Lots of wind, at points you’d had to stop as it would push you off the trail. Pretty nuts, the shaky vid below doesn’t show nearly how it was. Doubletrack/Jeep Trail up the the brown house, left up the singletrack, onto the fire road, got bored of that so turned around and hooked a louie back at the brown house to explore a bit.
The down: Welp, not as fun as it could have been had we gone down Little Maui. Tried a new trail that was fun and flowy for a bit, eventually the trail just disappeared – conveniently right about the time the weather went to hell. Little bit of bushwacking here and there, one banged knee and some racked nuts, couple mile spin down the road, back to the blackhawk.
In what’s become a ritual, post-ride pizza and beer DEVOURED at Double Mountain Brewery. Yes, I’m a sucker for wood fired pizza and it’s a proven fact that beer tastes better after riding, snowboarding or surfing.
 Route overview. Same ol' same ol' halfway with a finishing twist  Elevation summary. Still need to do a hors catégorie climb  Captain Spandex shows how the bright Camber pops against a dark background
Spring finally (temporarily) sprung in the PNW on Friday, figured I’d best take advantage before another five day stretch of gray+rain pain. Decided to head out to Syncline again as it is in some weird Bermuda Triangle of weather that allows it to stay dry when the rest of the world within a one hour drive are building arks and rounding up two of every animal. As the GF had the day off decided it’d be a good day for her to get out on her newtoher Giant XTC2 courtesy of Fat Tire Farm’s rental sale and get her a first taste of ‘real’ mountain biking (she’s done a few Forest Park yawners, but I don’t think that counts as mountain biking).
Distance: Short, damn short. ~7 miles or so.
Weather: Dope. 65ish. Perfectly clear with a slight breeze to keep you cool on the uphill.
Short summary: Slowest….ride…..ever. When you get passed by 70 year olds out dayhiking….only 1/2 kidding. To be expected though as Emily hasn’t been on the bike much nor ridden any trails since age 7 on a My Little Pony bike.
The up: Nothing like a crawling speed fully clipped in fall before even getting on the trail. Skills. Always forget I’m NOT on my city bike with flats. Dry trails. A bit rutted about 1/2 mile from the infamous brown house. Beautiful views at a pace slow enough to take them in. It took Emily a bit to get into the mentality of it, to settle into a pace that was comfortable for her, and just get comfortable on a bike in non-fire road situations. After she shook off the initial fear/hesitation from doing something new she ended up doing well and enjoying the day. To make it a bit more interesting for myself I’d ride ahead 1/2 mile or so and wait for her to catch up.
The down: Again slow, but to be expected with the n00bidity (yup, that just happened, made up a new word, call Merriam), getting a feel for bike control, where the brakes engage and how much pressure is needed, shifting weight around, counterbalancing, etc.etc.etc.
Post-ride pizza and beer DEVOURED at Double Mountain Brewery aka Cheers – seriously, everybody that came through the door knew the servers, hostesses, etc. Insane pizza if you’re into high heat, wood fired, chewy with char pizza goodness.
Was trying out a new app ‘iMapMyRide‘ and outside of it’s hunger for battery life I’m impressed. A couple screenshots of the type of data it gives you on the free version below.
 Mountain bike walking due to pulling a Schleck  If the sky wasn't blown out you'd see Mt Hood standing tall in the distance. Unimpressed by the massively overhyped camera in the iphone  Posing near the syncline of Syncline  Walking for a second after hitting a pedal on a boulder  Moments of walking interrupted by short bursts on the bike
After a long, broke ass summer finally had the time to take a little ‘summer vacation’, get outdoors, and check out some sick PNW scenery. Was fortunate enough to have a friend’s name pulled in the lottery for passes, and fortunate again that one of those passes had my name on it.
The Enchantments. Overall sick stuff, the scenery is less Pacific Northwest and more Sierra Nevada meets Switzerland. Free range larch and odd furry white urine vacuums. Good times all around.
Will keep building on the TR as I get time to actually upload pics and post, for now a quick rundown.
 Running from Sasquatch on day 1  Adam trying to look chic in the hills with his scarf  The color and the temperature of this water will both take your breath away A’ight, off to MT to burn off some frustration. To be continued…
Back. MOAR!
 Ben is proud of how he matched his sleeping pad to the lake color  Aasgard Pass gatekeeper  Moving water was freezing at 5k feet. Was going to be fun going up.  Nice scenery on the east(?) side of Dragontail  Crappy views from a ho hum little lunch spot  Full suspension rock hopper  Bemis and Kohler doing their thing  The greatest of all time eating breakfast  Night shot of the 'bar' where many Wild Turkeys were killed  Night 2 camp at base of Little Annapurna. Not much sleep that night due to wind.  Beautiful morning made getting up after little sleep easier  Some of the best water ever right there  Water crossing  Oddly sketch downclimb. The rocks were iced over with the slickest ice ever.  Larch  View of our last night's destination, the far lake
Preface: Up til Friday I’d never met Kyle Miller in person. Originally heard about him by by way of his occasional trip report on splitboard.com and TAY. Noticed he spent a LOT of time in the Crystal Mountain area, which is near and dear to me (well, near is relative right?), and after seeing his epic Olympics TR I knew I wanted to meet up and ride with him at least once this season, plus I figured I owed him a beer for the ‘behindmydeskcantwaittoquitthisfuckingjob’ stoke he provided me and many others. After you’ve read through some of his TRs on his own site and at frequency I think you’ll agree that dude gets after it!
PMs and numbers were exchanged, forecast looked less than stellar, but we both decided what the hell – any day in the mountains is good, and if we happen to get good turns as well than it’s icing on the cake. Plus, my Heavenly riding buddy Kevin had torn his achilles two days prior – made it hard to pass up an opportunity to play in the mountains after having the reminder that the opportunity to play in the mountains can be snatched from you at any moment.
I’ll let the photos do the talking, long TR short the day went from greybird to bluebird, from western to eastern Washington, from ooooooh to OH SHIT! and finished in the bar drinking to new friends and adventures.
 We set off in greybird conditions, hoping to find the sun  Dan skinning  Kyle skins toward the light  Sun rays  Kyle scopes a potential line while Dan captures the moment. We sawed off a small piece of cornice here, could have used a Backcountry Bomb!  Mount Ronyay pokes it's head out. At this point I could have used a namesake beer.  Lunchbreak, eyeing the potential lines.  Dan snapping photos of the ridiculous scenery  Lines lines everywhere  Dan assesses the snow conditions  ...and deems them satisfactory  Kyle assesses Dan's assessment  ...and agrees  Kyle's jacket, always tough to impress, gives the trip one thumb up Good trip and good turns, appreciate Kyle Miller and Dan Howell letting me tag along and slow them down. This turns were for you Kevin, hope that achilles heals up in time for next season!
Been awhile since I’ve added any personal trip reports/pics, throwing up a few quick and dirty (had to screenshot them from Facebook as I don’t have the originals on this computer) pictures from the past few weeks.
 Scouting lines in the fog  AM fog, looked like AK  Waterproof camera testing. It works.  Wild berries everywhere!  Harvest  Alien  Jen tries to forget Hawaii in WA  Mosquito net nap  Clearwater cliffhanger  This was an empty spot on the Puyallup  If this guy rolls up to your campsite....RUN! Now that I’ve had a few more days on them will finally get around to posting a review on the Mountain Hardwear Koa 55 pack and the Mountain Hardwear Phantom 32 bag.
Also, realize I’ve been neglecting Beer Friday lately. Believe me, it’s not for a lack of drinking them! A quick top of the head list of a few that I remember being tasty.
Hopworks IPA
Harmon Point Defiance IPA
Kona Coco Loco – brown ale made with toasted coconut
Deschutes King Cone fresh hop pale ale
Also, brewed my first batch in over two years, a winter warmer, currently in secondary. Holiday party 09 at PMH’s house!
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