Just when I thought there wasn't any nearby new adventures to be had, it turns out that all I had to do was look just north of San Diego county a little harder than I had in the past and all kinds of new dualsport adventure opportunities would open up for me. (There, is that a long enough opening sentence for ya?) I am also lucky to have good friends to share these adventures with. So when I rolled in at Maze Rock road this morning at Anza, Christi, Becky and Betsy were already there waiting and ready to go.
It promised to be a great day. I hadn't had the pleasure of going on a DS ride with Betsy or Becky yet, but Betsy is involved in offroad activities not limited to bikes, but also cars and horses. Becky has been riding for a year and although she had a couple of shorter DS rides (on easy stuff like Palomar Divide and the dirt road to Anza), this would be her first all day excursion on uncharted trails and some intermediate terrain. So I would play it by ear for the day's venues, so that everybody could have a good time, see some scenery and enjoy each other's company.
Four happy explorers. Hey, at least there was one Husqvarna there.
So we set off in search of scenery and fun trails. Our first stop would be up at the fire lookout station near Hixon trail.
After that, we descended Hixon trail. What a great trail that is! Turns out that Becky came through with flying colors and really enjoyed the challenge. So after that, I was confident that we could pick about any type of trail we wanted and everybody could make it and have fun doing it.
Near the bottom of Hixon.
We headed over to Bee Canyon road from there, but not too far up that road we dropped away onto a narrow trail that Christi had spotted on our last ride in the area. It led into a beautiful canyon that had lots of exploration opportunities. We checked some of them out.
Becky is undaunted by a glitch in the learning curve.
We found this old adobe house on a hill.
We found us a new set of wheels.
And then we discovered a canyon oasis, complete with a creek, some palm trees and a hot spring.
More to come.....
It promised to be a great day. I hadn't had the pleasure of going on a DS ride with Betsy or Becky yet, but Betsy is involved in offroad activities not limited to bikes, but also cars and horses. Becky has been riding for a year and although she had a couple of shorter DS rides (on easy stuff like Palomar Divide and the dirt road to Anza), this would be her first all day excursion on uncharted trails and some intermediate terrain. So I would play it by ear for the day's venues, so that everybody could have a good time, see some scenery and enjoy each other's company.
Four happy explorers. Hey, at least there was one Husqvarna there.
So we set off in search of scenery and fun trails. Our first stop would be up at the fire lookout station near Hixon trail.
After that, we descended Hixon trail. What a great trail that is! Turns out that Becky came through with flying colors and really enjoyed the challenge. So after that, I was confident that we could pick about any type of trail we wanted and everybody could make it and have fun doing it.
Near the bottom of Hixon.
We headed over to Bee Canyon road from there, but not too far up that road we dropped away onto a narrow trail that Christi had spotted on our last ride in the area. It led into a beautiful canyon that had lots of exploration opportunities. We checked some of them out.
Becky is undaunted by a glitch in the learning curve.
We found this old adobe house on a hill.
We found us a new set of wheels.
And then we discovered a canyon oasis, complete with a creek, some palm trees and a hot spring.
More to come.....
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