Loggin' in miles on two wheels

I am certainly making the most of my time in the PNW as far as riding goes. Randy and Ryan Iddings, local father/son duo led a ride near Mtn Rainier this past Saturday that was one for the record books. Named the Triple Crown, our ride started from Crystal Mtn ski area parking lot with some middle ring and plenty of granny gear climbing for more than an hour. The weather was OK with temps in the low 50's range and light rain, tolerable considering. Once we reached the top and regrouped, we hit our first section of trail, Northway. This was a ripping fast descent for maybe 30 or so minutes with plenty of switch backs, jagged rocks and plenty of consequence. Ryan led me through the first section about 5 or so minutes into the downhill. In typical Ryan fashion, he once again narrowly escaped with his life as he thread the needle with gnarly death rocks on the right and 200 ft drop to death on left, all with one leg flailing in the air while riding a flat. This was the theme of the day, good stuff.

After the Northway decent, we cruised over to the start of climb 2, Ranger Creek. This was a fireroad grind that was once again about an hour. Steep and long enough to demoralize most, we kept it in the middle ring and climbed into the clouds. Once reaching the top we traversed along a ridgeline on some fun rolling terrain before dropping in on the next ripping descent, Deep Creek. This off the back of the bike, seat in your chest plunge has the ability to leave you white knuckled as you dash left and right around roots and trees. I found myself riding my bike at its limits as I could not of had enough brake nor suspension. With our disk brakes red hot and popping with heat (we used to ride this with rim brakes?) our group of 8 reached the bottom and everyone had a grin on their face with stories of near death experiences; funny what puts a smile on a mt bikers face.

We putting down some calories and cruised down the white river trail to the start of our 3rd and final climb, up Suntop. This was another hour fireroad grind with substantial elevation gain, see a theme? After +/-3500' of elevation gain, we crested the top of the Suntop fire service road where the trail begins. This included an additional 500-700 ft climbing before hitting the flowiest of all the trails of the day. Wide open fast singletrack in old growth lead to technical switchbacks sections and back into the wide open stuff, northwest riding at its finest. We regrouped at the runway and prepared for the 30 minute grind back up to Crystal mtn where the cars were parked. What a ride at 60 miles and 14000+ ft of climbing, decent weather, amazing trails and great people. We started with 8 and finished with 8, that's what I'm talking about. Thanks guys for a killer ride.


The A Team


Crystal Mtn climb into the clouds