We blasted back down the 4×4 road toward the saddle, and surprisingly spotted a crew of about 6-8 riders making their way up. Apparently we weren’t the only ones planning a mountain bike summit! But as far as I could tell, we were the only ones with a sweet singletrack ride back down the mountain, due to our local knowledge and ability to set up a shuttle.
The Little Browns Creek trail is very rarely used by any type of traffic. This was evidenced by the difficulty we had finding the trailhead. Afflicted by the all-too-common disappearing-alpine-singletrack-syndrome, we had to hunt around in the general area for a while before we spotted a faint track.
Surprisingly, the top section was quite smooth and fllowy. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “this is in much better shape than I expected it to be!” Yeah, that didn’t last long–the trail got more defined very quickly, and by that I mean it was an erroded ditch full of boulders that undoubtedly functions as a stream during spring melt off. We pinballed our way straight down the mountainside, holding onto our brakes for dear life.
With my 6″ travel enduro rig, I was still white-knuckling it, but I couldn’t imagine how Ben was doing on his rigid bike. I stopped at the bottom of a few sections to watch him descend. While he wasn’t moving as fast as me, and he did walk a few sections, Ben railed it down some babyhead boulder fields at an impressive speed! Whether that was due to mad skills or the fact that his brakes couldn’t slow him down any further, I’m not entirely sure–but regardless, he made it! After the fact, Ben said, “Most of the 6,000-foot descent I was thinking, ‘Don’t die, don’t die…’ It was awesome!”
Eventually we dropped into the trees, but after the lengthiest above-treeline descent I’ve ever experienced in my life! But after starting at 13,600 feet, I’d guess that lengthy amount of radness was to be expected.
Thankfully, some maintenance had recently been done on the trail to clear downed trees, due to the recent-logging cuts. If we’d come a month or two earlier, that trail may not have been rideable at all. Unfortunately, cutting down trees is the only evidence of maintenance that we saw. Even once in the trees, the trail tread was a fall line washout, filled with endless babyheads and massive, blocky boulders. While washed out, it was quite entertaining, although the death grip on the brakes got old after a while. Occasionally, the trail would transition to flowy dirt covered in thick pine needles, offering a brief respite, only to return back to relentless rocks.
Eventually, after following Little Browns Creek for miles, the singletrack split away from the stream, veering up the steep side of the valley. While I was thankful to finally be riding some better-designed benchcut singletrack (still rocky, but in a good way), I couldn’t believe that we were climbing again! “Seriously?! I thought we were done with this!”
Thankfully it didn’t last long, as we dropped into a fast singletrack with a few switchbacks thrown in. But somewhere along the way, partially due to fatigue and partially due to the loose dirt, I got my front wheel sideways in the middle of a fast descent, and instantaneously went sailing over the bars, landing on my forearms. Antero wouldn’t let me get away totally scot-free–I paid for my passage in blood.
Really it wasn’t too bad–just a significant loss of skin on my forearms and some discolored bruises beginning to form on my knees–so I gathered myself, and we kept descending. While I had intended to get a few more photos, we were beat and just ready to be done, so we finished our descent as quickly as possible, ending on the few miles of familiar singletrack.
All told, we’d ridden over 20 miles (the Strava has been cropped somewhat), climbed 4,937 feet, and descended 6,180 feet. Total elapsed time from leaving the car in St Elmo and reaching the shuttle vehicle at the bottom of the mountain was 7 hours and 20 minutes, including our stops on the way up, photo ops, and 45-minute lunch break on the mountain. All things considered, we thought we’d made pretty good time moving over that challenging terrain!
Antero proved to have been bucket list-worthy. This ride is probably the hardest thing I’ve accomplished in 2015, but all that effort was more than worth it! And as we drove back up to pick up the first vehicle, I realized: Ben had indeed done the entire ride on his rigid singlespeed, and while he had to wait for me a good bit on the climb, I did a decent job at keeping up.
Let that sink in: Ben climbed almost 4,900 feet and descended 6,200 feet of incredibly-challenging, technical terrain on a rigid singlespeed!! What’s your excuse, again?
This was my first time summiting a 14er on my mountain bike, but I sure hope that it won’t be the last! I’m already looking at maps and putting together potential routes. Who knows what 2016 has in store?
