Monday, February 17, 2014

President's Day Bike Ride

First blogpost in a few months. My novel infatuation with Instagram and the dregs of winter marked by darkness and lack of snow have, untill now, stifled my desire to  write here. Having enjoyed several hours of sun soaked bike riding, I felt compelled to revive the blog. 

The darkness of winter is gradually waning leaving more hours to enjoy the snowy single track around my neighborhood.  Had a great afternoon riding with my buddy Nate, and even scored some epic views of Denali.
The relatively flat flowy trails of the Cambell Tract were amply groomed by midday from recent snowfall.
  As the fatbike boom has contined to accelerate over the past two years, narrow winding trails that used to be soley used by a limited number of winter bikers "in the know" are now bussy thoroughfares.
 
Finding fresh tracks becomes harder to find, but not impossible. Nate has been slowly building his own secret connector trail. 
The camera adds 10 pounds, damn those tires look huge! 

In search of more freshies and elevation gain, I turned westward to the hillside trails. After passing the bustling Hillside ski area, I was treated to an assuredly deserted trail system with a couple inches of fresh untracked powder only to be shared with a local coyote. 
I was surprised to find these trails untouched; they are typically quite busy during skinny-tire season, offering much in the way of mellow meandering hill climbs, and rewarding fast banked descents.

Gaining roughly 1000 feet of elevation over the city, I was afforded a clear view of Denali to enjoy while layering up for the descent.  


Down in the flatlands of Campbell Tract,
a large clearing of marsh with icey layers of overflow served as canvas and medium for intrepid artists to create some Goldsworthyesque ice arrangements.

Photoshopped because it looks nicer.

Meanwhile I was creating my own ice arrangements in my facial hair, which proved less than impressive due to the warm afternoon temperatures. 

Over to Nate's for coffee and cookies. 

And I still had daylight in the form of a firey orange sunset for the ride home.