The Cerro de las Posas is a prominent chain of low hills in between San Marcos and Escondido. You can see its distinctive trio of pointy prominences from miles away.
Frank's Peak, Mt Whitney and its Siamese twin.
The best known of the peaks is Double Peak (1644ft), the lone round dome on the west side of San Elijo/Twin Oaks Valley Rd. Double Peak is accessibility itself and welcomes a lot of visitors each days via its many trails and the beautifully paved access road. My objective for the day, however, was the less social high point on the east side of San Elijo/Twin Oaks Valley Rd; Mt Whitney (1736ft), the range's tallest peak, seen in the picture above with the distinctive double crescents of mostly paved road curving up its southeast flank. Intimidating looking road, that is, and it took me long enough to work up the courage to finally have a go.
The opening salvo on Wilgen Dr.
A few of the family of California quails roaming the Wilgen dip.
After the dip, the climbing just got steeper and steeper. I was in solid double digit gradient country.
I was grateful for the gentle warm up stretch on Harmony Groves Rd, since once I veered into the new development at Country Club Dr to pick up the bottom of the double crescents climb, it was gory from start to finish. That new development may feature a bunch of nice looking houses, but those houses are hiding quite a horde of steepie monsters...
Every turn brings fresh new pain. I wasn't even halfway up yet and my legs already hated me.
This is not a city-maintained area, of course, so there is no counting on signage. I was very glad that I had Google Earth-ed the heck out of the route before setting off, and avoided adding more psychological pain of taking a wrong turn to the inescapable physical pain of pedaling road bike gearing up ungodly steep (and often bumpy) road.
After the saddle between the houses, pavement gave way to rough dirt.
There wasn't much wind on Crestwind Dr that morning, which was just as well since I was kicking up a lot of dirt all by myself hike-a-bike-ing my roadie up the steep and pebbly section. This is the lower curve just below the two visible paved curves that marks the mountain from the distance.
Gory, gory, what a heck of a way to climb...
You'd think that it'd all get better once the pavement returns... and you'd be wrong.
After much grumbling and huffing and puffing I rounded the far corner ready to rejoice at the return of the paved tarmac... and was reminded of the sinking feeling I got when I first laid eye on the main climb of San Bernardino Ave on Dictionary Hill after having gotten up that tiny little steep block immediately up from the top of already chain-stretchy Apple St. There aren't many things in cycling life as demoralizing as the view of three solid blocks of 21% grade pavement, but the view up from the bottom of the paved double crescents on Crestwind Dr gives quite a similar sucker punch.
A backward shot back toward Country Club Dr development from the 2nd crescent.
Really, what do folks here do if their car ever breaks down???
Even though I knew there's another icky double digit ramp to the Mt Whitney saddle overlook, it was still a mighty relief to finally crested Crestwind Dr and turning onto Washingtonia. Actually, I was so elated at having survived such a gnarly series of steepie monsters that I went on past the overlook and up the curvy ramp to the Mt Whitney tower. It still hurt, but not as bad as it usually does when I'd tackle it after coming up the standard Coronado Hills/Washingtonia route. I guess I had overwhelmed my pain signal receptors and turned into a two-wheeled zombie. The pain would come later, but at the top the air was cool and the view surreal... and it was all downhill from here. Not such a bad trade off for a little bit of madness on the bike, ay?
Earlier this year yours truly rented a room in a house whose back porch opened right onto the north trail of Carlsbad's Calavera Preserve. It was quite a treat going to sleep to the sound of the wild almost every night, and enjoying the view of an open stretch of land while nursing the morning coffee before heading off to work, where I'd spend the day dreaming of my days off when I'd get to take the Smorgmobile 2.0 out on the dusty trails in the 'backyard'.
Calavera Preserve has many many trails to explore. Currently just about all of them on the Preserve are open to bicycle. You do have to know the lay of the land quite well before heading out, though, as none of the trails in the adjacent Dept of Fish and Wildlife's Carlsbad Highland Ecological Reserve is open to bike (although I've seen a lot of mountain bikers on it). Generally you are fine if you stay north of the white concrete barrier/fence on the south side of the Cerro de la Calavera.
My pad being on the north side of the Preserve, I generally roamed well north of the boundary.
Most of the trails are quite road-bike-able... until they are not (bwahahaha). You just have to invest a bit in practicing your bike-handling skills, and stay quite vigilant on terrain awareness (so you don't suddenly find yourself in the weed (or rut... or even well hidden drop off!).
Oh, yeah, mtb shoes also work way better than road shoes...
Getting to the Volcano is quite a nice riding skills challenge when you aren't on a full suspension mtb, but the view is quite worth the effort.
Enjoy the view, but never lose sight of what you are riding into!
Top of the Skull
The top of the 'Skull', the Cerro de la Calavera, is a wacky place...
Some rocky fun on the trail.
No matter which set of trails you venture onto, any day on the bike is a perfect day!
One clear day late last autumn I hopped on my bike and headed out to the seemingly empty land between Moreno Valley and San Jacinto, partly to see if the lonely palm tree I could see from the distance was really as lonely as it seemed from afar.
I was spending too much time in the dullest part of Moreno Valley, and it was a relief to escape the confine of the city straight into nothingness as the busy and straight Alessandro Blvd becomes a less-traveled 2 laner and even developed a bend as its' name changes to Theodore Rd. Straying off the main road just then I turned right onto the old Davis Rd, whose cracky pavement soon gave way to a relatively well-graded packed dirt after a gate. No more roars of motor vehicles or city trash blowing about. Just chirpy brushes full of birds that don't seem to realize that they would have gone entirely undetected by me if only they would quit chirping.
After the 2nd car gate Davis Rd becomes indecisive about whether it wants to remain a dirt lane or become a paved one, and short stretches of tarmac comes and goes between the horse ranches. There was really not much to see until I descended a little hill to find the entrance to San Jacinto Wildlife Preserve. It is quite a little oasis in the convincingly parched valley.
I suspect that the place looks quite different now and there might even be water in the basin to the east of the preserve, marked on the maps as 'Mystic Lake'. When I rolled thru there last December, though, nary a drop of water was to be found outside the preserve.
I spent an hour or so happily slow-spinning the preserve trails, stalking water birds and the many hawks and kestrels patrolling the area. It was so nice and peaceful (mostly for me, but probably not much for the fish and little squirrels trying to sneak around under the gaze of all those hungry raptors!).
As the day wore on, though, I rolled back out to the main road and took the cattle-fields-lined Bridge Rd short cut from Ramona Expressway to Gilman Springs Rd in the vain hope of espying some cool game birds along the way, but the only creatures that came out to greet me were a bunch of curious cows munching leisurely on their lunch.
The turn off onto the narrow old Jack Rabbit Trail from Gilman Springs Rd is unmarked. This used to be the main (or rather, the one and only) connection between Beaumont and Moreno Valley before Highway 60 was built. It was practically abandoned once the main highway opened in 1936 (especially once the 60 was upgraded to a freeway in 1956), and is now quite in disrepair with broken up pavement and a few landslid spots toward the crest.
There is only one house along the lonely lane, and its owner came riding down the slope on his touring bike just as I got 1/3 of the way up it. We had a chat and I went on to tag the north end of the trail (Jack Rabbit Trail now ends on Hwy 60, not quite a thru road by bike) before coming back up to meet him again near the crest. His name is Dave Major and he is riding across the States with his daughter Martie, a few bits of it at a time. How cool is that, ay??
Anyhow, I survived the bumpy descent back to Gilman Springs and back to town just before the evening rush hours commenced. That was quite a relief (all the tire marks the many cars left on Gilman Springs from veering unexpectedly onto the narrow road shoulder were getting on my nerves quite a bit). It was quite a nice little day ride to perk up my miserable year in Moreno Valley. That taught me a lesson... there are wonderful views to see even in hell, you just have to hop onto the bike and go find them!
