Bienvenue en Louisiana

Well Sarah and I left San Diego at 6:00 AM Wed. morning to make it back to Louisiana by Friday, giving us the weekend to get settled before I would head back to school.  The first night I planned on stopping in Las Cruces, NM which was about a 10 hour drive and then head from there the next day and check out Austin, TX.  We arrived in Las Cruces about 5 pm and checked into our hotel which wasnt too bad.  For our night in Las Cruces we thought we would try some mexican food as Las Cruces is the chilli pepper capitol.  The mexican food was decent but we notice a weird drink that was served in New Mexico called chelada.  Didnt look appetizing to me.

After getting back to the hotel we checked the weather and it called for thunderstorms in Austin so we decided to change plans and head to Houston which would give us a short drive on Friday of only 4 hours.  We got on the road at about 8 and started the long drive again as the day progressed we decided to skip Houston and make it all the Lafayette that day.  This would give us a 16 hour day of driving.  I thought it was worth it to sleep in our own bed and save the money that would be spent on a hotel.  We made it into Lafayette around 1 am and didnt even unpack.

  

Its good to get back and finish up my last year of college though as much as I don't want college to end.  These last two semesters shouldn't be too bad.

San Onofre

Today I decided to do an out and back up to San Onofre which I thought would be around 50 to 60 miles.  As the link from Swamis said 22 miles one way but my starting point would be a little further.  So I packed up some fresh banana bread and a couple of water bottles for the ride.  I was hoping the construction would be done that had stopped me the last few times.

As I approached the same place that stopped me last time I saw the same construction signs allowing no access.  I decided to find another way around and followed the detour signs which brought me out to the Oceanside Harbor Exit where I went and entered the base from.  The ride isn't very hilly but its like a total different world going through the base.  You have huge Hummers passing you by on the road and tanks parked off on the side.  They had some cool obstacle courses located throughout the base that I was tempted to go try but didn't.  

I made it all the way SONGS where I decided to turn around with almost 40 miles on my odometer at this point.  I stopped at San Onofre to eat my banana bread and saw I only had a half of a water bottle left.  This worried me as I wasnt carrying any cash to refill, but knew there was a McDonalds on base that I could stop at and refill my water.  I ended up with 75 miles which was good after all the eating we have been doing for these tastings.

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Encinitas, CA

I arrived from my flight from Anchorage on Saturday afternoon and was dead tired from the red eye.  I lucked out with my luggage as I wasn't charged the $125 for my bike instead they charged me the now normal $25 for 2 pieces of luggage.  The guy checking me in didn't notice it was oversized until after he had ran my credit card for the $25 so he let me go without paying the $125.  

When I finally got back to the house I tried taking a nap but couldn't as I'm not much of a napper.  The rest of the day was pretty much wasted though as I was too tired to do anything and couldn't fall asleep.  The next day after 12 hours of sleep that night was spent unpacking everything but my bike and doing errands.  

Tuesday I decided to head out on a little road ride to get a feel for my legs.  They were a little tired but not too bad so that night I decided to put my mountain bike together.  I gave it a shakedown today at La Costa putting in only 5 miles as we had a tasting at the French Gourmet.  Everything went fine except for a little play in my rear wheel.  Which I haven't had time to fully inspect yet.

Resurrection Trail

Today I went to pick up my bike from Eric as he was doing measurements for my new bike bags for a trip Im planning early next year.  After picking my bike up and checking out all his gear he uses for his crazy adventures I then headed down to Hope to hit up the Resurrection trail.  I wasn't in the mood for a big ride just wanted to take it easy and take in the sights.

I arrived at the trail around noon and started the uphill grind.  The trail has a slight incline with a few breaks but for the most part your climbing for 19 miles I suppose.  I stopped only 8 miles in at a creek to eat one of my sandwiches and just enjoy being in the mountains.  

I started back up after 45 minutes and started climbing again until about 2:30 when I decided to stop again for 30 minutes and then head back home for dinner.  The ride down was a blast and I actually spooked a black bear that was on the trail as I was coming down.  As soon as he saw me he bolted for the woods.

All in all it was a great day and probably my last mountain bike ride in Alaska this summer.  Hopefully I can make it back with my bike at some point and ride some of the trails that I didnt get to finish or do.

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Lost Lake Trail

I headed down to Seward, AK on the train this morning at 6:30 am to make into Seward at about 11 am to ride the Lost Lake trail / Primrose trail.  It was voted on in the local forums here in Alaska as the best singletrack ride in Alaska.  The train was a little more expensive then driving but well worth the forgoing the hassle of driving plus it only dropped me off 5 miles from the trailhead.  I was a little worried making my ride back as boarding began at 5 and the train left at 6 that left me with about 5 hours to finish the 15 miles of singletrack and the 22 miles of pavement that I would have to ride to the trailhead and back to the train station.  

The gravel road to the trailhead was a nice precursor to what I would be doing for the next few miles on the trail.  Within the first 100 yards of trail I was quickly stopped due to a flat in my rear tire which was no problem as I always pack 2 tubes in my backpack.  After fixing my flat I steadily climbed up to the top of the lake where I wasnt afforded much of a view due to the clouds that were hanging out.  The trail was also fairly wet making some of the climbs a little trickier due to the wet rocks.  It also had a few stream crossing but nothing that would cause you to get your feet soaked.  There were also quite a few backpackers on the trail as its a fairly popular backpacking trail.

After splitting off the Lost Lake trail to descend down the Primrose trail I was stopped by my second flat.  I was getting a little worried as this was my last tube and I hadn't packed a patch kit.  The descent down Primrose was fantastic, everything I could of hoped for.  Half way down the descent though I got my third and final flat as I had nothing to fix it.  I stopped some backpackers and tried using a light to melt the tube as to seal the tube but had no luck.  I started my 3 mile hike out of the trail hoping to hitch-hike a ride so as to catch my train. 

At this point it was 4 pm and I had two hours to walk 17 miles to the train station.  When I got out to the Seward Highway I tried flagging people down but had 10 cars pass me with no signs of stopping.  Luckily I saw a highway trooper going in the opposite direction and waved him down.  He ran my license and then was nice enough to give me a ride back into Seward even though he was headed home.  I made it time to catch the train where I ended up sleeping most of the way.

Photos. 

Eagle River Yurt

This weekend my family and I had reserved the rapids yurt from the Eagle River Nature Center.  Its really a great place for $65 you get this great yurt on the side of a cliff overlooking the Chugach Mountains and the Eagle River.  It has a set of bunk beds, a table, a bench, two chairs, and a wood stove inside.  Outside it has a huge deck, a fire pit, and a bunch of chopped wood to heat the yurt.  Its only a 1.75 mile hike to the yurt so you can bring some of the finer things in life too.  We had brought some kabobs, beer, smores, and cheese and crackers to snack on while we were there.  We also packed one of our favorite games clue to pass the time at night.

The next day after we hiked out my Dad and I went to Rabbit Slough which is part of Wasilla Creek.  It usually gets a nice run on coho's so we were going to try our luck.  The river is only open for fishing on the weekends from 6 to 6 so we only had an hour and a half to bring back some fresh fish.  We brought the canoe to paddle upstream a little to get further away from the crowds of people that usually sit along the bank.  Paddling upstream you can see the waters turning from all the salmon in it,  it actually looks like the water is boiling there are so many of them.  Once we got to our spot it wasnt long until my dad hooked one.  It ended up snapping his pole though, but it didnt matter as it was an illegal hook anyways.  A few minutes later though we ended up catching a nice coho 15 minutes before the fishing shutdown.

Alaska Salmon Fishing

Johnson's Pass

With one of my classes done for summer I thought I would celebrate by heading down to the Kenai and bike Johnson's Pass which is located at about the 64 mile marker on the Seward Highway.  The trail is a 21 mile point to point trail that drops you off 40 miles further down on the Seward Highway.  I arrived at the trailhead around 11 am and was planning on riding there and back giving me about 42 miles of riding.  

My legs weren't feeling great probably from my lack of time on the bike and the 55 mile ride I did 2 days previously.  The trail started out great though on beautiful singletrack with a slight incline perfect for getting the legs warmed up.  I passed a backpacker and a runner and made my first few creek crossings that were no deeper then a few inches.  Further along the trail as the creeks got bigger bridges have been constructed to help you cross.  You will still end up getting your feet wet as a few creeks dont have bridges and on some parts of the trail the creek was actually flowing down the trail.  A few miles into the trail it quickly became overgrown with devil's club and cow parsnip that made the going that much tougher.  Cow parsnip is known to give people small blisters so I was little worried with all the bushwhacking I was doing.  It was also getting harder to see my front wheel and the mud was thickening in spots.  

At mile 9 I stopped to get lunch as there was a great spot right before one of the bridges that 

had a beautiful view of a waterfall.  At mile 10 you come to a Lake and not too much further the cow parsnip retreats and the trail becomes a little wider as you start your descent.  The downhill isn't very technical with just a few small rocks to navigate around.  I soon became too complacent and next thing you know I was over the bars smacking my head into some downed trees.  My neck was a little sore also from the fall and as I went to inspect my helmet I noticed that I put a nice crack in it.

After regrouping from the fall I started my descent, taking it much more cautiously.  At mile 18.5 I came to a small stream that had about a dozen sockeye salmon in it.  I didnt like biking near it due to bears so I decided to turn around and start heading back.  I was walking my bike at this point since my legs were feeling pretty tired.  

As I came up on the Lake again I heard a rubbing coming from my back tire and looked back to see my tire was rubbing against my rear seat stay.  Upon my inspection I noticed that the bolt connecting the seat stay and chain stay and fallen out deeming my bike useless.  This is the exact same thing that happened to me with the other rear triangle.  I felt so stupid for not checking those as soon as I got a few rides in on the new rear triangle.  

On the 10 mile hike back to the car though I had a black bear run right out in front of me and stop 20 yards of the side of the trail and just stare at me.  I was a little unnerved as the bear was unphased by my hollering.  From then on every minute I was hollering Hey Bear, on my hike out.  I finally made it out at 10 exhausted from the days events.

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