Indian Truck Trail/ Blue Jay Camp

Headed out to test out the new tent locally for one night. It's always nice to go somewhere close in case something goes wrong with new equipment before you head out to a remote location. This was the goal of this 1 night camp trip.

Instead of taking pavement, of course we chose dirt to get to camp.









Looking down on Indian Truck Trail




We brought the bikes along this trip. I did take some side hill 4 lo sections that ended up in dragging the bikes a little, but they faired well considering what i was trying to do with them on the back.




Great plant life this time of year even though it's dry.



Once we completed climbing we reached Main Divide. Nice view of the Pacific Ocean. From here we just needed to head south for about 45 minutes to arrive at camp for the night.





Quite a bit of riders out we noticed, we always gave them the right away.






Nice view of Lake Elsinore in the distance.



Blue Jay Campground



Enjoying being out of the city and relaxing in fresh air.



We figured we might want to get off our lazy butts and get some excersize. Even if it was only for a short while.
(We didn't ride anything crazy, hense the reason for no helmets or proper footwear)




The whole point of this trip was to see how well the new Mombasa Expedition tent worked. We didn't have any complaints whatsoever. The 2007 model is much stronger and the ladder design is 10 x better than before. All around much higher quality and safer design.






Saturday night's dinner was killer. We marinated some beef for 24 hours before we left, put them on bamboo sticks and grilled them up with some fresh peppers. James cooked his spicy sausage Jambalaya and Bryan brought Smores.







After dinner we relaxed with our favorite beers, margaritas and endless smores. Doesn't get much better than this!





After drinking enough beers but still being able to climb up the ladder safely, we hit the sack. In the middle of the night we were woken by a visitor in our camp. I dont know what it was , Coyote probably.. but i never saw it as i looked out our tent window. In the morning i saw droppings that looked to be Coyote, but im not a professional so it could have been a Mtn Lion or something else. We proceeded to make eggs, bacon and bagel sandwiches along with some freshly ground coffee.

All in all it was a great little escape with great friends. Until next time!

Skyline Drive MTB Ride

A few of us rode up Skyline Drive here in SoCal today. We are so out of shape its not even funny! The last time i rode to the top of this monster mtn was about 6-7 years ago. All 3 of us were stoked just to make it up.. even though it took us a just short of 2 hours to concur!

We started out early and had tons of cloud cover. Thank goodness for that because this trail can get extremely hot in the summer time. Many times i remember starting the ride in the dark to prevent dealing with heat.



My cousin Cory smoked us big time. I was truly impressed with his strength. He rode up the entire mountain without stopping.




A view from about 1/4 way up the mtn.




After many breaks and tons of water.. we reached the top with cramping quads and burning lungs.




James stoked for making it to the top after wanting to give up half way up! He was so glad he didn't give up and pressed on. The feeling of accomplishment took over.. he was feeling no pain!



After taking a break and eating some trail mix we headed back down. Only took 15-20 minutes for us to reach the bottom at blazing speeds. No crashes and no bike problems, we were happy. Our wrists and fingers were sore from breaking all the way down the mountain. Good times!!!!!!