Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

> DID ANYONE GO ON THE AMERICAN RIVER RIDE
> THIS WEEKEND? WHAT DID YOU THINK OF IT?

Yup, I went. This is the second time I've done the 50,
and I also did the 30 a couple of years ago.

Comments:
*********

* Lots of poison oak <scratch, scratch> (I can't count
  the number of times I watched riders ahead of me
  blithely splat through the PO with their faces, while
  I was doing a contortion act to avoid them).

* Hot (ended up using the grungy horse sponge on me. It
  was supposed to be 87oF)

* Scrambly (horse did the splits over one rock and
  skinned up his knee)

* A ride map would probably help non-locals (will
  probably offer my services next year)

* Plenty of water on the trail (unfortunately, the
  horse was too stupid to take advantage of it)

* Possibly one of the prettiest trails anywhere, since
  you're going alongside the river/lake for nearly the
  whole time (but since I was trying to hang onto the
  horse, I didn't manage to take any pics)

* Riding-wise, one of the coolest, most interesting
  trails around.

  There's about 3000' of climbing, ~2000' of descent
  (most of that in but a few miles). The only flat part
  is the first 6 miles, when you can really make time
  (read "gallop", so long as you don't mind doing so
  on hard-packed dirt). After that, the trail is twisty
  up and down singletrack for probably a total 38 of
  the 50 miles.

  There are places where the trail has eroded downwards
  and it has become so narrow you have to lift your feet
  to get past the boulders - you're sort of riding in a
  tunnel, with vertical mud sides to it. Then there are
  places where you have to clamber up over granite
  boulders.

  Several miles of trail are very narrow with a steep
  drop off into the river.

  Because of all the rain and warm weather we had this
  spring, the trail was pretty overgrown, so there were
  places you had to ride lying on the horse's neck to
  avoid being pulled off by manzanita branches.

  It's a tough trail to make time on.


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Lucy Chaplin Trumbull
elsietee AT foothill DOT net
Repotted english person in the Sierra foothills, California
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I still prefer what it is that BH100, Tevis, The Duck's Soup of Endurance,
etc. has to offer...but, to see a horse canter over sand for those
distances...Good Lord, it humbles me.
~  Frank Solano

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