The boy and I headed out yesterday a.m. to ride Sonora, Monitor and Ebbetts and it did not disappoint. We originally planned for Saturday but pushed it a day due to weather concerns.
The fun started when we picked up Hwy 49 at San Andreas and headed south to 108. New Melones is looking a bit low, was not expecting that but in retrospect it was a drier than normal year.
Made a quick pit stop to stretch our legs and have a quick snack at Donnell Vista before continuing up the hill. There were cars everywhere at the Sonora summit and no place for a photo but grabbed this one on the way up.
It's always interesting to see the contrast between the east and west side of the Sierras. I really like the high desert.
We rolled into Walker around 12:30 and had a nice lunch at Mtn BBQ. There was another group of riders there, fellow BARF'ers? After a quick lunch we headed to the community park which is open and empty, found a shady spot on the grass and took a quick nap and let the food digest :afm199
The switchbacks up to Monitor offered some good views of the valley.
There was a fair amount of traffic on Ebbetts or more than the end of last year when I tagged along with BikeAMA.
The town of Murphys was lined with people out milling around and eating ice cream. There wasn't an open parking spot on the main drag through town. We hung a right up Sheep Ranch Rd on what I thought would be some good twisties up to Mokelumne Hill. Here's some advice, skip it. It was 33 miles of single lane goat trail that hadn't been paved in 20 years. I probably need to check my fork seals.:thumbdown Don't let the nice road in the pic fool you, there were small sections that had been repaired due to fire damage.
It was getting to be a long day at that point and we scooted down Hwys 49 to 88 over to 104 to the highway to get us home. Later I asked my son if he'd go with me again, I got a very non-committal "yeah, maybe" :laughing
The fun started when we picked up Hwy 49 at San Andreas and headed south to 108. New Melones is looking a bit low, was not expecting that but in retrospect it was a drier than normal year.
Made a quick pit stop to stretch our legs and have a quick snack at Donnell Vista before continuing up the hill. There were cars everywhere at the Sonora summit and no place for a photo but grabbed this one on the way up.
It's always interesting to see the contrast between the east and west side of the Sierras. I really like the high desert.
We rolled into Walker around 12:30 and had a nice lunch at Mtn BBQ. There was another group of riders there, fellow BARF'ers? After a quick lunch we headed to the community park which is open and empty, found a shady spot on the grass and took a quick nap and let the food digest :afm199
The switchbacks up to Monitor offered some good views of the valley.
There was a fair amount of traffic on Ebbetts or more than the end of last year when I tagged along with BikeAMA.
The town of Murphys was lined with people out milling around and eating ice cream. There wasn't an open parking spot on the main drag through town. We hung a right up Sheep Ranch Rd on what I thought would be some good twisties up to Mokelumne Hill. Here's some advice, skip it. It was 33 miles of single lane goat trail that hadn't been paved in 20 years. I probably need to check my fork seals.:thumbdown Don't let the nice road in the pic fool you, there were small sections that had been repaired due to fire damage.
It was getting to be a long day at that point and we scooted down Hwys 49 to 88 over to 104 to the highway to get us home. Later I asked my son if he'd go with me again, I got a very non-committal "yeah, maybe" :laughing