A Perfect Day in the OR Coast Range
 

Hadn't enjoyed a good rip of single track in the Oregon coast range for a couple months, so decided to go against conventional wisdom about riding during a holiday weekend and headed out for a day ride over the July 4th holiday.

One of the usual suspects and his buddy thought it was a good idea as well, so we met at Diamond Mill staging and headed out.

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One of my favorite "new" trails when leaving the staging area is called Odin's Ridge. The great guys that work the area recently re-did the trail and it now reminds me of riding one of my favorite trails in the Giff - the Yozoo trail. It cuts along the side of a ridge where a fall to your left isn't recommended...lol. It winds through the forest and then heads out into a cleared area offering phenomenal views of the range. And the views when you get back to the logging road aren't too bad either.

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From there we failed at going up a nasty section of Arrowhead and decided to hoof it around to the entrance to another great section of single track called Spaur Ridge. Lots of vegetation to contend with, but a fun little section to ride. Finished up with that and hit an easier section of Arrowhead so we could keep making our way north.

It seems whatever logging company contracts to this part of the forest has been busy of late, there were signs saying Stumpy was closed (which didn't make any sense as they're logging hundreds of feet away) and we also ran into a sign on Diamond Mill Ridge.

In any event, we didn't let that screw up too much of the loop we had planned, hitting a fun section of Elk Wallow and then making our way over to Diamond Mill Ridge. Although the loggers fubar'd the first section and it's now a frickin' road, the biggest chunk of the trail was fine and we had a blast ripping along.

Decided to check out the views from Triangulation Point and have a bite to eat, but killed that idea upon arriving as there was some kind of flying ant bug in full bloom...and they apparently like 2-stroke riders. We headed to another ridge and found a great place to take a break and enjoy a much needed snack. And the views don't suck from up here either.

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Re-energized, we headed back into the woods and made our way along Cramlett's Cliff and followed that immediately with DC. Cramlett's is always fun, but DC is one of the great trails out there now that they re-did the entrance. Great switch-backs as you wind your way to the lip of the ridge, then it cuts along that lip and throws a bit of everything your way...including a wash-out section where falling left is ill-advised...lol.

We had fun playing around on Old Cedar Creek and the Special Test, then ran Outback and found that it needs some serious brush clearing - could hardly see where the trail went a couple times. One of those involved a creek crossing with a large hole to fall into if you got it wrong...lol.

My buddy's buddy was starting to feel the heat of the day, so we decided to loop back toward staging. Got him there safe and sound and realized we still had some miles left in our tanks, so we headed north from staging to get a few more trails in before calling it a day.

The first trail we hit wasn't too bad, 2-track that's sort of new and flows well. Upon finishing that, we decided to hit one last trail before going back to staging. It had been a couple year since I tackled this goofy trail and about 75' into the trail I remembered why it'd been that long...lol.

I need to pull the elevation stats off my GPS and see how far we dropped during the course of the trail, but a key indicator was my bike spent more time not running than running while we traversed our way down. At least we saved this gnarly downhill bit for the last trail of the day...when it was hottest...and when we were tiredest (lol).

We didn't rack up any mileage records for the day, but we did knock out 48 or so. And for being a busy holiday weekend, we only saw one other group of riders out in the woods. Guess the rest of the folks camping at the staging area must have been ripping around the parking lot...lol.

I have some video to get to from this rip too; will post that in a bit.