We waited around until the skies finally stopped dropping mist and appeared to sort of clear. The plan was to head over to trail 270, then up 271 at the west end to the Yozoo trail to Hamilton Butte and then loop back toward camp. Aron joined us for the trek out 270, but his arm was too beaten up to try and do Yozoo, so he bailed back to camp. We encountered several warning signs that trail 270 was closed west of where 271 cuts up to intersect with Yozoo. Turns out it's closed well before that 271 intersection - mother nature decided the trail needs to be re-worked as it's simply gone.
We turned around and headed all the way back 270 to the other intersection of 271 at the east end. As we started climbing 271, the rain decided to make another appearance and didn't stop. By the time we arrived at Yozoo, everyone was soaked through and we were a long ways from camp. It's too bad too, riding Yozoo offers awesome views as you drop down to the valley floor. I'd say it was cool riding in the clouds, but it really wasn't...lol. Thanks to the rain, every encounter with a tree or brush on the trail was like a small shower...nice squishy boots by the time we found the road at the bottom of Yozoo.
Once we hit bottom (lol), Gavin & Al decided they'd had enough of wet weather riding and figured they'd take roads back to camp. Little did they know they were in for an adventure attempting that navigation. Jim and I decided to press on and hit Hamilton Butte, then start the trek back to camp. One of the crazy things about weather up there, it can be bad on one side and not so bad on another The west side of Hamilton Butte was nice and wet, but when we moved around to the east side...it was dry. Not bone dry, but there were sections of trail where dust was being kicked up. Pretty crazy.
After enjoying Hamilton Butte, we hit the east end of trail 270 and stopped along one of the cool bridges out there for some pics.
Getting back to camp, we realize we beat Gavin and Al...and that shouldn't have happened given the time we spent on the trails. Turns out they found a road that went missing and had to engineer their way around/threw the wash. The retelling of that adventure is a good one, wish they were on here to do so. I know it involved using a tow-strap and launching their bikes 5-6 feet up an embankment. Apparently, Gavin was a little happy with the happy handle and launched his 8 feet or so, bounced it off a tree right above Al's head.
We logged just over 57 miles and even though it was a wet ride, it was a good one.
