We got to the staging area and the weather was perfect. The weather guessers said sunny and mid 80s, so I didn't bother bringing a rain jacket or gloves. Little did I know I would regret that! We headed up the road to the beginning of the Minnehaha Trail. I'd been on this trail multiple times and it's always a keeper, so Jason took off with me in tow. This was a great way to get back in the saddle!
<<----Best watched in HD/full-screen mode
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We then did some recon for an old trail on the GPS to no avail. Then we headed up Hamaker Bluff Trail to meet up with Tiny. Due to the questionable trail design, the bottom was all rocky, but then things started to mellow out, and that's when the dust became apparent, but it was still a fun ride.
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About that time, the skies suddenly darkened up and commenced to open up on us. Even lightning started bolting all around us! Why, oh why didn't I bring my rain gear. Good thing I was planning on it being hot, so wore my vented riding gear - brrrr! There were remnants of trees brutalized by lightning all around, so we decided to make our way back to the truck and rethink our options.
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Once back at the truck, Jason and I were still wanting to do more riding, so we decided to head up to West Trail and Sherwood Trail. The West Trail was a blast, but by the time we'd gotten to Sherwood Trail, it was quite muddy. However we had Rain-X on our goggles and were bundled up a bit more, so headed up Sherwood anyway. Yet another trail poorly designed for water runoff (so had plenty of rocks), but was still a blast nonetheless. We even encountered a herd of elk on the way to the summit!
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At the end of the day, I had almost 48 miles on my GPS. Even though Ma Nature had her way with us, it was still a great day to be out in the woods!
-Tom
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