Alpine Trail East Coast Taster

Day Three of Abe's visit included a rendezvous to Oakridge where it was time to introduce him to single track heaven that awaited.  Dan joined us for our adventure and reminisced about his trip three years earlier that planted the seeds for an eventual move to paradise.

We decided Alpine was the go-to trail for an initial visit.  We humped our way up the forest road and just tried to get comfortable for the long grind up.  I kept hoping I had not overcommitted Abe....and kept insisting that the pay off was well worth it.  In the back of my mind I knew he had a high threshold to suffer so he would be able to dig deep.

We eventually made it up to our trailhead entrance and did a little more punchy climbing until we got to the alpine meadow full of beargrass.  After some quick pictures and breather, we looked forward to the mostly downhill trail....wink wink...

I warned the boyz there was still about 1,500 ft of climbing left on the descent and that we were not quite done pedaling.  That is the sneaky thing about Alpine...it continues to dish out some punishment on the descent.  Despite the long grunt uphill to start, there is more uphill on the downhill.

There was some verbal abuse about the trail not being all downhill but I could tell there was big fun being had!

Fall hung in the air and we enjoyed the crisp temps and amazing views that were made a little more magic by all the leaves dropping as we rode.

Some pictures from the land of giants...