CuyaGuna with 75% Legs
CRSP, May 2023 Ride Report
Two eggs scrambled and fried into a patty, with a layer of cheese on top and stuffed in a bagel, was breakfast while driving, along with herbal tea, my usual first round of hydration on the way to the trailhead. At East Mesa, I un-racked the bike and soon after headed out on East Side. The morning air temp was already warm, 78 degrees F, a few movements of the minute hand past 8 o’clock.
Up East Side on then on over and up West Side, the trail rolled by under the bike tires. Where West Side ends for bikers, I crossed over 79 and worked my way up Cold Spring. Known by some as Steve’s Trail, Cold Spring was purpose built for mountain biking and, like always, it was a joyful jaunt on it. At its other end, I turned left on Stonewall knowing it was going to be a bit of grind up to Soapstone. What I didn’t know was that my legs were going to soon begin to not feel 100%.
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The day’s plan was what I call a CuyaGuna ride. Others call it 3-park ride. The idea is Cuyamaca to Laguna, add on what you want, Champagne Pass being the connector to make it a big loop.
On Soapstone, the pedal fest felt good on the way around to CA Riding and Hiking. Turning left, I reveled in that beautiful stretch of desert-meadow landscape, one of my favorite segments of trail in east county San Diego.
On the way up to the tree, my legs were not all there. It happens, I told myself. Keep pedaling, is all I had to do, though.
Around the top of Cuyamaca, which is actually Anza-Borrego State Park, but managed by Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, as I understand it, I appreciated the water level in Lake Cuyamaca while being able to still see snow-covered Mount San Gorgonio way far off in the distance. The trail traffic was zero, other than me equaling one.
On around I went and then I made way across to Lucky 5. Desert-to-mountain landscape came into view and charged me up a bit. The scale of the views led me, like every single time I ride it, to squeezing the brakes and taking it all in.
Out there is the Salton Sea, where lithium mining will begin to power EVs. Already considered to be an environmental disaster, the sea and its environs might have a new legacy, of sort.
Lucky 5 ended. The Sunrise Highway slog to Pioneer Mail began. Head down, for the most part, and simply pedal, is how I approached it and was how I finished it. At the viewpoint along the PCT, which some people here call the Perfect Cycling Trail, I ate some food, the bagel sandwich probably mostly gone. Electrolytes down the gullet added to the fuel load to get across to Champagne Pass and then up the backside of Cuyamaca to Oakzanita Peak area.
Pioneer Mail to Champagne Pass and then down to Deer Park is a quintessential example of what mountain biking has always been about and hopefully always will be. Not-100%-legs didn’t matter here, the vibe of the trail was all I needed.
The reality, though, was that while dropping down to Deer Park, what I had been thinking about all the way back in the second hour of the ride was now in front of me. Getting up to the pines and then into the meadows requires a gritty climb up somewhat of a trail/kind of an old two-track that can be washed out, loose, DG here-and-there, gulches from winter rains, and a few steep grunts that I sometimes walk.
It lived up to all of that, so much so that I hike-a-biked more than ever before, my thinking being: I’m not all there today, so take it easy.
Where the pines begin and actual single track, too, I drank more electrolytes and pedaled on, knowing more meadows were ahead of me, including my favorite one to ride through. Up there, with the 360 degree view, I wished I was an owl.
At Granite Springs, the fire road gave me crank-time to figure out if I was going to descend on the single track from Oakzanita Peak or take the screaming fire road descent back down to where I parked.
I screamed.