RR: Santa Rosa Plateau with the Wonderminion

[quaestionis]

Saturday I had the opportunity to do my first "out of town" ride, and it actually surpassed all of my expectations. I've been doing pretty well working my way through my 2008 Goals List, but still had not done a ride outside of the San Diego area this year, which is one of the goals on the list. But thanks to some neat circumstances, that was about to change.

I had signed up for a morning seminar for the Truth Project at Calvary Chapel Murrieta, and after talking to Doug and Scott at the SMaRT ride on Wednesday, realized that the Santa Rosa Plateau was almost right across the street from the church.

It was almost too perfect a scenario, and I was worried that something would come along and complicate it.

Something did.

Friday afternoon my boss asked me to host our summer intern for a few days over the weekend before the intern's regular host family returned from vacation. The intern's name is Kent, and he is a nice guy, so it wasn't a big deal.

In fact, inspired by an article I read recently and the intern's efficiency and skills in the office, I had dubbed him "the Wonderminion." It stuck. So when my boss asked if he could stay with my family for the weekend, I had no choice but to agree, and now I had a houseguest.

I had already registered for the seminar, so there was no skipping that. But I felt bad spending another couple hours out of town while poor Kent was stuck at my house, so I had almost resigned myself to skipping the ride. Then I was struck with a brilliant idea: I would bring Wonderminion to the seminar, and then drag him along on the trail! It was perfect: the Truth Project is something he would be interested in anyway, the Santa Rosa Plateau is considered a beginner friendly ride, and I still had my old FSR XC that he could ride. It was all coming together.

Friday night he arrived at my house and I began laying the groundwork convincing him to go along with my plan.
The seminar was an easy sell, but he was a little more reticent about the biking. He told me he did ride a road bike back home, and over the course of the evening he seemed to be coming around. Around 8:30 PM I quickly switched out the clipless pedals on the FSR for some flats, and he finally caved in. My ride was saved!

We left early Saturday morning for the seminar, and the bonus was that he offered to drive to Murrieta from San Diego since he had a Prius. With gas prices out of control, the hybrid was way better than my Tahoe, and I was stoked.

The seminar was scheduled to end at 12:30, but instead ran until a little after 1, and we arrived late to the trailhead. When we got there I saw Scott's car parked at the trailhead and was surprised to see that he had decided to show up last minute. Because we were late, however, he had already left on the ride. I felt terrible, but since we didn't exchange numbers and I wasn't sure he was even coming, I had no way to warn him we were running late.

We parked at the Santa Rosa Ecological Preserve Visitor's Center, paid our $2 each for the facility usage, and quickly changed into riding clothes.

The Visitor's Center:



Here is Wonderminion, ready to go. Note the enthusiasm.



I had been extremely worried about the heat, which was forecast to reach 110 degrees, but actually it wasn't that bad. The temperatures were over 100, but there was a nice breeze that kept the heat from being overwhelming. We also spent about half the time riding under canopies of trees, which helped as well.



After gearing up and consulting our maps, we headed across the street and up to the Tovashal trailhead. I was planning to follow this geoladder's route, which we did to the letter. Docklobster had private messaged me an interesting addition to the route, which I would have taken had I been solo. But with a first-time mountainbiker with me, I figured we'd stick to the easy stuff.

We rode along the Tovashal trail for about a mile, and then turned right on to the Sylvan Meadows fire road. Across from us was the expanse of what had to be Sylvan Meadow, and it was a scenic landscape, even with the grass having turned brown and dry with the recent heat.



After half a mile we turned uphill a bit, and rode up the Shivela trail. Things got a little interesting there for our intrepid Wonderminion, as he struggled with some of the medium climbs and rocky sections. The trail was still beginner friendly, and he did pretty well for a first-timer, but he still had a few puffing HAB's.

After another half mile, we turned right and continued uphill on the Stevenson Canyon trail. This was a fun section for me, with a nice easy climb that had a few rocky spots, but nothing particularly difficult.



Through adversity, Wonderminion continued to gamely battle on. We headed up Stevenson Canyon trail until we passed a gate, where according to the geoladder's route, needed to turn around and head back down toward the Shivela trail. If we had continued up the hill a little farther, we would have connected with the section that Docklobster had told me about, but I wasn't about to push poor Kent any farther at that point. He wasn't complaining or looking that bad, but it was clear he was struggling somewhat.

The trail continued uphill as you can see here, but we didn't explore any farther:



We turned around to head back the way we came. Here is a picture of the gate we passed though back down the Stevenson Canyon trail:



The downhill from there was a lot of fun. I opened it up a little, and had fun flying down the trail. I stopped to wait for Wonderminion at a point on the trail where I could see a singletrack offshoot to the right of the Stevenson Canyon trail. I wasn't sure from the geoladder's route whether we should take it or not, but after waiting for the intern to catch up, we decided to go for it.

I'm so glad we did.

The next half mile or so of trail is among the most fun I've ever ridden. Seriously. It was under a canopy of trees, along a small creek, and was swoopy, narrow singletrack. The trail was a little off camber in parts, and it was just a blast. It was a little like the tunnels at LPQ, but the tree canopy was much higher than the tunnels. I flew through that section, my bike rising and falling with the undulations of the trail. It was awesome.

I did stop to wait for Wonderminion near the end, and took this picture:



The picture doesn't do it justice.

Eventually, after far too short a distance, that trail re-linked up with the Stevenson Canyon trail we had ridden up, and I was re-oriented.

I got to the bottom, and soon thereafter Wonderminion emerged from the tree canopy into the light:



From the end of Stevenson Canyon trail, we headed right and hooked back up with the Shivela trail.

After that we crossed a bridge, and rode a mile or so of fun singletrack until we ran into Sierra Elena Road.



We headed left, and quickly crossed Tenaja Road and linked up with the Fenceline trail.



Fenceline trail is aptly named.

I wish I had taken a picture of the Fenceline trail at the beginning, because it could have served as the dictionary representation of "singletrack." It runs right along the fence, parallels Tenaja road, and was a lot of fun to ride. It had several gradual descents followed by easy climbs, and it was at this point Wonderminion really started to have some fun.



Because the Fenceline trail was smooth, buffed singletrack, he wasn't as afraid to open up his speed a little. There were no rocks or technical features to get in his way, and the descents were gradual but sustained, so he had time to build some speed. As we got to the end of Fenceline, he remarked that he had no idea that someone could go that fast on a mountainbike and not die. I think he was probably going 15 mph at the most. But the look of joy on his face was awesome.

From the end of Fenceline, we again crossed Tenaja Road and crossed through a dirt parking lot. At that point we started on the Nighthawk Loop trail and beared left at the fork in the road. After riding half of the Nighthawk Loop, we veered left again and took the Mortero trail.

On the side of the trail I spotted a rock grouping that I think had at one point been a single large boulder. I wanted to ride over it, and did it the first time without any problem. It was fun and pretty easy, and I realized that this would be a good chance to get a picture of myself out on the trail. I have relatively few pictures of myself because I'm always the one taking the pictures, but this time I had Wonderminion with me, so this was the perfect circumstance to get a nice action photo.

I handed kent the camara, positioned him next to the boulder, and headed back up the trail to get a running start at the boulder. I adeptly rode up and over it, and stopped immediately afterward to survey his camarawork.

Lets just say it was subpar.

I ended up sessioning that boulder eight times before he took a decent shot, and for the one that worked, I practically trackstanded in the middle in order to give him time to get a worthwhile pic. Lets just say photography isn't in Wonderminion's future.

Here are two of the pics that came out OK:






After the boulder we continued along the Mortero trail until it intersected with Sylvan Meadows Road again. Just before we hit Sylvan Meadows, I was riding along the trail and hit a small, two foot drop that was pretty fun. Despite the camara problems we had had just minutes earlier, I couldn't pass up another opportunity for a cool picture of me in action, and I set up another shot.
Apparently, all of the practice from shooting me on the boulder paid off, because Wonderminion took this beauty on the first try:



It was a harder shot to get than the boulder one, because I was moving pretty fast, so I take back the rude comment about Wonderminion not having a future in photography. He just needed some practice. And the blurriness is not his fault, I just have an older point and shoot that couldn't match my raging speed.

After my awesome display of hucking skills, we rode along Sylvan Meadows Road for a mile or so, and passed a couple of singletrack offshoots that I would have liked to have taken had I been alone. They all seemed to hook back up with Sylvan Meadows eventually, and I'll definately hit them next time. At this point, however, Wonderminion was starting to look a little peaked.

After another half mile or so we found ourselves back on the Tovashal trail, and were getting close to the trailhead. I rode ahead a little, enjoying the last section of trail and enjoying the feeling of getting up some speed during the the last stretch of the ride. This turned out to be a mistake.

I was riding down a minor descent, which had a medium sized rut right in the middle. The rut was easily avoidable by riding up above it on the edge of the trail, but I didn't do that for reasons that still escape me.

Still, merely riding in the rut shouldn't have been any big deal; I should have just been able to ride it out until a good spot presented itself to get my tire out of the rut and back up on the edge of the trail.

But before that spot decided to show itself, the trail turned sharply to the right. I was going too fast to follow the path of the rut as it turned, and found myself going OTB off the side of the trail, heading for a very large rock that was innocently sitting there precisely in my landing zone.

I supermanned toward it, and hit it dead on. My right hand was out to brace myself, and my thumb jammed painfully right into the rock. My momentum was slowed just enough that neither my head nor rest of my body hit the rock, and the rest of me came to an abrupt stop right in front of it.

I got up and shook myself off. My thumb hurt a lot, and I took off my glove to see that it was bleeding under the nail, and was throbbing a little, but was otherwise OK.

I hopped back on the bike and finished the last section of the trail and waited for Kent at the trailhead. We made it across the street and back to the car without further incident, and our ride was over.

This trail was a lot of fun, and I guarantee I'll be back here again. I may even bring my wife, who does not mountainbike. The trails around Sylvan Meadow are definately newbie friendly, and even the other sections of Stevenson Canyon trail and Shivela are doable by almost any rider. But even with this trail's low level of difficulty, it is a blast to ride, and I never found myself bored or feeling like it wasn't worth riding.

Even Kent the Wonderminion had a great time, though he suggested that we should have ridden the loop in the other direction, clockwise, in order to give him a little longer to get comfortable on the bike during the easy sections before hitting the climbs on the west side. He may have a point, but for all but the most newbies, I'd say the route we took would be best.

Here is a map of the route, which looks suspiciously similar to the geoladder's route. Special thanks to Terry Best on geoladders for the excellent directions.

[pmortuary]

Great report. I'll have to take some off my newbies out there

[Taco Jack]

Nice report had it been cooler I would have joined you. Maybe next time.

[Blue Rat]

Nice report ...

[Pain Freak]

WTG, you might have hooked one!

I'm thinking of hitting that after work. I haven't been there in years.

[Docklobster]

Glad you had fun, I usually do the clockwise route (the reverse that you guys did). Next time out well add on the new sections...

[silverspot]

That report brings back some fond memories of riding the Plateau. That was where I my cut my MTB teeth.

There is another S/T that not too many people know about that is/was an absolute BLAST to ride (we used to call it slaughter-house). The trail head is right across the street from the fire station just down the road. Takes you up and into La Cresta, then you ride out and hit the Santa Rosa Plateau. Do the big loop then back through La Cresta back down slaughter-house to the car parked at the fire station. Good times... good times.

[dssgaffler]

Great RR. I had never seen the geoladders trail, but when we ride Santa Rosa we do almost the exact same trail w/ just a couple of variances. I really liked your description of the Stevenson Loop. IMO its the closest thing I've ever seen in SoCal to resemble Marin singletracks. My only complaint is that it's so short but it really is very fun. The entire Santa Rosa trail is great for all levels of XC experience, it has something for everyone.

[quaestionis]

Originally Posted by silverspot

That report brings back some fond memories of riding the Plateau. That was where I my cut my MTB teeth.

There is another S/T that not too many people know about that is/was an absolute BLAST to ride (we used to call it slaughter-house). The trail head is right across the street from the fire station just down the road. Takes you up and into La Cresta, then you ride out and hit the Santa Rosa Plateau. Do the big loop then back through La Cresta back down slaughter-house to the car parked at the fire station. Good times... good times.

That sounds like an excellent addition. I had a blast on this trail but my only complaint was that it was pretty short, especially for a ride that's almost an hour from my house.

[PacMan]

Ya, I would not classify SRP as a destination ride by ANY stretch. When I lived in Fallbrook it was hard to get motivated to drive there just to ride. It's good, since the Temecula/Murietta/Wildomar area is so lacking for trails, but I wouldn't drive more than 30 minutes just to ride there. I would if it was going to be a more fun, social kind of thing. But just to ride?? Nope.

[vandyketom]

Pacman you should run the trail across from the entrance to La Cresta. I t makes it worth the drive. I live i Murrieta and never get bored with the drop from the plateau down the face of the hills into town.

[KeepsWhatHappens]

Great RR! Makes me want to ride there!