RR: Mt Wilson/Upper Winter Creek/Mt Zion/Upper Winter Creek

[dhshuttlemonkey]

Mt Wilson trail from the radio antennas to the toll road is the best part of this trail. Technical singletrack, switchbacks, and rock gardens the whole way down. Upper Winter Creek from the toll road junction is in nice shape, lots of leaves on the trail, beautiful scenery, but a little narrow in some places. I kept hitting my bars against the trees, either that or fall off the trail which I almost did in some spots. We make it down to Hoagee's campground, so far so good with everyone having a blast, until ....

We had the bright idea of trying to connect to Sturtevant trail from Hoagee's up the Zion trail. What the Fock were we thinking !!! We hiked up a steep and loose trail that went up forever, keep in mind we are pushing up 45lb bikes. We hiked for about 2 1/2 miles before deciding to go back the way we came. Meanwhile we realize that we are running out of daylight fast and hall ass down the Zion trail back to the camp. When we get to Hoagee's it is pitch black, holy shit!!!! We still had 3 miles to ride just to make it out to Chantry. You can't see anything 6 ft in front of you! We ended up walking out of there using our cell phones to light up what little parts we could see of the trail. Luckily a couple Mtn bikers doing a night ride came up behind us and lighted the way for the last mile out to Chantry. We were lucky again as a car rode behind us and lighted the road back down from Chantry to Foothill and made it back to the cars safe and alive.

Funny thing is that we are going back on Saturday, but way earlier this time.

[dstepper]

Yes going up Zion is a trek. Glad you made it back out with no major problems. I am a little surprized that you ran into some other riders out there afterdark...those trails are way narrow with steep dropoffs.

I carry a small LED flashlight, it is about the size of my little finger, that I keep in my Camelback.

[ka0t1c07]

Haha, that is what happened to us the first time we did RedBox to JPL. It was around this time of the year. Good thing I had a flashlight and my cousin used his cell phone camera light. We were shitting bricks when we hit the big waterfall dam. But at the end , we got out with search crew assistance.