Santa Ana's trail conditions(BS, Harding/MS/HJ/Trabuco/WHT, etc..,) >Updated 01-18-15

It was open on Sunday, with foot-deep water at all 4 creek crossings and a few new boulders on the road, but nothing you couldn't drive around, and the usual post-rain mud.

 

cool thanks!

 

There were a couple of downed trees on trabuco but they may have been the ones there from previous years? (i havent been there in over a year). There were a lot of fallen branches on the trail, i cleared away a lot of that. A few small rockslides which i cleared a bit. It was kinda warm out there today, the dirt is drying up fast!
trabuco creek road is pretty messed up, tons of potholes

 

Blackstar 3-5-14


Rode up Blackstar this afternoon......gotta say it got pretty beat up.

Lots of new ruts and debris on the road.

It was mostly dry out there......however there are still a couple of mud holes....worst one is just before the 2nd cattle gate, covering the whole trail, no water but the soil is saturated and about 5" deep if you go into it.

The road is beginning to wash away just above the canyon where they did all the work last year with the heavy equipment.

Just below the last 180* turn(where the ST from the gate drops in) has a deep rut that runs down the middle of the road.....approx. 6-8" wide and 12-16" deep.

The ride now has a ton of character that was taken away when they graded it last year.

 

Thanks J I may head out there shortly

 

Anybody descend the Holy Jims lately?

 

Went up Trabuco yesterday, there was a BIG downed tree about half way between the Christmas Tree and the Pain Divide - entire canopy was in the trail.

Not any more. :clap: Clear all the way through Yeager. :bang:

 

Went up HJ & up UHJ and dropped Coldwater today- Coldwater was in great shape and the steeps near the bottom were better than they have been in a long time. Came back down HJ and it is fine. UHJ looked a little beat up as we hiked up it, from the rains but nothing too bad. Need to go down UHJ now to get a better idea.

Thanks to Maxwell and the rest of the crew that cleared that tree on Trabuco!

 

I went down UHJ today... I am a decent descender and it was very difficult for ME. It was already ready really dry, slippery and sandy in those upper sections... like there was no rain at all...like at the end of summer...with one exception there was a nice rain induced "Tire Width" rut down the center of the sandy sections that made it even more difficult than normal. Not complaining/whining for a fix... just saying for me ... did a little HABing through the sandy section, other sections were fine. Someone had put a few "water bars" in too it seemed. LHJ was its normal spectacular self, maybe a place or 2 where it was a little narrower than usual.

Oh and that little "dark section" of the backside of the peak on the way to UHJ where the snow /ice takes longest to melt ... Gotta pay attention through there... Loose and deep in a few spots...

 

Revalimage, its funny i went up trabuco on wed but that tree hadnt fallen yet! Thanks for the hard work y'all.

 

I rode Blackstar > Motorway on Sunday and was pleasantly surprised with the conditions. Some of the sand and gravel patches on MD are a little nastier after the recent rain, and you definitely need to watch for ruts more than in the previous months. Motorway is generally really good right now. There are a couple parts in the lower half where the trail is only a couple feet wide with a rut down the middle that is a little deeper and more squared-off than it had been, plus there are some babyhead rocks in there too, so a little extra caution should be used. No bad washouts or anything though, so have fun!

 

Rode Trabuco/WHT this morning......Trabuco is in normal condition.

West Horsethief was it's typical self all the way up......HOWEVER: just past the split from Trabuco, there is about a 100' section of trail that is barely shoulder width that is covered in Poison Oak....it was unavoidable....you can't miss it. Just a heads up. Past that, it really was not an issue.

 

I thought motorway was in fairly good condition /agree with waldo but I felt with all the riding a lot of the loose rock were pushed to the edges which left a lot of the embedded square and sharp rocks exposed in the middle... I predict a few extra sidewall tears during CC/VQ.

 

It has been getting better each week, for the most part it is about as good as it is gonna get.

At least it is not as slippery as it was a few weeks ago.

 

That's the MW. We try and leave the trail the way it is with all the scree

When we worked on Trabuco to clear PO last Sat, 3 others(Treve, Reed & Dave Ross went up WHT and cleared a lot of PO near the bottom of the 1st switchback. Huge improvement compared to what it was. Treve has pics and I asked him to send me some.

I worked on the MW Friday and filled some of the ruts.

This section is right after the reroute. Here's the before looking up hill


.., and after


before, looking down trail


after


Here's the rut that is about 1/3 up from Maple Springs


I was able to fill the second part of it


a closer look


looking at it from below


This is the dirt that was just too hard or it could be that I was already too tired from the work prior. I couldn't fill because I had no dirt and the dirt around it was solid as a rock. I plan on heading back up this Friday and bringing something heavier to bust up that mound so I can use it as backfill.


I cleared the brush to the left(coming downhill) of it and also did some light brush work along the entire trail, especially near the moto barriers at the bottom. When I go back this week, unless I decide to actually train for the VQ, I plan on brushing the rest of the trail where it is a bit narrow, but not bad.

 

thanks for the work Gene and other Warriors keeping the trails up

 

It is way better than it was....now it won't eat up riders like it would have.

 

I rode Indian Truck Trail for the first time on Saturday. A grader has been up there and the trail was loose and unpleasant to ride. I assume after a while the conditions will harden up and maybe I will try the trail again in the Fall. Can anyone tell me if the conditions are always loose or was this a temporary thing (I assume due to the rain).

 

It is not typically that loose and miserable. It actually used to be a great climb. I rode it about a week and a half ago and it was miserable.

 

Section on Main Divide between 4 corners and Motorway has also been graded. The rocky and steep downhill stretch is much smoother now, although a couple of the uphill sections are a bit soft, which makes them a bit harder to climb... I found the Motorway in good condition, especially the upper section. The bottom is a little more rutted, but not bad at all. In fact, I was expecting it to be more chewed up. I didn't know Gene had been working on it the day before... Thanks for your work, Gene.