San Juan Trail - San Juan Capistrano, CA

Holy God.

This is by far the best, trail I've ridden yet.

This past Sunday I made plans to go riding with my lil brother Stevo, I tried to gather some troops, but came out unsuccessful. I headed over to his house where I met up with he and Luke (Stevo's friend and ex-coworker). We had plans to go out and ride Aliso Woods in Laguna Beach, but instead Stevo wanted to show us his home trail, the trail he grew up on; San Juan Trail. We obliged without hesitation.

We set off in 2 cars; Stevo's Ranger and Luke's Suburu. Traffic wasn't too bad on the 405 South. We hit the 5 South and it remained nice. The exit is Ortega Hwy (74), then go left. We drove up the highway a few miles until we hit Lazy W Ranch, the same exit as the San Juan Hot Springs (haven't been yet, but will go soon). We should've bought adventure passes beforehand, but didn't ($5 at Big 5 or wherever). We parked Luke's car at the bottom of the Switchbacks (I'll talk about later) and loaded up the Ranger with everything. The plan was to shuttle to the top and ride down. I know a lot of XCers would shake a fist at that idea, but I don't have the lungs for doing this both up and down just yet, I'm working on it. Plus, we'd of been screwed on time for sure.

We got back on the 74 East and headed for Bluejay Camp, which is where we'd park (right at the trailhead). On the way up, Stevo pointed out a spot locals call "Drunk Man's Turn" where you can see several cars at the bottom of the ravine that obviously didn't see the slight turn in the road (probably after a good night of partying in Lake Elsinore). Just past that to the left is a road that leads to Bluejay Camp, it's a steep and windy road that leads right to a few spots to park. We did just that. Then we geared up, aired up, mounted up and we were off.

The whole ride was singletrack, no fire roads, nothing else. The entire path winds under oak canopies and blue skies, along cliffs and fields of sage, over rocks and scattered jumps, through ruts and obstacles. Most of the 11.4 miles was downhill, but the ride still maintained it's dignity with plenty of uphill challenges. I found it impossible to get up some of them without hiking it. Luke was a champ as he only had to put his foot down once (clip-ins really helped him out). Stevo and I found ourselves walking up the loose rock ladders, I more than he of course.

After plenty of areas that left us speechless/breathless, we arrived at Cocktail Rock. We shot the shit with some various dudes that were up there. This spot is a great spot to have an energy bar and take in the scenery, so we all did. We were lucky enough to be there on a day where it was possible to see all the way to Catalina. It was pretty amazing.

We let a few people take their time ahead of us down the trail in hopes that we wouldn't catch up to them. About 3 minutes into our descent, we passed up two of them. There was hardly any climbing once wee passed up Cocktail Rock, it was great. Mile markers would creep up on us faster and faster. Some stretches were much faster than others; at times, I felt like I was riding Space Mountain.

There weren't too many falls, and no bad ones (thank God). I slid down the inside of an S-turn about 5-6 feet, luckily I fell to the inside of the mountain and not just toppling over. I also put a lifesaving leg down and almost twisted my knee, luckily I pulled it back up in time to avoid that. Luke hit a canopied switchback a little too quick and fell into some bushes. Stevo had the best fall of all, but also the closest to death. He hit some loose sand and went over the edge of a cliff, luckily he only fell a few feet and not all the way down. I saw a bunch of dust as I approached and he crawled out with a smile on his face, thanking his lucky stars to be alive.

The last part of the run was a series of narrow and rutted switchbacks, a completely fun time if you ask me. I was pretty happy with how I navigated down them, only having to put a lifesaving foot down once in the lot of them. I must say, that once I realized that I was at the end of the trail, I wished there were more.

All in all, this trail has been one of the most challenging and fun ventures I've been on in my (so far) short, but sweet MTBing career. My right knee hurts a bit, but that's perfectly fine with me.

Don't worry, I'm still looking forward to Big Bear this Sunday.

-Chris

LFR!

Some random facts about my current life:

~ I've listened to See You Next Tuesday's album Parasite about 5 times between my drive home yesterday and drive to work today. Here's some black people dancing to it:



~ My band Dr. Holiday has a show on the 14th and we're just about ready for it. It's kind of exciting when we have great practices, even if we're hammered.

~ I got an hour cut and a pay raise all in one day. At first when my boss explained it to me I was nervous about it, but the more I heard, the more I liked the idea of it. I no longer have to drive in to work on Mondays and Fridays, I only have to work 4.5 hours from home (as opposed to my normal 7 hour day). So basically, I will be making $30 less each check +/-, but I can easily make those dollars up. If you need some graphic design done, let me know. If you want some web stuff done, I'll do it too. But I won't enjoy it.

~ Yosemite is one of the most amazing places I've ever seen. The 4 days we spent there will be unforgettable, not that I'd try to forget them. We hiked to Yosemite Falls, El Capitan, Mirror Lake, Vernal Falls and all over the meadows and forests. I've got plenty of photos and memories.

~ I witnessed a cracked-out fairy get change for a dollar, then leave the dollar on a toy dispenser. He disappeared into the nearby restroom for a bit, then left without the dollar. Up the block he creeped out a family, I laughed.

~ Falling Down is one of the greatest movies of all time.

~ I've started to sleep with my right arm stretched out completely, covering the other half of the bed. I don't know why, it might be a subconscious sign of loneliness. Come sleep with me.

~ Contrary to how that last one sounded, I am anything but lonely. I've been keeping very busy lately and I've got amazing friends to help.

~ There is no such thing as a Russian Werehound or a Northwestern Dil Terrier. Those are lies made up to protect Bear's species (75% Wolf + Giant Alaskan Malamute). I love that dog.

~ Psyllium was a great choice. Try it out.

~ Disregarding the one day I weighed 198, I can't seem to maintain pace to my target weight of 180. I'm floating around 200-202 now. I need to get back to the gym and hit that treadmill some more. Someone let me tack onto your gym membership.

~ Upon my brother Stevo's begging, I am no longer going to be purchasing the GIANT Trance X2. Instead I am interested in the TREK Fuel EX 8. Hopefully he can work out a good deal at his shop for me. I still haven't heard back from him.

~ I miss making out. Damn...

~Saturday I'm going to be jumping out of a plane. It's not a suicide attempt, I'm finally going skydiving. I can't wait. The whole thing was my last birthday present from Celina, she was nice enough to let me have it after the breakup. Otherwise I'd of fought for it.

~ I've been abusing cdscompletosdownload.blogspot.com/ a lot lately. Weezer's new album is better than the last 2 for sure.

~Gilbert's best friend/dog Tank passed away yesterday. He said to pour out a little liquor for him, so Opie and I split an 18 pack of Tecate. In honor of course. 11 was a good amount for me to be all stumbly this morning.

~ Being "in like" with someone is kinda fun. It's also kinda lame to put a title like that to it. I'm completely lame.

~ After I buy my bike, I need to get another iPod. This whole CD thing is getting really old.

So that's that. My current situation. It's got it's ups, it's downs, it's all arounds. I love life, so let's live.

-Chris

Let's take ACTION...

I recently stumbled onto a link about Blog Action Day. It just so happened to be today as well. So I clicked and decided to see what it is all about. It seems this organization is of the environmental nature, I have always enjoyed the environment. Sure, I'm no tree-hugger or vegetarian but I love our planet's resources and appreciate the overwhelming beauty in it. The objective of Blog Action Day was to focus on topics surrounding our individual views on the environment. That my friends, is what I will attempt to do here today. Almost completely improvised, as I just found out about this minutes ago. For more information visit: www.blogactionday.org

I don't write with a theme in this blog, there are only 3 other entries after all... Picking a subject is almost difficult, I am sitting here wondering what to even start about. I look around my office, and it hits me. Turn off the light! We've got a track of 5 GE 65V incandescent light bulbs here in the office near the restroom. An area located near an empty desk, the fridge and a filing cabinet. Not a very busy portion of the room. It's lit with a fair amount of ambient light, as well as the 5 lights above when necessary. Necessary, often a misused word. In this case, I see these lights on more than they ought to be, so I turn them off a few times a week. Sometimes they stay off, sometimes they will get turned back on. I try to let people know that they aren't being used, so just leave them off. I figure it'll save the company a few bucks as well.

Here's a formula to see how much we might be spending:

Cost = (wattage of bulb) ÷ (1,000) x (hours per days in use) x (365 days/year) x (cost per kilowatt hour)
(65) ÷ (1,000) x (9) x (260) x ($0.2284)
Total: $34.74
Light track total: $173.70
Source (page 3 of the PDF).

Even further in the lighting category are the new Quantam dot LED lights. Switching out just one of these can save $30 off your annual electric bill. Imagine switching out an entire house/office worth. Compact fluorescent lights have been around for a short while now, even those can help keep half a ton of CO2 out of the atmosphere.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is: If you're going to keep an unnecessary light on all the time, make it one that won't hurt both the environment and your wallet.