Mule Creek

Two years ago I discovered some steep, ancient, forlorn trails. Difficult to access, the area contains pristine forest and few visitors. I fell in love with the place and threw myself at the long-term project of clearing a loop. I’ve made several trips out there working on the upper and middle reaches. Yesterday was the first time I brought a friend and made a go on bikes. The route starts with a sharp decent off of a high, wooded ridge and continuing down a secluded canyon of old growth forest. The trail passes springs which form the creek and it’s many small pools. Beyond the work zone, quite a few trees are down and the adventure begins. The lower trailheads are on private property which currently don’t allow access. Sooo… there’s an old connector trail on public land. But it’s overgrown with buck brush and poison oak and the whole darn ride is crawling with deer ticks. Soon it connects with a better trail that climbs back toward the top. Thanks to some unknown trail workers, most of the trail had recently been cleared of buck brush and rideable. Once back on the upper ridge system, we got to ride a section we had worked on a few weeks prior that was previously unrideable. The loop closes with a bit more climbing and short loamy descent to the start trail. If you accessed the loop start as we did by climbing a singletrack up the other side of the mountain, there’s still have a four mile downhill to the trailhead. It was light enough to see but getting dark quick as we began the last bit of trail down to the truck. Honestly though we couldn’t see shit, especially when we hit the fog layer. We exited at the tail of twilight which seems about perfect. The first few pictures are from the ride followed by a few of the process.

Two years ago I discovered some steep, ancient, forlorn trails. Difficult to access, the area contains pristine forest and few visitors. I fell in love with the place and threw myself at the long-term project of clearing a loop. I’ve made several trips out there working on the upper and middle reaches. Yesterday was the first time I brought a friend and made a go on bikes.

The route starts with a sharp decent off of a high, wooded ridge and continuing down a secluded canyon of old growth forest. The trail passes springs which form the creek and it’s many small pools.

Beyond the work zone, quite a few trees are down and the adventure begins. The lower trailheads are on private property which currently don’t allow access. Sooo… there’s an old connector trail on public land. But it’s overgrown with buck brush and poison oak and the whole darn ride is crawling with deer ticks.

Soon it connects with a better trail that climbs back toward the top. Thanks to some unknown trail workers, most of the trail had recently been cleared of buck brush and rideable.
Once back on the upper ridge system, we got to ride a section we had worked on a few weeks prior that was previously unrideable.
The loop closes with a bit more climbing and short loamy descent to the start trail. If you accessed the loop start as we did by climbing a singletrack up the other side of the mountain, there’s still have a four mile downhill to the trailhead.

It was light enough to see but getting dark quick as we began the last bit of trail down to the truck. Honestly though we couldn’t see shit, especially when we hit the fog layer. We exited at the tail of twilight which seems about perfect.
The first few pictures are from the ride followed by a few of the process.

Posted on by Gernot Bartels