Wanted: 2 hour hill climb within an hour of Seattle
- Thread starter Neal
- Start date
hwy 410 area?
Crystal My Turn out to top of Sunrise.
[edit] Road or dirt??
[edit] Road or dirt??
Kacheese Ridge Road? 10+ miles uphill, plus you get a sweet single track back to the car.
Yup, Kachess is nice, and the fireroads around there keep going up after most people take the trail down.
we really don't have that kind of elevation around here. Around here (bellingham) a 3-4 mile climb can give you almost 2,000 feet of elevation gain. So you either want a not so steep long climb or what? You are going to have to go up into the mountains if you want a serious climb of 10 miles length... Like climb up to mt baker ski area. Or climb over both passes on highway 20.... Or maybe highway 2 up to stevens pass. Maybe climb up I-90 to snoqualmie pass???Neal said:
You could do laps of the freund canyon (spelling???) climb... It's about 1800 foot elevation gain in 3-4 miles or so....
Well, I'm just getting back into longer rides. Now that the legs are able to ride Tiger and I don't have to push up the I-90 exits anymore, I'm trying to find rides to stretch it out a little more. There's always riding Jake the Snake on the roads, too, but I figure I can do that from Monday to Friday. While the weather is nice and there's no snow..might as well hit the steeps, find some new trails, and get out of the house.
Maybe in September I'll even get to the dry side of the state for some real epics...
Thanks all.
Maybe in September I'll even get to the dry side of the state for some real epics...
Thanks all.
Try the Crystal Mtn ride from the Zilly book. Lots of climbing.
Green Mt. and Capitol Forest and Galbraith can be good climbing trails since they're right off of the freeways. They may be more miles away but timewise it's a little over an hour. Plus you get some pretty good payoff. Galby you'd pretty much have to climb up to the towers twice, but since there are so many trails you tailor your decent to what you want.
Also yes there are tons of epic riding off of highway 2 near Leavenworth and off of I-90 in Cle-Elum and the Greenwater stuff. All worthy and only available for a limited time (snow/fire closure).
Also yes there are tons of epic riding off of highway 2 near Leavenworth and off of I-90 in Cle-Elum and the Greenwater stuff. All worthy and only available for a limited time (snow/fire closure).
While on this topic, i just wanna complain on how frikkin stupid we don't have more legal trails open to mt. bikes in King County.
Just wanted to keep my stance on that fresh.
Just wanted to keep my stance on that fresh.
Skookum said:
an hour???? wtf... that's a 20 minute climb to the towers... less if you are racing or tting. I go up from whatcom falls and hit the towers twice and it takes me not much more than 2 hours.
Word of advice if you hit Kachess Ridge...bring Deet!!! Of all the trails I've ridden this year so far, that one is easily the most mosquito-infested trail. It's all good as long as you don't stop.
Off Hwy 410, you have Corral Pass which hooks you up with 3 solid/sweet singletrack DH's. Directly across the highway lies Suntop. Both climbs are pretty demanding - Suntop is consistent and the fireroad is smoother. Corral Pass is steep, steeper and punishing steep in spots - plus, the road is very not smooth at all. All of the trails in this area provide for the most epic view or Mt. Rainier available.
Have fun!
Off Hwy 410, you have Corral Pass which hooks you up with 3 solid/sweet singletrack DH's. Directly across the highway lies Suntop. Both climbs are pretty demanding - Suntop is consistent and the fireroad is smoother. Corral Pass is steep, steeper and punishing steep in spots - plus, the road is very not smooth at all. All of the trails in this area provide for the most epic view or Mt. Rainier available.
Have fun!
Mountain Bikers fought the battle on Cougar years ago and lost- most of it was closed to bikers. Cougar would be the ideal place to have some trails open to bikes. Its the least steep of the Issaquah Mountains. The Talus development in Issaquah has set aside some pretty large opens space-maybe someday in the future some new trails?Skookum said:
Good for you speedy.mattv2099 said:
Maybe, King County is where most of us live, but there isn't anything to ride near the city. i'm glad you bring up Cougar, many of the trails up there were cut by the old skool mt. bikers. Then all this business of Middle Fork Snoqualmie being closed a second straight year to mt. bikes WHEN THE FOREST SERVICE HAS DEEMED MT. BIKERS HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO RIDE THERE. But due to stingy hikers they keep throwing a monkey wrench in the works to keep us out. It's b.s. i'd really love to have real epic trails close to the city, there's no real reason not to open up a few singletrack trails to multi-use, within King County. The only reason is ignorance and/or selfishness on a truly pathetic scale.Borregokid said:
Cant agree with you more. I hiked some of those trails and very few hikers use the trails. Harvey Manning and the Issaquah Alps were pretty persuasive in argueing against bikes. It would be great if there were a nice race-type course that was maybe 8-10 miles long and not too steep in King County. The Seatac course can only be worked to maybe 4.5 miles plus there is no climbing. Seatac I think is a bit underrated. Great course for learning to turn tightly.
The truth is hikers barely use any of the trails because they have so many frikking trails open exclusively to them it's disgusting. But since they don't want mt. bikers ruining there "dream" solitude hippy nature feeling, they've been hording every last trail they can.Borregokid said:
The amazing thing is that 90% of hikers i meet on the trail are totally cool, and i have a positive experience sharing the trail with. Are these people all two-faced and raising the stink? i don't think so, but i'm sure they pitch in their 2 cents unwittingly abiding by the insanity that is the Sierra Club and WTA.
This is a little off topic from the thread, buuut:Skookum said:
It's not the hikers that obstructed the opening of the MF trail recently. There's an unrelated bit in the plan about closing the MF Rd (#56) beyond Dingford, and some jerk who doesn't believe in decomissioning roads has vowed to appeal that all the way to the end. That holds up the finalization of everything else in the MF plan.
The next appeals deadline is some time really soon. I don't think anything has been filed yet. Then we'll have to see whether the Forest Service is too busy with summer craziness to open the trail...
This is more than an hour from Seattle but the Mission Ridge Trail in Cashmere has a 13+ mile climb up a Forest Service road. If you want to do the Devil's Gulch trail you climb the same road up for around 11 miles. You can also climb up the Devil's Gulch trail for a singletrack climb if you wish. I'm a pretty slow climber and we climbed the Mission Ridge road in about 2 hours last Sunday.
Thanks for the scoop. Someone needs to decommission the jerk.roundnround said: