Lake Cuyamaca Singletrack Epic

January 15th, 2011

Sol and I took an epic tour of Lake Cuyamaca today, located next door to the town of Julian (east San Diego county). The weather was perfect (as usual) in these mountains, with the exception of a little wind in the early morning.

Ride Stats: 27 miles and 2800ft of elevation gain (fairly level terrain).

I apologize for the quality of the photos as they were taken on my Droid X instead of the usual point and shoot.

Trailhead off Hwy 78

Waterfall on West Ridge

Sol tackling the first climb. He needs to stop training for Ironman so I can keep up with him.

Quick stop for a little trail maintenance. We don't need no stinkin' chainsaw!

Going up Soapstone Grade. This road will eventually connect to parts of the JDM course near aid station #2.

The fireroad climb was nice and mellow. The road was tacky in some places and dusty in others, even with all of the recent rains. I imagine in the dryer pars of the year this road may be troublesome for traction.

Looking down a creek on Soapstone Grade

The top of the Grade leads you to an open meadow with Lake Cuyamaca in the distance.

Sol on the rock garden

Having some fun

Sweet singletrack

Sol training for the log press for World's Strongest Man.

Now thats what I'm talkin' about!

Grassy meadow

Intersection at aid station #2 of the JDM at sunrise highway.

After some more singletrack parallelling HWY 79 we dropped out onto the sunrise highway for a quick jot up the road to more singletrack. We'd form a short loop this way before heading down soapstone trail.

Back on the singletrack

Sol enjoying the ride.

Crystal clear skys gave way to views of snowy peaks in the distance.

The ripper downhill of the day was soapstone trail. This is my favorite trail in the area (though I haven't yet decended Toll). After this we followed soapstone grade and West Ridge back to the trailhead.