It may have had something to do with the rain, but I don't have nearly as many pics from this day as I thought I would.

Not being able to get the desired campsite we had to settle for a spot lower down the mountain than what we wanted. The coveted Camp 11 sits just off the trail. No big deal, it just meant we had a 10min fire road climb from our spot to warm up.

Camp 11 is this far off the trail


We hit up the top part of Kyle's trail first, a moto trail that also makes a pretty good MTB trail


This trail has some nice technical rock sections


After that we climbed back up to Camp 11 and went the other way this time to hit the top part of Super Moto. You guessed it, another moto trail. This one was even more bike friendly with less loose rock. We did a short loop with Newham Tr to get back to our starting point on Super Moto, and then linked up the top part of it again down to the lower part of Super Moto.

Some sections required concentration...lots of it


In between the rock there was some ultra buff s/t


We just missed the fern season


More rock


And more...


This roller looked fun (and was) but also had a tricky exit. Scott/B5driver scouts a line.


And then conquers


Hmmmm.... more rock?


Then buff


Then rock


Then buff. Have you noticed a pattern?


At one point buffness gave way to huge section of technical rock. We had to walk a few sections, just too hard for meagre skills

But not this section


Or this


Or this


This one's for EMFC


Approaching lower Super Moto we had a logistics dilemma. Vehicle at the top with no way to get back up. Having ridden these trails before (or maybe he could sense the coming rain), Sean volunteered again to ditch the rest of the ride and climb back up to get the RV (thanks Sean!).

That gave us the chance to ride the rest of the way down without worry of how to get back up. We continued on Super Moto and then crossed over east to look for other singletracks. At first all we found was double track / fire road, til we spotted a few trails heading south and then another heading back up the hill. Figuring we had around 90mins to meet the RV, we started climbing what turned out to be the trail Dog Food. Very gentle, but burmed corners promised a fun ride back down. That would come sooner than hoped after the rain started pouring. We had to decide whether riding or hiding out up on the mountain hoping it would pass by was better than waiting at the bottom where there was also limited shelter.

In the end we bombed back down and then backtracked to the other singletracks we saw before. We picked a pretty fun one which took off down a ravine and criss crossed back and forth from one side to the other. No name on it, but seems to be part of a web of trails called the Fort Valley Trails. This eventually climbed over a ridge and dropped down to Schultz Cr trail, which took us down to the trailhead soaked, but happy.

Only Stang got a pic near the end here I think due to the weather, so hopefully he can post that up.

Definitely have to come back up here next year again as there's a ton of stuff to hit on Mt Eldon, and there's enough to suit all abilities.

Thanks GP_pilot for organizing another great trip!

Mt. Eldon seems to be the place. Hmmmm......

great pics and tr evdog

Her are a couple more pics. I guess we were having too much fun negotiating the rocks to take pics and I was trying to keep up with these guys. They are all stellar riders and a lot of fun to ride with.







One for Jose


Oh crap!

You can download an excellent map (see Flagstaff Trail maps...Mt Elden) here:

http://singletrack.us/gallery/index.php?cat=10

_________________
Thus, if we are to understand the world, we should live somewhere between judgement and amazement — Alfredo Lopez Austin

awwwww you thought of me.

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A mountain biker who doesn't ride road has no legs
A road biker who doesn't ride mountain has no soul