SSFTA takes Mt. Pinos

This past weekend was the SSFTA’s annual club camp-out on Mt. Pinos

California camping…

I found a nice little spot off the edge of the camping area..

a room with a view in the morning

and at night, I only had to open my eyes to see the Perseid’s meteor shower flashing overhead, and an ursus americanus traipsing over the rocks..

Mornings were good, better than Starbucks,

Table for one.

But, I couldn’t lose my focus on the reason for the trip..

Ready to ride..

Suzy-mommatobe lead us down to the Mcgill trailhead..

Jim blasts past a little gold

all good downhills have a few little climbs

Raymond worked through the pain to reach the summit at 8825 feet..

where we all stared in awe at the smoke, and flames, of the Zaca fire in Santa Barbara

Jack descends through a field of gold with a plume of black in the background

After the ride, the bike rodeo started with a limbo contest.. Raymond demonstrates his non-winning technique..looking good..

not so good

and the winner is…

I try to squeeze my 29er through the slalom course

but, i was completely unable to gain any ground during the log-pull, I was hurting so bad, the camera was shaking

Ed airs it out Sunday morning, moments before he ran over Jim for going too slowly through a switchback..

Tim and Emily working through a climb that Jim claimed would lead to some sweet singletrack (that we never saw…)

Jim thought it would be a good idea to descend this slope to investigate that trail below..

as the day wore on,the climbs became more difficult..

eventually we reached the final climb of the day..

“Jack, How was the weekend?”