Chris had some free time on Saturday afternoon, so we put a ride together at the Ditch. Ckucke and JT were unavailable, but Root, Jeff, and Sara made the trip out to Waimanalo. There hadn’t been much rain since mid-week, but the ground was saturated enough that even the intervening clear days didn’t dry up the ground completely. Chris had gone on some crazy all-night hike on Friday evening through Saturday daybreak, so he was taking it easy. Along the climb up to the Ditch junction, a tighty single-speed guy with his full-head DH helmet friend and brand-new-shiny-Trek friend came up the trail. After regaling us with tales of the distant past when he and his friend built all the trails in Waimanalo, he and his buds went down the Ditch, while we continued up Government road to do the side loop.
At the mango tree, we found that the backwardification of the trail had been extended to the entrance. The drop in had been covered with rocks and sticks, and a new extension to the contour line had been added to the road. This was definitely the work of people who were riding the trail backwards (probably without the benefit of changeable gears), just like the excessively tight switchbacks that ruined the steep roll-in section. It’s fine to add sections to the trail to make it usable in both directions, but to remove the technical sections and force people to only ride one way is dictatorial. In both of these situations, the two options could easily coexist, but the builder chose to obliterate one in favor of the other. It’s our way or no way! Trail Nazis!
A little way into the contour, there was a new line cleared through the undergrowth down a finger ridge. Jeff and Sara went down the normal way to the lower contour, and Chris, Root, and I took the mystery trail. It quickly became apparent that this was cut by the trail-running poachers, evidenced by numerous shin and chest-level punjis and center-of-trail hub-high stumps. If trails weren’t dangerous enough as is, they purposely created obstacles to skewer and trip the user. Good job! Chris went ape-sh!t at one point and bigfooted out one of the stumps. The horribly routed, off-camber cut turned through an unridable back turn, then descended through muddy stairstep cuts to the lower traverse. With that dumb experience leaving a bad taste in out mouths, we rode back to the road and climbed back to the Ditch junction.
The Ditch was nice and grippy – mostly dry with a hint of slipperiness in the dark corners. We rode as far as the rest stop, then turned up the inner loop to avoid the potential mud and overgrown cane grass further on. Along the drop in to the rock garden, there was some evil spiny amaranth growing on the sides of the trail that scratched the skin and left a lasting irritating burn. The rock garden was clear of deadfall and it looked like the bridge had been maintained. Along the climb out, there was a lot of large deadfall blocking the way, and the evil off-cambers were as slippery as ever.
Along the Ditch returning to the base, I smelled some horses before I saw them. We hadn’t seen any equestrian activity until then. They stopped at a turn to let us pass. There were ladies on two regular horses, and a girl on a BMX horse. Back at the cars, we chewed the fat a while. We had not seen the other riders on the trail at all. After the horses passed through, I saw tighty guy come down to the gate, but he stopped, looked around, then backtracked up the road. His friends weren’t with him. As we were leaving, he came back down – again alone – and rode out down the street. Weird. Whatever. We didn’t have a particularly long or exertive ride, but it was fun and it shook the cobwebs off the trail riding skillset that we have all been neglecting recently.
Pictures somewhere, maybe…
D = 6.57 km (4.08-miles), Vavr = 9.8 km/h (6.1-mph), Vmax = 29.1 km/h (18.1-mph), T = 40-minutes (actual trail time around 1.5 hours)
Not to be a “Trail Nazi”, but that steep drop in section really was an invitation for serious trail erosion down the line.
Aside from that, this damned island is just getting plain old overcrowded. Think about it…how lame is mountain biking here anymore? People and housing have crept into every little crack of wilderness we used to explore. Think back to 1990-95, when you could actually tell who had been on the trail before you by the combination of tires they were running! Having to share the trail (what little we can find) with every freak trial runner, single speed masochist, offroad triathageek, and grumpy self-entitled hiker is the new reality. We just can’t escape anymore. It makes me sad.
Trails in and of themselves are an affront to nature and cause erosion by their mere existence. Not to say that makes trails with poor drainage design acceptable, but the “DH groove” was under tree cover where it received little rain, and had reached a stable clay and rock surface that was not eroding or changing significantly. The fact that someone came along and dug up the area and redistributed the loose earth has probably done more to create conditions where erosion will take place. Whistler has countless examples of areas where there are technical lines and “easy” workarounds existing side by side. The forceful destruction of one line to enforce another is uncalled for.