Too many trails to ride. Not enough time. Today Sandie and I went to ride Skookum Flats. This trail is listed as an IMBA epic, and is located near Mt. Rainier. This gives us two IMBA epic rides in two days!
This trail was about 1.5 hours away from Seattle. I’m definitely tired of driving. Sandie and I rode around a little to explore when we got there, because we were waiting for two of her co-workers to ride with (Chris and Carl). They showed up with full-squish bikes, with Carl riding a Specialized Enduro that had a dual-crown fork. I’m thinking I need to get a full-suspension bike.
Sandie has ridden Skookum Flats before. She says it’s her favorite trail. I told her I wanted a nice easy ride today. The trail was pretty cool…following along the White River through dense forests of Douglas-Fir trees. Nothing difficult…mostly hard-pack buff singletrack with some roots and rocks. Not as much climbing as I’ve done before, so that was nice. And only a few sections of walking, but just about everything was definitely rideable.
We ended up exploring some campgrounds and other areas while riding. This was cool…I’m starting to enjoy the exploring part of biking, whereas in Texas I was all about getting the miles in within a certain amount of time. So much more area to explore in Washington than in Texas (at least near DFW anyway).
We continued on to the White River Trail to complete our loop. More great singletrack through dense forests. So nice that everything was shaded. This is so much better than 100+ degree temps.
The ride finished with a little over 18 miles in about 2 hours and 15 minutes of ride time. I tried logging this ride using my Android phone with Strava app again, and with my Garmin Rino. My phone lost GPS signal a couple times through the woods, so I guess my Rino GPS data was most accurate this time.
Driving home we saw this sign that said “No Racing Zone”…”Race Attendance Prohibited”. Not sure what kind of racing they are referring to here, just though it was a funny sign.
Another day, another adventure. Tomorrow is Labor Day and I think we’re going to relax.
