It seems a few days of riding slipped through over the past week without us doing a post so here they are.
Cottonwood Loop
Just on the other side of the river from downtown Salida is a tremendous trail network called Arkansas Hill Trail System. On two different days we rode the Big Cottonwood Loop with some minor differences. Basically both days were around 19 miles with 2700′ of climbing. The trails are very well built to include all the rock features in the area. Our favorite loop climbs Lil Rattler and Backbone, then there is an unfortunate climb up a gravel road for 4 miles and then we hopped on Beasley, Rumba, and Cottonwood.
Out of all of these, Cottonwood is the most primitive and technical with plenty of room for error. The terrain goes from forest with buff trails, to rock drops and berms, pure rock trail, and a lot of high speed. I could do this loop daily and still have fun. Hence, we rode it twice!
Gutz Loop
Guts is the newest trail in the Methodist Mountain System in Salida. When riding in the area a couple weeks ago we passed the sign for it but it’s downhill only and we were at the bottom. So we studied the map and found a way to ride it a different day. To get to it was a lot of work. After a warm up on some of the other fun trails in the system, we tackled a 3 mile 1600′ climb with an average grade of 10.5% and max grade of 19.9!!!! It was worth it. Gutz is a steep downhill with many twists and turns, including the “intestines” which features two lines that cross each other multiple times. Yeehaw!
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