Today we mountain biked past/through a place called Devils Garden. I’ll never get why so many places are called Devils Garden…we’ve been to quite a few! It was a bit of a slog to get there. This was another out and back ride; 18.7 miles with 1919′ of climbing.
We started riding out Bear Creek “Road”. It’s a rough jeep road that descends into Sycamore Canyon. All the creek crossings were dry this time of year but apparently they can be treacherous depending on water levels. Once we turned on Sycamore Canyon Trail the real climbing started.
This section of trail is, like a lot of trails around the area, loose and rocky. It’s pretty steep in spots but mostly rideable. It’s rated advanced and I’d tend to agree with that. In low gears, we grinded up the climbs and after a few miles, the rock outcroppings started. Devil’s Garden is an area of land that is accented by tall rock formations created by ancient volcanic activity to the west of the trail. It was impossible to get a picture of the extensive landscape. Very cool to see. Especially because we had it all to ourselves!
The riding gets very technical as you maneuver around and through rock gardens. Eventually we came to the “Regis-Tree” where there is a mailbox for trail registration on the CDT. We were at a junction here and first headed right up a dirt road. Not very far in, we came to a little shanty dwelling. Apparently a hermit lives here but we didn’t see anyone. Backtracking, we rode a bit further on the Continental Divide Trail until it got pretty narrow and required hiking. Having quite a bit of work to do to get all the way back to the start, we turned around.
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