Ride Date - 05 December, 1999Map reprinted from Tamalpais Trails, 4th Ed without permission:
Ride Date - 05 December, 1999This ride is the next stage in Taylor's and my goal to reach the East Peak of Mt. Tam from Marin Stables.
We worked with Jimbo McDermott, the manager of Marin Stables, to get his ideas on how to stop the "jigging" on the way home. He Suggested stopping along the trail, waiting 15 - 30 seconds and then walking on.
We set out around 11:15 am on a sunny about 50 º Winter day . We went down Canyon Trail (0.6 mi) at a pretty sluggish walk, did a collected canter up the connector fire road (0.1 mi). We jogged up the Deer Park Fireroad (0.4 mi). We got to Five Corners at 11:35.
At Five Corners Taylor and I chatted with a family with two little kids - a boy and a girl. Mom held 'em up to pat Taylor, and fortunately he didn't try to bite their little hands! Then we walked down Shaver Grade (1.1 mi) to Phoenix Junction, reaching it about 11:50.
I looked to see if there was another trail available that comes down from the end of Concrete Pipe Fire Road. If it's there, I didn't see it, but I wasn't looking until quite late. We turned on to Eldridge Grade and did a regular trot up for 2.0 mi. Taylor was blowing pretty hard by the time we got to the intersection with Lakeview Road at 12:10. I thought it wise to let him walk the next 1.1 miles . The views of Mt Baldy were awesome! We got to Indian Fire Road around 12:30. I was impressed with the manners of the bikers. Most asked if they could pass. Only one idiot came bookin' down the Grade and didn't bother to slow down even when asked. Somehow fantasies of Western saddles and topes come to mind...
Looks like Taylor was doing 10 minute miles at the trot (6 mph) and 20 minute miles at his brisk walk (3 mph) on the Eldridge uphill.
Since his breathing had settled down, I was planning to trot up the last 1.2 miles to Inspiration Point. But the trail is so rocky I passed for our first visit. I was really disappointed to see that Wheeler trail is closed to horses. I had planned to use it to drop down to Hoo Koo E Koo to do a loop over the top of Tam. Rats! It seems that this section of Eldridge spawns lots of "going like hell downhill" bikers, from teens to granddads. Had to yell to get 'em to be aware that there might be someone on a horse coming up the trail. And I thought I read somewhere that Eldridge Grade didn't allow bikes going down? Well if that's the case, there were certainly a lot of 'em! And a truck with a couple of rangers to boot!
We saw the chinquapin trees with their leaves with the dark green tops and the golden bottoms. And even a couple of nutmeg trees. We got directions from a nice older gentleman hiker who was also bitching about the bikers too. Without his help, we may have turned around a bit too early. But we got to Inspiration point at 12:50. That's a shade over an hour and a half to do the 6.5 miles from Marin Stables. That's about 4.3 mph on average. I wonder what you have to average to make it into the top ten of a 25 mile endurance race?
I got off and let Taylor forage a bit. I ate my tunafish sandwich using the filling that my daughter Elizabeth had made. Great! I'll have to ask Jimbo if it makes sense to leave the halter on for these trips so that I could have just tied him up...
We traced our route in reverse and walked back.
When he jigged, I tried Jimbo's idea and just stopped for 15 seconds and then
went on. Just before the big CAT parked at Indian Fire Road, I was pleased to see an
actual flower in bloom - a Sticky Monkey Flower! (thks to John B and his pix of
what's flowering in Santa Barbara for the photo). Worked pretty good, actually.
We trotted for about 5 minutes on one of the flatter parts of Eldridge near the
end. We covered the 4.3 miles to Phoenix Junction in an hour an twenty minutes
averaging 3.3 mph. We walked for a good chunk of Shaver until it started up hill.
And then I did a collected canter and let him to a couple hundred yards of full
tilt boogie just to work the kinks out. When we could see the intersection with
Concrete Pipe Fire Road, we slowed to a walk, and got to Five Corners around 2:30.
We stopped for a few minutes (at Jimbo's recommendation) at Five Corners and chatted with
a couple of bikers. Then we walked down Deer Park Fire Road to the connector.
On the connecting fireroad we followed Jimbo's suggestion and stopped every few minutes and waited until he got soft and then moved ahead. Worked quite well to eliminate the jigging.
We got back to the stables at 3 PM, for a 3 3/4 hour round trip, averaging 3.5 mph. Yanked the saddle, let him him roll a couple of times in the big arena, threw on the cooler even though he was pretty cool already, kicked back with an obligatory longneck for his 30 minute cool down. When I yanked his cooler, he was so mellow that he even let me scratch between his eyes without biting and mugging. Almost like a real horse! Hell, in a couple of years, I can probably even give him a carrot!
I'd value your comments. Email me at mike@thoma.com.