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October trip: Bear Creek/Camp Nelson...

Last post 10-23-2007, 5:16 PM by Dirty D. 0 replies.
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  •  10-23-2007, 5:16 PM 3684

    October trip: Bear Creek/Camp Nelson...

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    Here's Shannon's recapfrom our trip up to Camp Nelson.  Once again Camp Nelson and Bear Creek delivered.  Everyone whos been has agreed that it's worth the drive, and we'll all be making more trips up there for years to come.  This place has some of the best prolonged descents in So/Central Cali.  The only real bummer that the rest of the crew; Winston, Craigo and Granny couldn't make it up due to the terrible accident on I-5.

    Everyone had a great time and rode great.  Boba was slayin' it and seemed real comfortable on his sweet new IH 6Point.  Shannon really wrecked the crew on Saturday night with his Mai Tai adult beverages; I woke up with a headache at 3am.

    The trail conditions couldn't have been any better - seriously!  It was loamy moist dirt all the way down Saturdays 4K drop.  Sundays ride was a hoot to boot as well.

    D

     

    Here's Shannon's version with a lot more added flavor:

    Thursday night Boba and I got to Kernville, pulled into the Brewery and phoned up Jfsh.  He says to come on over, his backyard is full of stunts that he and his bro Scott have been building.  We score a room nextdoor to the brewhouse and head over.

     
    His yard is nothing but boulders, big ones.  One is nearly as big as his house.  In between them are 12-20ft skinnies, built in drops, ladders up/down, and natural berms.  We ride for about an hour, eventually ponying up and cleaning most sections.  Really cool stuff.  Finally, Jfsh breaks out the pen and paper and draws us a map for Just Outstanding, with ALL the side action.  He also includs a shuttle driver (which means we can hit Freeman later in the day). 
     
    The top of JO is fast, the trees are spread out, and the trail is fully visible so the hits are clear and doable right off.  This was nice because it was super cold up on top, so went down quickly until getting out of the clouds.  There was nothing major up there, just flowy fast tacky stuff, minor airtime.  Then we got under a tight canopy of trees and dropped for a while.  Finally we hit a fireroad and climbed up to the next section. 
     
    This middle section had more twisties, was looser, and had more ups and downs.  We would shoot down one side of a hill and right up over the other side.  All of the stunts here were natural, there were many granite slabs and lots of big fully exposed rocks.
     
    To get to the final section we had to HAB up Lightning Ridge to the Dutch Flat turnoff.  Dutch Flat is anything but flat, in the words of Jfsh.  Super steep super slidey (that right DfT, super slidey!).  Rolling into this stuff sight unseen was a big time rush.  The dogleg on Joplin comes to mind, this stuff wasn't as chunky, but a lot longer and looser.  The trail got faster as we went, finally dropping into a trail called Snake Pit, which dropped us out 20ft from the car.
     
    So that was JO.
     
    We loaded up, hit some really bad Mex food, and went up to Freeman Creek.  Boba drives rally style so this took like half the time as usual.
     
    ---
     
    Freeman Creek would be considered mellow by conventional FOC'er standards.  But with respect to my Fast-n-flowy standard:  there is nothing better!  (stateside anyway.)  It is ideal.  The rollers and berms are perfectly manicured, so there is nothing to worry about, just fly it.
     
    ---
     
    Saturday was Bear Creek, we had Denny, Woody, Steve, Kiwi Mike, Boba and me.  We made good time on the climb/HAB up.  Even after stoping to score some cleans on the log skinny we made it to the top (9k') in under three hours.  There was a bit of snow, we were way above a b*tch'n carpet of clouds.
     
    Then we started droping it and hitting stunts.  The trail flows down through the trees, but was faded and hard to see.  I led through as fast as I could go for what seemed like a couple of miles.  The other guys are fast, and Kiwi Mike was following right behind on my line.  We must have looked like a barbarian horde coming down the hill at speed in full armor.
     
    Side note, these guys, Steve, Denny, Mike, and Wood, were riding really well, really fast.  There were no mechanicals and very few wipeouts.
     
    So, we hit more stunts, lots of jumps, skinnies to hucks, and all that.  Pretty fun stuff.  Steve was going large on the hits.  Mike and Wood were getting into it as well.  And, I noticed Denny dialing things in.
     
    We got back to camp around 5pm and Chirs comes blistering down the road with some ridiculous time he had just marked down Nelson trail.  The guy was bubbling over with adrenaline, it was awesome to see.  He was definitely in his element.
     
    So the guys retrieved the cars and we had a big turnout for some drinks and grub.
     
    ---
     
    Sunday we got up a little late, for obvious reasons, and managed to get up to the top of Nelson by about 11am.  We drop it and immediately find a new hip jump, Steve was launching it for effect.  Eventually Chirs and I hit it.  It was nice and smooth like all the stunts on Nelson.  We actually ran into the guys that build on the trail, very cool, really expert riders, they know what they are doing.  Anyway, that was the only new feature.
     
    We cruised the best we could given the mechanicals and all.  Down towards the bottom most everybody, even Boba, got into sending it on the final launch pad.  Denny was looking really good and stable on it (And, he was hitting it with speed). 
     
    And that was it.
     
    ---
     
    We (Boba and I) had a lot of help putting this together, so even though some of you guys couldn't make it, you still had a hand in the works of it all.
     
    Big thanks to Jfsh, Danno and DfT.
     
    Out,
    Hooch.
     

    Some pics from Woody:

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Whatever, Buckley has lost all credibility with me!!! (Frame is probably strapped to the back of a burro...dead from exposure somewhere in the Cascade Mountain Range.)

    - Winston
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