Some of you know of the HIGHEST AND MIGHTIEST TOILET IN THE LAND, the pooper perched atop South Mount Hawkins. It is one of the few remaining bits of the fire lookout tower that burned down in what, the Curve Fire in 2002 I think? What a cool place that musta been. I didn't get up there until 2006 or so.
Anyway, Danny and I were gonna try and climb up there after the storm, since it would be deserted and present a good bike mountain challenge. We didn't need crampons or an axe or none of that stuff, just waterproof feet and legs, so that cut down on weight considerably. We met up in Azusa around 0900 and saw the signs saying 39 was closed. I've ridden around lots of closures that simply wouldn't allow cars but bikes and humans can pass safely so we kept going. The road was closed at the first bridge by Encanto, so we turned back and decided to go up GMR. We were equipped for wet snowy crap so we didn't wanna do lame stuff or ride to the beach in waterproof socks with my down jacket with me so Sunset Peak became the new possible. Loads of people on GMR since 39 was closed, but nothing too crazy. We went around the gate on GRR and met snow a bit after halfway to Baldy Village. The layer from the previous storm had frozen into a crust, with the latest snow falling atop it, so I couldn't ride despite it only being 3-6" deep, so we lazily pushed onward. It was getting a tad late and we didn't feel like pushing up Sunset and down the loooooong Sunset fire road to San Dimas, so we decided on Baldy Village. We reached Cow Canyon Saddle just after sunset, enjoying the beautiful views the whole time. Walked down into Baldy Village, where we could finally ride, and went to the lodge for water. The bottle station was turned off, so we decided to bomb down to the city in search of a Little Caesars for some cheap salty bread meal. Got into a conversation with a nice fellow wearing fancy mountaineering boots, a local. Good talking to you! Hope you read this and say what's up.
15min or so bombing down Baldy Road in surprisingly light traffic took us to Thompson Creek trail, which we took to its end. We headed south to Little Caesars where we engorged ourselves on sodium carbs, and lazily headed home. Numbers for this ride are 65mi with 6,100ft gain. Top speed was apparently 44mph down Baldy Road.
We are planning on trying for the Toilet Ride again next chance we get, but we have a very exciting trip coming up in two weeks so we shall see what happens. That one will be fun to write a trip report about. Cheers all.