2008 Tuesday Ride Report - May 13, 2008 -- Ester Back Door Trail

By Tom Clark

Life is good again -- there are dry trails in the world. Not to say that there isn't any mud left, because we found plenty of that...

18 riders assembled around 7PM, thanks in part to a local interest feature in the News-Miner -- the "Best Bet" for Tuesday turned out to be the Tuesday Night Ride. That wasn't the end of it either, as the NM did a story later that week and had a photographer shooting us up on Henderson.

After the usual spiel, we rode the Parks to Gold Hill, and took the first powerline up the hill to the intertie, where we took a left. At the end, we followed the trail up the hill and through the mine. Dry conditions, good traction, low bugs. Nice.

After exiting the mine, we rode Henderson all the way up to Ester Dome road where we had our major yak-fest, waiting for everyone to catch up. Much eating of bars, drinking of liquids and swapping of stories. Ten minutes later we continued the climb up the road...

...to the big corner. About five people took the singletrack down the hill from there. The rest opted to finish the climb up to Ullerhaven, the first flat area on Ester Dome, before the saddle, before the antennas. After everyone got their warm layers on, we went down the Alder Chute. For being a steep, south facing slope, it was impressively muddy. Hard to understand, really.

We made the turn onto the marathon trail without any injuries, and flew down the hill. There was a brief stop to hoist a large fallen aspen out of the trail, but with the quantity of riders, it was an easy task. At "four-corners" we made a hard right and dropped into Ester. The trail was a little soft in places, but not so much that we were in fear of damaging it. We even caught up with the five riders who had split off. Once we entered the village roads, a funny thing happened: we didn't go bombing through the village. Impressive. Maybe we are growing up? Nah.

So, in contrast to the previous weeks' ride, this was a tame, uneventful ride. Just what you want with a group this size...