July 4, 2008 -- Fireplug with RB
By Tom Clark
After watching the very cool and low-key Ester Fourth of July Parade, RB and I went for a ride. RB is a terrier sized poodle mix, perhaps mixed with terrier. He has the mustache for it. He also loves accompanying me when I go for a bike ride. He's quite the runner. We rode up the valley road, paralleling Ester Creek. Maybe it is Ester Creek Road? We stopped at a couple of ponds on the way, where RB fetched a stick thrown into the water. This was a really good thing to do, as it was 80 in the shade, and way hotter in the sun.
Happily, the last pond is just before beginning the climb up the Fireplug trail, where the woods would offer cooler conditions for the dog. This was the first time I'd done the trail in reverse, and I'm glad to have done it. While it is a matter of just a few minutes to bomb down the hill, it took a lot more than that to climb up it. It is a great way to go up though. Technical and challenging. It occured to me that every good climb is a great descent, and every good descent is a great climb. This is assuming that you like climbing and descending equally, which I think I do.
The very bottom of the Fireplug is in miserable condition. It is way muddy, and badly chewed up. I think that someone got the silly idea that working the trail with a grader would be a good thing. It is in the worst shape I've ever seen it in. Sigh. Fortunately, when the terrain got steep, the grader operater turned back, so the upper part of the trail is untouched. Finally, things evened out and we got to the three-way intersection. I went right, towards Ester Dome. It was a little boggy here and there, due to increased four wheeler traffic. I hope it doesn't get out of hand. The saddle evens out, and then becomes a climb again, and though it got steep in spots, was 100% rideable, all the way up to where it met up with the 4x4 road. I followed this, stopping at the puddles for RB to slup up.
Just past the bottom of a muddy saddle (the top of the Willow Creek trail), the road intersects with the Tri-Con mining road, which comes in from the right, downhill. I went left (up), continuing my ride to the top of Ester Dome. After a few more short, rolling ups and downs, I topped out at the antennas. I followed Ester Dome road past all the antennas, to Ullerhaven and down the Alder Chute. It was in amazing condition. The ruts are all filled in, and at the bottom where the Marathon Trail exits to the left, there's a built up bank for taking the corner fast. Way cool! We roared down the trail, and then just after the surprising sharp uphill over the mound in the trail, I took the once-upon-a-time seldom used single track, downhill to the right. It goes by a collapsed cabin, some artifact of mining days gone by. Easy to miss, as it is so completely collapsed.
This winding little trail now sports "North Shore" style features. There's a rock ramp about two feet tall with a straight runout, and further down the trail theres a wooden jump. It looks decidedly less trustworthy than the pile of rocks... The builders of this stuff have happily left the original trail alone, with the features being totally optional. It's cool to see such stuff cropping up in Fairbanks, and I hope to see more of it, though building a new trail expressly for such features might be better than exploiting existing singletrack. I don't know, really. It's just good to see trail development.
The trail makes another intersection after a bad bout with roots. I veered left and got back on the Marathon Trail, heading downhill. RB kept up without much problem. At four-corners, I went straight, continuing on out to Henderson Road. Once we got on Henderson, I noticed that RB was starting to overheat again, so I cut things short and rather than go through the mine and check on things back there, I just went straight down the road, sticking to the shade where I could. 85 degrees, easily. Whooo. Hot.
I live on Goldhill road, so it was just a quick powerline ride to get back to the house to water the dog, who was now seriously hot. Poor fella. Anyway, this was about 14 miles with about 2300 feet elevation gain. I'd recommend it, actually. It's interesting riding a route that is usually done in reverse. This course is mapped and described (though going in the other direction) in the Maps section of the website. The Henderson end of the course is a bit different, but most of the rest applies. Check it out. The climb up the Fireplug trail and then up to Ester Dome is more arduous, but it makes the descent that much sweeter.
Enjoy!