Mad River bike ride, October 1st, 2000

Greg and I headed out for a day of mountain biking on the "east side", hoping to get away from the somewhat nasty weather... We chose a ride up the Mad River, which lies high on a ridge between the Chiwawa and Entiat rivers.

Maverick Saddle, the starting point for this ride, is hard to find. The logging roads aren't signed, and we spent over an hour going up the wrong ones. Also, the gazeteer (road atlas) shows incorrectly that the Chiwawa Loop road connects to the Chiwawa River Road near the golf course SE of Lake Wenatchee. It doesn't, you need to drive along Fish Lake.

Greg bikes across a stream

If you ever get there, this is a great ride... not very technical, but lots of fun single track. Greg and I made it about 9 miles up the trail (from 4300ft to about 6000ft). Nice meadows, and windy trail. Perfect cool sunny weather, I was never hot or cold. However, not having been on a bike for a year sure makes a difference... Greg was whooping my ass on the uphills!

We only saw 4 other people on the trail... unfortunately they were on motorbikes, but I guess that's the price you pay for such a well-maintained trail. (although less maintenance might have made it more fun). The trail begins in a gentle valley, mostly alongside the stream. Then it emerges into more open alpine meadows for the remainder of the ride.

There are many trail junctions along the way, and probably a lot of other trails like this one... definitely a place to go back to.

Bad Phil. I didn't really bike on the meadow. This would make a good cover for an REI catalog (ala tent-on-an-alpine-meadow)