Scoping the Vision Quest

Sunday was essentially like spending a whole work day on the bike. Georgina, Marius, Yvonne, Mandy and I trained on legs 2 & 3 of the Vision Quest trails. Started out at Maple Springs (did a 5 mile road climb to get to it from where some of us parked), up to Santiago Peak, to Holy Jim (upper and lower) up Horsetheif Trail, across the ridge, down Trabuco and out to Cook's Corner.

In the end we did 40 miles (35 on the trail), over 8,000 ft climbing. 40 miles doesn't seem like alot, but when you add all that climbing to it, it's plenty (Vision Quest will be almost 12,000 total). Taking it at a leisurely pace had a ride time around 6 hr 20 min, total time of 7 hours 30 min. Essentially a work day (rougly 9am to 5pm). This also included around an hour of hiking with the bike.

This was only 2 of the legs of the whole Vision Quest. This coming Saturday we will do Blackstar up to Motorway and down to Maple Springs. Should be a much shorter day than Sunday's adventure. I am still learning these trails, so hopefully i have the names right. After I train on this leg, I should have more of an idea about how dead tired I will be hiking up Horsetheif.


It was a fun day, beautiful weather, panoramic views throughout the day of Catalina Island and the coast, Mt Baldy, San Gorgonio Pk, San Bernadino Pk, San Jacinto Pk, the whole inland empire, San Diego county, etc. It was neat to spend the whole day out on the bike and cover so much territory.

I felt alot better than I thought I would after spending so much time on the mountain bike in one day. Hopefully a good sign for the big dance in a couple weeks (less than 2 weeks!).


Wish I had some pix! hopefully will have some pix after Sat's ride of Blackstar and Motorway.