9.5 hours round-trip is a lot of driving just to ride one trail! But there’s been so much rain & flooding here in Dallas that mountain biking has been tough to come by lately. And Arkansas continues to build incredible trails! This time it’s not Northwest Arkansas, it’s Hot Springs!
This is yet another trail system funded by the Walton Family Foundation. When it is complete, it will feature 44.6 miles of trail. The first phase, that opened up on Saturday November 17th, is 14 miles worth of green, blue, and black trails. There’s a mix of more traditional singletrack and flow trails that mimic trails you’d find at a bike park. Sculpted berms, table top jumps, gap jumps, drops, rocks… this trail system has everything!
I spent most of my time on the blue flow trail. It reminded me a lot of some of the trails I’ve ridden at bike parks this year. I still need work on my jumping, as I wasn’t able to clear many of the table tops. But they were very well designed, and they are all roll-able if jumping isn’t your thing.
I never made it over to the black downhill trail. According to the shuttle driver at the event, this trail is pretty rowdy, and has some big gap jumps. I do wish I would’ve checked it out, but I’m not sure if there were bypasses for the gaps.
Either way, I’m pretty stoked to have another killer trail system less than 5 hours away from home! It makes for a long day trip, but it’s certainly possible, and that’s what I did for opening day!
I could not ride for 6 days in Crested Butte and not hit Trail 401! It always comes up whenever I read an article about mountain biking in Crested Butte. I considered it a must for this trip!
Trail 401 is a bit longer in distance than Teocalli Ridge, but the elevation gain is about the same. The difference is that it’s split into two climbs on Trail 401. I knew it’d be another tough climb, regardless. I live in flat lands 500 or so feet above sea level, so being over 11,000 feet at the peak of these trails after climbing roughly 2,000 feet was going to be difficult no matter what!
It’s a little over 6.5 miles from the parking area to the start of the downhill, and most of it is on the road. This road climb wasn’t too bad. I was actually able to pedal the majority of it. At one point I passed a couple who were driving up the road and stopping to take in views along the way. The guy asked me, “is that fun?” I replied, “Not yet!”
Even if it was just a workout at this point, the views were spectacular. I think that’s really the case no matter what trail you ride in Crested Butte!
Once you enter the singletrack, it really starts to go up. I had to walk a lot on this section. After venturing into the forest, with the wind picking up, and my body drenched in sweat from all the exertion, I started to get quite chilly! I’d take my jacket off to try to dry up some of the sweat, but I really needed the jacket on to cut that chilly breeze. I was also a little paranoid. It was very quiet. I was all alone. There are bears and mountain lions in this area. My head was on a swivel. Suddenly, my heart skipped a few beats as I heard a loud cracking & crashing, ending with a low-pitched thud! A tree had fallen nearby! I didn’t see it, but it couldn’t have been too far away. As if I wasn’t paranoid enough about animals that could eat me, now I had to worry about trees falling on me!
Needless to say, despite my gasping for oxygen-depleted air, and rubber-like thighs, I continued to pedal as much of this singletrack as I could. At this point I was getting mad at the fact this climb wasn’t over yet! But a little anger is always a good thing when you need to push yourself physically!
There was no rain in the forecast on this day, but as I approached the top, there was clearly rain off to my west. I better hurry up, I thought. I wasn’t too worried about it once I got going downhill, as I’d be going fast, and I’d be moving away from the dark clouds. Luckily I was soon starting the descent, and I never looked back.
The descent starts on a lot of straight trail, but it’s fast, and has some great views of the valley! In the summer, this part of the trail is lined with wildflowers, but in the autumn they have all turned brown and lost their will to stand up straight.
After kindly asking a couple cows to remove themselves from the trail, I got into a bit more flowy section with loamy hero dirt! I was really working on my cornering all week, focusing on leaning the bike, while keeping my torso upright and fighting the urge to squeeze the brake levers. I felt really good out there on Trail 401! The primo dirt conditions certainly didn’t hurt matters.
I made it down the initial downhill in a hurry! As a matter of fact, close to the top 10% on Strava! Well, I’m sure most people stop a million times to take in the views and snap a few photos, so take that with a grain of salt. Though I do think at this point in the week I had already gotten faster than I was on day 1.
On the second climb I came across one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve seen looking over toward Gothic Mountain. Goodness! Just look at it!
Do you smell that? Oh wait, I can’t send smell through blogs. Dang it! I really wish I could. The wonderful aroma of the pine forest is one of my favorite scents! You won’t hear this from many people, but… I must say, Trail 401 smells great!
The rest of the downhill was more great cornering practice, with a few more rocks thrown in for good measure. It was over a little too fast, and then it was back to the car park, as the Brits would say. My bike had enough mud splattered on the frame to certify this as a legit mountain bike ride!
I had that runners high feeling after completing that trail! Yeah, I mountain biked it, I didn’t run, but I never hear people talking about a mountain bikers high. Why is that? Actually, a mountain bikers high is much higher than a runners high. At least for me. Screw running.
In spite of it being only 25 minutes from home, I had never ridden at Rowlett Creek Preserve in the year and a half I’d been mountain biking. Since I’m now trying to get a good video of pretty much every DFW area trail, it was high up on the list.
Rowlett Creek has over 16 miles of trails, with 14 separate loops, allowing riders to cut their ride as short as they want to. The majority of this trail is beginner friendly, with only small roots and rocks. As you get up into the higher loop numbers, things get a little more difficult. You’ll encounter some steep rollers and creek crossings that will give beginners some trouble. Loop 13 is rated as a black diamond, and features some bigger rocks for a nice technical challenge. For me, this was the highlight of this trail, with a few other cool features scattered about. Since most of the trail is flat, it requires a lot of pedaling in order to maintain speed.
I did only cover the portion of the trail north of the parking lot. However, there is nothing rated past intermediate to the south of the parking lot, so I’d imagine it’s all pretty similar. Quite frankly, I was a little bored after covering all of the north side, and chose to end the ride there.
Check out the video and determine for yourself if it’s worth a try!
hunt.style 