Trail Riding Frenzy, Aug 10

Nice Flowy Singletrack.

The trail runners were pulled off the storage hooks yet once again on Sunday. Its funny, my reintroduction to the bicycle as an adult came in the form of mountain biking yet I participate in this of the two wheeled activities the least these days. There is a lot of work that goes into trail riding. Getting to a trail for one requires getting out of the concrete jungle and into the 'burbs. Cook and Will County have a fairly large network of forest preserves that cater to nature hikes and horse trails. There are also some rider maintained single track in the south suburbs with an official network in the Palos Hills Forest area. It is also a social activity (at least it is with the crew I ride with) so getting everyone to the trail can really be the toughest part. Now that wedding season has died down and the major city fests are out of the way, time is ripe to enjoy what lies outside of the city limits. Within a 45min drive lies Sweetwoods trail network in Glenwood, Il and the Pulaski Woods network in Palos Hills, Il. These pics are from Sweetwoods and I consider this trail to be my local XC trail.

Sweet Woods Climb.

Climbing in early July

Devils Lake framed by the pines.

Right after Independence Day my brother and I got out for some top rope climbing in Devils Lake state park in Wisconsin. We drove about half way the day before and decided to stare at a campfire for a few hours before we made it to the park. This wasn't well planned on our part because the entire midwest had the same idea. Our regular spots at the park were already being climbed so we set up at a section called "The Pantry". Not a bad bit of climbing for our first time out however we were both glad we hadn't brought any newcomers out. We surly would have made them nervous. It took us a while to get the pre-climb protection perfect. We got three or four routes in apiece. The drive home was the pits. It was like ski traffic on I-70 all the way to Chicago.

Kenny getting prepped.

Kenny climbing.

Here I am getting ready for some quartzite awesomeness.

My climb photo by Kenny.