Five good men reasonably well equipped ascended the Kern River valley to attack the snow beast on President's day and they were not disappointed. The snow was as epic as the first snow ride experienced by the original Mag 5 many years earlier. Mother nature had dropped her load of 1 to 2 feet of the fluffy white stuff the day before.
The day started late with a 2 hour delay on the grapevine as the authorities cleaned up a fatal accident. Finally at 12:30 the Mag 5 launched their assult on Black Gulch from the Corral staging area. Within minutes we were in the snow with a plan to attack the beast in a westerly direction. Suprisingly the snow only slowed our progress and quickly we up into the area below piston hill with Waynium leading the charge on his 450R and Tigert in tow. Soon decisions would need to made to avoid a potentially all day directional mistake.
After chasing down Wayne a few times we took the side trail to Browns Mill instead of trying to climb piston hill. The side trail had downed trees but was passable and led the group to Browns Mill road went Wayne and Tigert decided to lead in the wrong direction yowards Saw Mill rd. Luckily they were twarted by deep snow with Tigert making a spectacular pass on Wayne by launching off a rock and burying his bike in a 4 foot snow drift. Luckily we able to turn the group around and head deeper into the abyss down Browns Mill, which can only be described as an epic ride in 1 to 2 feet of snow for the next 4 miles. There were numerous get-offs and a low speed endo by Tigert on video, film at 11.
After Browns Mill the snow lessened considerably and it was time for some high speed flat tracking before we reached Dutch Flat. Dutch Flat was good black dirt but we encountered a big wash out that required all 5 riders to cross. We descended into Keyesville campground and proceeded to stampede down Keyesville Classic to Kern River trail and back to the Corral in time for a cold Newcastle and some Early Times. Unfortunate we ran out of time to sit in the hot spring but we now know it's loaction no more than 300 feet from the highway. Next time
Pooher
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