The Fifty Year Trail

 Not sure how it got its name. Only took me a few hours to ride it…

This trail is great fun. Mostly smooth and fast, and once you get out to the northern reaches, an area called “the Chutes” is revealed. Oh baby. Think amusement park ride. Swoopy long turns through baked clay surface, death star channels, little airs, and a huge variety of routes through. Perhaps it’s a little braided, but what a playground! I only took the marked Fifty Year Trail route through, but I could see many interesting side routes.

It was a chilly Sunday morning giving way to a brisk afternoon when I was there. As I headed back the way I’d come, back toward the Catalina State Park, plenty of riders were heading in, many attired in mutant turtle costumes. I can imagine that during a normally warm weekend day there would be quite a few riders playing in there. Climbing some of the chutes I climbed could be pretty dangerous with lots of riders around—looks like a good venue for 1-way travel.