Everyone needs a little break away from work, and the Oregon gloom (although Bend doesn’t get much of that). Boss man Chris Kratsch took off for LA to meet up with the Lowelifes crew. His goal was to escape winter, get some product testing done, squeeze in a little adventure and meet up with some long time RAP/OMM supporters. The Lowelife’s Respectable Citizen Club is a trail maintenance org in SoCal that maintains some very remote and rugged trails using our BOB Axles and Trailers as well as our OMM racks. This crew has been buying our products since the very beginning. Recently they had a remote backcountry campout/trail work event that was only accessible by bike and Chris knew he had to join in.
Chris wrote down some words on his flight back to the crisp PNW air and he paints a perfect picture of what it’s like to hang with the crew on an early spring weekend in LA-
Most people think SoCal is just Venice Beach and traffic jams. Fair. However, the San Gabriel Mountains are gnarly, reach an altitude of over 10,000ft and are ravaged by huge fires, flooding and landslides. Current rates of erosion in the eastern San Gabriel mountains are among the fastest in the continental United States.
Up And Away We Go
On Thursday, Travis Engel, a frequent contributor for The Radavist picked me up at the airport. I had zero info on the route but that was all part of the fun. We parked at a random pullout on a hwy halfway up into the mountains. No indication of a trail head- it seemed like a weird place to park. With loaded bikes we jumped a culvert and began ripping down a rutted track. Grins from the go. We rode for an hour or two mixing fire roads and singletracks. It’s surprisingly cold out and a few ominous clouds are building on top Mtn Wilson which is about 6,000ft. The trails are surprisingly devoid of users, I know it’s Thursday afternoon but still I’m looking out over the LA basin with nearly 20 million people. Where is everyone?
Back on old fire roads we pass through a tunnel built in 1929. We are traversing and descending a mix of trails but all of them are rock. Loose rock, big rock, little rock and solid rock. So fun. We approach our last trail of the day to descend down to a remote and rugged campsite. At this point it’s obvious that leaving my “heavy” GoreTex jacket in Travis’s truck to save weight is going to prove to be a mistake. Mt Wilson has been swallowed by storm clouds and thunder is rumbling constantly. I’m wearing most of my clothes already and it’s cold. We start descending to camp- the trail is a friggin blast! High speed, rocky and full of exposure for 3500+ feet of nearly continuous descending. Not far down I have to stop and pull off my sunglasses. It’s only 4pm, but the storm has engulfed us, it’s raining and hailing, is there an eclipse?, it’s dark. The descent to camp is nuts, just gets steeper and more switchbacks keep coming. Even without sunglasses it’s hard to see the trail, and Travis in front of me. Near camp we cross a ragging creek just to make sure my feet are nicely chilled.
It’s been awhile since I’ve set up a tent in a proper rainstorm, no less in low light and 39 degrees. HERE is that adventure I was seeking. Travis and I setup our tents close enough that we could tell stories and pass supplies (whiskey) from tent to tent through the night. It was going to be long one. Thank God I had that carnitas burrito that I made Travis stop for.
The Adventure Continues
Morning comes and I’m grateful to see blue sky, but we’re in such a deep canyon there’s no chance there will be sun in camp. I shivered in my sleeping bag all night. We break camp, everything is wet. My riding clothes from yesterday drenched from the descent are just in a pile on the ground next to the tent. Straight from camp the trail crosses the creek again. We hike a bike from camp, I’m in my sleeping layers as there was no way I’m pulling on my riding layers from yesterday. Travis stops to show me this spot from the cougar story he told me last night. Crazy close encounter he had. The climb out of camp is mostly a hike a bike- that’s fine, helped me warm up. After an hour or so we reach a sunny spot on the fire road and proceed to pull everything out to dry in the sun. I asked Travis how much further we had to go. He thought only for a second and said, we’re about 1/4 of the way, 3/4 to go. Gulp.
Once our gear had dried in the warm Cali sun we loaded our now lighter gear back on the bikes and made our way to the top of Mt Wilson. Amazing views all the way on a just manageable climb. From there Travis had to go home to deal with some personal stuff so I continued on. The plan was to meet up with Lowelife’s at a remote campsite Saturday morning. I descend a crazy, gnarly trail in the absolute middle of nowhere, by myself. Not the time to fuck this up. There are several small sections of the trail that are just missing. Turns out this is the trail we will be working on for the weekend, and I see why.
I arrived at a great campsite in the late afternoon and made myself a lunch with an extra dehydrated dinner I brought “just in case”. I explored the area around camp a bit. Travis had told me this is where our team filmed our “LA Doesn’t Need Mountain Biking” YouTube video with Lowelife’s last year. A video which got them a bit more recognition and support in the local community.
After setting up my tent I grabbed my unloaded bike and set out to explore. I ended up riding a fun loop for a little bonus riding right from camp. Just as I arrived back in camp two bikes came down the fire road loaded with camping gear. A welcome sight to see Eric Melanson and Steph Ortega. After Travis’s multiple cougar stories I can’t say I was looking forward to a solo night just yet. Saturday morning the rest of the Lowelifes rolled into camp on their bikes. There were about 25 of us total. We headed up the trail with tools and hard hats around 10am. We worked throughout the day, getting to know one another and making head way on a trail devastated by fire. Around 330 or so I was brushing out scrub oak in the midday sun. I was toasted. Two full days of riding and a full day of trail work were catching up to me. I hiked down the 3 miles to camp with a couple of other volunteers, the hardcore’s stayed another hour.
Dinner that night was the famous Lowelife’s taco night and boy was I ready! Hand pressed tortillas and carnitas, yup. Count me in. These guys and gals do it right.
Sunday was another day of trail repair. Slightly abbreviated by the changing of Daylight Savings Time and our hard cutoff at 2pm. Another big day of hiking in and out of the work site. Back in camp we broke everything down and packed our bikes. These volunteers that worked all weekend now set off on a 6 mile and 1600 vertical feet climb back up a rugged fire road to their cars. Don’t call the Lowelife’s soft!
Back at the cars, I grabbed some extra provisions for one last night campout. I rode out retracing some of the first day’s route to the Mt Lowe campsite Erik had recommended. Mt Lowe gives the Lowelife’s their name. I spent another chilly night out but was treated to an amazing view of the sun setting over the LA Basin. Hard to believe with nearly 20 million people down there that these trails are being lost to lack of use and maintenance. Monday morning arrives and it is a beautiful, crisp 34 degrees. I descend down fire roads to Erik’s house, too tired to try any more of the rugged singletrack options.
What a rewarding weekend- great product experience, much needed time away from my phone, and great connections formed with people I knew only casually or just met. It was really interesting speaking with a dozen or so people who don’t consider themselves cyclists yet volunteered their weekend to bikepack into a remote campsite to work on an expert level mtn bike trail in the backcountry. Couldn’t be more proud of the Lowelife’s and the community they support!
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