We treated ourselves the morning of day 8 to a glorious breakfast at the St. John Inn Cafe'! It was utterly fabulous to not eat oatmeal and such a great treat as it had rained pretty heavily the night before and we were cold and our gear was all wet. Sandy was fortunate enough to find shelter under the picnic bench area at the fairgrounds. This was doubly fortunate because since Doris/Huntzinger Road, Sandy had no poles and could not setup her tent or fly to be out of the elements.
We rode from St. John to Rosalia via back roads as we chose not to ride back to Ewan and take the Rock Lake detour; however, you could choose to ride back to Ewan and take the Rock Lake detour. I've included directions below for back roads to Pine City from St. John. In Rosalia, you are able to camp at the Rosalia City park and if you email ahead of time the mayor is willing to open the bathrooms where you can potentially shower and clean-up. There is also potable water and a picnic shelter. You could easily walk up into town to have a meal as there are several restaurants and a market. We were so grateful to lay out all of our wet gear in the sunshine and let it dry! The picnic shelter was extremely fabulous because it proceeded to pour rain all night and we were able to keep our gear dry.
Trail riding notes: From St. John you will need to ride back down Hwy 23 and turn right onto Pine City-Malden Road, follow this for approximately 9 miles until you reach Pine City. Turn right at the grain silos and onto the JWPT. If you do not go to St. John and ride from Marengo to Pine City, your day would begin in Pine City and you would be riding to Tekoa to finish the trail. When you ride this section you will ride through Rosalia and there is a brief detour here due to a trestle being out. I will provide the detailed riding notes for Tekoa in our Day 9 ride, but have included the information for Rosalia here. There are extremely steep and rugged trestle bypasses during this stretch, be sure to use caution as they can be very steep and overgrown so the trail bed is hidden and sometimes these lead down to road crossings and then quickly back up onto the trail. When you reach Rosalia, there is a trestle that is out requiring you to travel on the road for a brief distance; turn left onto W 7th St; take the first right onto Horlacher Road (if you cross the bridge you've gone too far); follow for 0.2 miles, then turn left onto the JWPT (you'll see the signs and gate). After you get back up on the trail, there is a huge canyon cut-through that is a serious marsh; I would encourage you to wear water shoes or crocs to wade through as the water can be ankle deep. As we were staying the night in Rosalia, we continued into Rosalia on W 7th St, turn right on S Park Ave, this dead-ends into a T at W 9th Street and the Rosalia City Park will be directly in front of you.
Memorable moments: Started our day off with a GLORIOUS breakfast at St. John Inn cafe' - so delicious!! Slept in picnic shelter in Rosalia, Nick brought us cookies and off-loaded a bunch of gear for us. Ate a ton of food to lighten our gear load! Started the day in off and on rain, then sunny and warm all afternoon/evening, did laundry at the spigots in Rosalia. Finding trees again in Pine City!
Wildlife sightings: 3 chipmunks, 2 Great Blue Herons, Rufous Hummingbird hovered in front of us in a gorgeous canyon we nicknamed 'Fern Gully', marmot, coyote pup checking us out on the trail
Vital stats:
6 canyon cut-throughs
8 bridges/trestles
1 gate locked and wouldn't open, second gate opened; we were able to get around the 1st gate by carefully maneuvering through the barbed wire fence
Stats before Rachel changed bike computer battery:
12.10 miles
ATM = 1:26:51
MXS = 26.5 mph
AVS = 8.3 mph
~1,280 lifetime miles on the odometer prior to battery change. Not working after battery change.
Mama's bike computer stats:
24.84 miles
ATM = 3:40:39
MXS = 23.6 mph
AVS = 6.7 mph
No comments:
Post a Comment