I spent a couple of afternoons this past week getting reacquainted with Black Mountain in near Rancho Bernardo. The Lilac Canyon trail has recently been rerouted and it is way much for the better.
The trail still starts from the Miner’s Ridge Loop trailhead but now instead of steeply descending down to Carmel Valley Road it down contours along the north slope of Black Mountain around to the glider port.
Shortly before the trail reaches the glider port a single track forks off to the north and pass under Carmel Valley Road. This is another nice section of singletrack that works its way around to the north side of the Black Mountain Ranch Park (baseball fields). This provides a direct connection to the Santa Luz/Larsardi Creek Loop. This is a really nice trail connection that I’m stoked about. I’ll be updating my site soon with new data on the trail.
I had kinda lost my appreciation for just how much climbing there is at Black Mountain. The first ride out here I did about 17 miles and 2,500 miles and on the second ride I did 16.75 miles and 3,000 feet of climbing.
It seems mighty early for the rattlers to be out and about already but this fellow above was the third rattler I have seen this year. I came around a turn and I was at that distance where I had to decide wither to bunny hop the snake or throw out the anchor. I chose to throw out the anchor and ended up pulling off a totally awesome nose wheelie stop that I’m positive I could not pull off again if I tried.
The Miner’s Ridge Loop is in fantastic shape right now with the rain we had the previous week. If you have not been out here in a while you should go check it out while the greenery of spring is in full effect.