49. Ride Los Pinos and take pics

Awe man, I forgot my camera! Oh well, I can still divulge the conquering of my 49th goal of riding Los Pinos, a local trail in the Santa Ana mountains. The mountains that stare me in the face everyday on my drive to and from work and just beg to be ridden. There are tons of awesome trails up there that are flowy, challenging, insanely fun, and have the sweetest views of all of southern California. I found a dude's website that had some good pics that do not justify but at least give you a taste of the awesomeness of this trail.
Los Pinos peak hangs at 4510 feet, and it is the 4th tallest peak in the range. We were lucky to have my sister Audrey drive us up and take the car back home so we didn't have come back to get the car when we were done. Although this is a shuttle run, you start at about 3000 ft and have to climb "the wall" for about 1000 ft and then hike your bike for the remaining 500 to get to the top. My buddy Justin and I got an early start, on our bikes before 7:30 AM where we were greeted by 45 degree weather and low clouds flying through the mountain range. It was beautiful, and we could still make out the bigger mountains of the area through the clouds.
After about 45 minutes of hard work, we made it to the peak and were rewarded with great views and the anticipation of an exciting downhill. The trail itself traverses across a ridgeline taking you down and up 14 separate peaks. The pic on the right is one of the hills we had to go up. The trail is filled with loose rocks and water bars that double as sweet jumps, keeping the trail challenging and really fun. My initial thought was this ride would take 4 hours but we mobbed it in 2, swiftly flowing through every downhill with unbroken continuity and slowly pushing up each peak in anticipation of the next run of fun downhill. The final decent ends with some really tight switchbacks and rock stair cases that flow into carpet like dirt all the way into Lazy W. Ranch camp, just .5 miles from where we parked the car at the San Juan Trailhead.
It was an awesome ride and one I want to at least 3 or 4 times a year. It is less than an hour away from my house!