Monarch-Silver Creek-Rainbow

The ride today was the classic Monarch Crest shuttle. Last week we did the Agate Creek shuttle so we decided to try something different this week. On the advice of one of the shop mechanics, we chose the Silver Creek downhill. While we were dropping the shuttle vehicle, the boys had some time in the Monarch Crest Gift Shop and saw there was a forecast for possible snow over 10,000 feet. That added a bit of a sense of urgency to keep moving as we rode. We had met another mountain biker in town earlier this week and we hooked up with him, Marshall, for this ride as well. It started at the same point, Monarch Pass at about 11,300 feet.
There were some clouds around but nothing like the fog we had last week.

We continued on the Crest trail past the turn off for Agate Creek to the end of the single track, about 9 miles out. The route follows a gravel road for about a mile and half down to Marshall Pass. From there the Crest trail picks up on single track again for a few more miles with a short road section before the intersection with Silver Creek trail.

Silver Creek trail is a great downhill, starting out working down through a few meadows then right along the creek. There were some rather loose sections of trail, some sections were almost like gravel. The final bit we actually had to ride down in the creek for a few hundred feet before the trail finished up on a dirt road.

About a quarter mile down the road we hit the trailhead for Rainbow trail. Marshall decided to bail out back the dirt roads while the four of us hit the 9 mile trail. The first 6 miles turned out to be some of the most fun singletrack we have ridden yet. It was buff, benchcut single track running above the creek. The pattern was a slight down grade going into a small tributary stream followed by a bit of a grunt climb then levels out, sometimes getting into a nice open view, then back down to the next tributary and repeat. The motorcycles must not like this trail as it did not seem damaged at all by them. The last three miles were rockier with a couple extended climbs finishing down a relatively loose switchback single track to the paved road. Down route 285 for 6 miles and we were at the truck. The weather ended up just about perfect. It was about 50 degrees to start, hovering in what seemed to be the high 50’s for most of the ride. There were a fair amount of clouds around, one actually dropped a few rain drops and a bit of hail early on, but it was all good after that. Millage was 31 trail/dirt road and 6 on paved, the guide book put the climbing at about 3500 feet

We all agreed this was one of our top 10 if not top 5 rides ever.

Marshall stopped by the camper afterwards as I burned him a CD of all the pictures we took. I had broken another spoke, this time on the drive side so this time I had to get the cassette off. Marshall helped and offered up the use his chain whips. I finally manged to poke out the pin holding the cassette together so I could get the offending cog off by itself. Marshall also offered to share some really great sausages he had brought from home so we grilled those up along with potatoes and salad for a really great dinner. He stuck around as we watched the helmet cam footage after we ate.