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Hixon trail, Bee Canyon Thomas Mtn. 06/06/09

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Last night Piratemonkey e-mailed me, expressing a desire to check out some new riding areas. So I e-mailed back "let's ride Hixon trail, Bee Canyon and Thomas Mountain. When do you wanna go?" Turns out that the very next day would work just fine, so I called Jeff and alerted him of our new dual sport plan for the weekend. We trucked our bikes up to the familiar staging area on Tripp Flats truck trail and prepared for a leisure day of trail and pavement. The morning started off just peachy; the sun warming us and a nice breeze carrying the smell of sage and wild fowers across the hillsides. We opted out of any heavy sweaters, but decided to wear jackets "just in case".

So after a quick warm up, it was up the road to Hixon trail. We saw a few riders out on the main road, but didn't encounter anybody on Hixon. The trail was in pretty fair shape and we made our way down it in an orderly fashion without any mishaps. Then we hit Bautista and rode the pavement to Hemet and out Florida street to Bee Canyon. Again, not many people at the bottom of that road. The silt, which had been a problem on the Temecula dualsport ride a few weeks ago, was quite settled and packed down for the most part today, so we had very little trouble with it and proceeded up the winding road, ever higher and into overcast conditions. It was blissfully cool now and not like June weather at all as we made our way towards the trees. When we got to the creek crossing, nobody else was there. This was a great opportunity to stop and play in the water, so we did. This would prove to be maybe not the wisest decision of the day when we finally reached the pavement with our duds all wet. It was COLD up on top of the mountain. We shivered our way into Idylwild and stopped in at Joannes for some lunch. Our clothes had a chance to dry out a bit before we hit the road again. A good thing, since the sky was pretty threatening by then. As we rode towards Little Thomas Mountain road, I kept getting hit in the face by something. I finally realized that it was frozen rain! Luckily, we rode out of that in just minutes and were on our merry way back into some sunshine, if only partial. We ran into a group of big 'ol KLRs up on Thomas Mtn and Rob was with them. We exchanged some brief howdys before continuing down the trail. Got back to the staging area around 3:30 or thereabout.

All in all, a fine day of riding and company and unusually perfectly cool weather for the start of summer.

Peefur guards Jeffs gear before we leave in the morning.

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The staging area.

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A sunny start.

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Zina on the trail.

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A rest stop on Bee Canyon road.

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Playin' at the creek.

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but not playin' submarine....

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Jeff splashing around.

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and doing his signature wheelie.

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And then Zina.

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Practicing for Swan Lake possibly.

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Under dark skies up in Idylwild. Husqvarnas; two outa three ain't bad.

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On the truck trail that would take us off of Thomas Mountain.

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Nice report Mimi, looks like fun! Great pictures. I love that area. Every year in September we take a group of Jr Hi'ers up there with there dads for an adventure weekend. Fun stuff.

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So Mimi - Do you connect from Tripp Flats over to Nf6s22 or Juan Diego Flats to get to the top of Hixon?.......my Mapsource maps don't show a connector between Tripp Flats and either of those roads........one time we came off Hixon after riding up from Bautista and had a rider with us who didn't want to go down Allesandro so we looked for other alternatives.......looking at the GPS it appeared we had two options to head down over towards Anza if we didn't want to go down Allesandro .......nf6289 which fed into Juan Diego Flats or Nf6s22 which apparently feeds into Tripp Flats? The Tripp Flats opton is likely the better option because if you go the other way you'll encounter some gates on your way down to Reed Valley Rd.

Tripp_Flats_Mapsource_View.doc

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Maybe I have the name of the road wrong, but I call it that because the long closed Tripp Flats station is on it. In fact, I always stage about 3 or 4 turns past that station. The road is right off of Carey.

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;) another great ride Mimi enjoyed it, good to get out and ride and this is one of the most scenic rides I have been on for a while. I am not sure but I think we did about 65 miles approx with a nice lunch break, thanks PM for lunch

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Nice photos! I put mine on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/piratemonkeyc...57619283878829/ . The pics from my little Sony camera aren't that great; I really need to replace the one I recently destroyed.

Garmin screenshot of route: http://www.flickr.com/photos/piratemonkeycult/3603746487/

Garmin file of route (parking spot marked): 090606_hixon.txt

Thanks to DD for the last-minute tour guide services. And thanks to Jeff for what I like to call the "Male of the Species Utility" -- someone to help load my bike and someone big enough to wrestle any bears that dropped out of the trees (it happens!).

With the lack of human encounters on the ride and the cool weather, it felt more like we were in Central California.

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Love these photos, guys- I wanna go.

So go....what's stopping you? Certainly not your rear brake. :lol:

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Love these photos, guys- I wanna go.

So go....what's stopping you? Certainly not your rear brake. :lol:

she shoots! She scores!

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Love these photos, guys- I wanna go.

So go....what's stopping you? Certainly not your rear brake. :lol:

NICE! THAT'S the spirit!

Nice one... B)

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Love these photos, guys- I wanna go.

So go....what's stopping you? Certainly not your rear brake. B)

NICE! THAT'S the spirit!

Nice one... B)

Oh shut up and fix your brake so you can go with us next time. :lol:

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Ohh riding someplace that has trees and actually looks foresty. The oregonian in me misses some green. And no I am not referring to the kind that some people want to legalize FN/Slut

How do I input the txt file into mapsource to make a track out of it?

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How do I input the txt file into mapsource to make a track out of it?

Change the file extension from .txt to .gdb, then open it with MapSource.

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Then what is the thing that piratemonkey posted up there? "Garmin file of route parking spot marked"

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I don't believe anyone has posted tracks for the Bee Canyon area.......

I would've posted the track in the GPS area, but I actually thought it was almost identical to the one you had posted of the area, which had better waypoints. I had downloaded yours before the ride in case we had navigational issues (by "we" I mean if I had gotten separated).

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I don't believe anyone has posted tracks for the Bee Canyon area.......

I would've posted the track in the GPS area, but I actually thought it was almost identical to the one you had posted of the area, which had better waypoints. I had downloaded yours before the ride in case we had navigational issues (by "we" I mean if I had gotten separated).

Oh, I didn't see that you had posted a track....that said, I'm unable to download it following the usual routine?

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I got an error trying to open it saying it wasnt a valid gdb

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"Oh shut up and fix your brake so you can go with us next time. :lol:"

Let me know the next time you return to this spot/ride. Looks really nice. Good write up. :lol:

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"Oh shut up and fix your brake so you can go with us next time. :lol:"

Let me know the next time you return to this spot/ride. Looks really nice. Good write up. :lol:

Admittedly, it was a really short notice event. I didn't think I had enough time to drum up much interest in it. I'll post one with at least a couple of days lead time, soon.

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So Mimi - Do you connect from Tripp Flats over to Nf6s22 or Juan Diego Flats to get to the top of Hixon?.......my Mapsource maps don't show a connector between Tripp Flats and either of those roads........one time we came off Hixon after riding up from Bautista and had a rider with us who didn't want to go down Allesandro so we looked for other alternatives.......looking at the GPS it appeared we had two options to head down over towards Anza if we didn't want to go down Allesandro .......nf6289 which fed into Juan Diego Flats or Nf6s22 which apparently feeds into Tripp Flats? The Tripp Flats opton is likely the better option because if you go the other way you'll encounter some gates on your way down to Reed Valley Rd.

Sorry for the hi-jack by guy who wasn't even there, but I have been there. Nf6s22 does go all the way thru to tripp flats - right past the old ranger station that mimi mentioned. Check your google earf and you'll see it. I don't know why some of that stuff doesn't show up. It makes it tough if you're trying to make a "route".

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This is a plate only ride and how technical is it? How much fuel needed as well? It just looks gorgeous and might be something to try with the wife once we get her through carguy and ride oranges school if i can beg/borrow/steal a plated bike for a weekend

Plate required everywhere except Hixon.....

Gas is a non issue.......readily available in Idyllwild/Hemet

Bautista Rd. might be fun for your wife......same with Nf-6s16/Thomas Mtn.....but your wife probably isn't ready for Hixon and definitely isn't ready for either single track.....

Same advice as Big Bear, go ride it solo/do your own recon trip..... only YOU know what you/your wife can handle/prefer........so go check it out yourself THEN decide if you want to bring your wife as a rider and/or passenger.....

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Thanks sorry for asking in the wrong place (the gps thread)

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