Today, Chelan and Manson were cloaked in a thick layer of smoke and floating ash covering parked cars. It was bad. Looking at the iqAir website, Winthrop and Twisp were north of the eastbound smoke from the Little Giant Fire near Lake Wenatchee. So I made a plan to do the Loup Loup trails. I drove through the smoke and Pateros was just north of the smoke line and Brewster too.  But there was some smokey haze as I started west on SR20 to get to Loup Loup but as I got there, there was nothing in the air to worry about! Perfect, cool, weather, no smoke, a couple clouds, and new trails to explore.

I parked below the resort at the gate and started with the Buckaroo loop and then began the climb on Bear With Me. It is a great climbing trail and similar to Master Link at Tiger but in a dry, Pine, forest instead of the moist Fir forest. My first descent was on Ursus and the black diamond tech was very enjoyable. A little dry but still grippy. DRY meant every rock feature was awesome traction and line choices weren’t too critical. Loved the trail. My next climb was to get over to “Oh Bother”.  After BWM, and Barely There, I took Bongo’s Tightrope to the top of Oh Bother and the tech fun began at a little higher level than Ursus. I went around the biggest drop (since I’m all alone) but the rest were so fun. The big dip or saddle in the trail was a real neat natural feature on this trail. Top to Bottom video here. I climbed one more time to go down Oso Peligroso and that trail was also awesome and a nice long descent with good blue challenges for you. However, Oh Bother is now my favorite here at Loup Loup. The smoke stayed away the whole ride and the return home to the smoke was disappointing, but it was a great day!

The Trailforks Ride Log and pictures are here.