Out in the Wash: Loads of Water
Some people are lucky; they live and ride on a daily basis where other people can only make weekend plans to ride, or wish they were close enough to ride more than once a year. That is, until a good amount of rain arrives and the trails the lucky people would otherwise ride become a soggy mess into which passing wheels would furrow deep ruts. We've had enough rain over the past month that the age-old admonition to stay off the muddy trails until they have had time to dry out has received all kinds of verbal and written play.
I don't know that anyone would count the wash as one of those wish-list places to ride; eleven months of the year no one is going to be envious when you tell them you ride there frequently after work and often on the weekends, but I tell ya what, after weeks of passing storms, the roads and trails out there are better than ever. The rain firms up all that sand and gravel like nothing else. That we can ride through winter rains, and barely leave a mark on the rocky, sandy surface is pretty cool.
Maybe those lucky people, stuck waiting days, maybe even a week for their local trails to dry, should be a little envious. It may only be a month or two at the most, but right now I guess we're the lucky ones.
It was April 2020 that we last saw rain like this; even that year, though, I don't think there was this much water. The big groundwater recharge basins below the dam and east of the channel are full, as are the smaller ones west of the channel. Water is flowing in little, normally unnoticed stream beds, that probably see flowing water only once every ten years, or more. Sections of trails have become impromptu steams. Some of the basins are so full that water is overflowing the rim and spreading out across the land along what ever path offers the least resistance.
lakeside
overflowing the rim
trail or stream?
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