A light dusting of snow on the Angeles Crest Highway

[Jon F]

It's been a few weekends since I've gotten a chance to take a longer ride so I wanted to hop on my '98 R1100RT and enjoy a little chilly late spring weather. It turned out to be a little chillier than I had planned for, though!

 

 

I live in Simi Valley and so far I haven't yet tackled the ACH on two wheels (riding since August '09) so I thought I would take a nice 180 mile loop from Simi up towards Palmdale to Fort Tejon / Valyermo Road / Big Pines Highway. I've had a chance to ride the western section of the roads that run along the San Andreas Fault so I though I'd try the eastern section and then take ACH back to Upper Big Tujunga and on to Big Tujunga Canyon. The section west of the Mount Wilson road is still closed from fire damage. I got on the road about 10am.

 

The first road I got to enjoy after exiting the freeway was Soledad Canyon. It's a nice, winding, scenic alternative to part of the 14. From there I hugged the northern edge of the San Gabriel Mountains until I got to the Big Pines Highway. What a great stretch of road! Lots of elevation changes and tight switchbacks. There are lots of cracks in the road surface but it was clean. Got passed while I was on the side of the road by a R1200RT who I saw again when he was coming back the other way. A little closer to ACH I thought I noticed flakes in the sky...uh...is it snowing? Yes, it was. Thankfully it never got hard enough to accumulate on the road. I stopped to take a few pictures at Blue Ridge (7,381').

 

 

 

This next one is from further along closer to the highest elevation on the highway (Dawson Saddle, 7,903')

 

 

Saw quite a few other brave motorcyclists on the road. Finally made it to Newcombs at around 12:30 and had a burger and a coke and while warming up. There were about 30 other bikes there and the restaurant seemed to be doing good business. Hope it can survive until the western section re-opens. It was still snowing while I was there but after I got back on the road and under 5,000 feet the sun came out and the speeds picked up. Had good time trying to keep up with a couple sport bikes and a guy on a motard.

 

Upper Big Tujunga and Big Tujunga Canyon were both clean and in good shape with only a little evidence of the road repair going on. I couldn't keep up with a Ducati but I had a good time trying.

 

I never got around to putting the liner on in my Firstgear Kilimanjaro jacket but I managed to stay warm enough behind the screen and with the heated grips on. I did get to try out my new set of LD Comfort riding tights which performed excellently and helped keep me a little warmer to boot! No noticeable discomfort on my four hour ride, which is a big improvement from previous rides I've done. Thanks for looking!

[Heyfrank]

Nice report. I was on soledad canyon today also.Got off at Alisia cyn and on to los angeles forest hwy. It was fairly cool out there . Glad you had a good run. Lots of bikes out today.

[Jon_M]

Thanks for this report. I had the mistaken understanding that Upper Big Tujunga and Angeles Forest were still closed, so I haven't been up there since the winter rains took out big sections of the road. It's good to know Newcomb's is scraping by. The owner seemed about ready to quit after the fires and before the rains caused even more problems.

 

Any estimate on when the western segment will be fixed? At one point CalTrans estimated end of March, but that proved to be much too optimistic.

 

Jon

[Jon F]

It looks like they've pushed back the western section opening until mid-late summer. I read the same stuff about Newcombs after the fire but having never had stopped there I didn't give it much thought. It is really nice to have a place to stop and take a break in the middle of a long ride, though, and I'll be stopping by there again when I can.

 

 

[Bruce H]

Thanks for shareing, rain here for the last week. Hope the sun comes out soon.

[Jon_M]

Because Newcomb's is the only place to eat and drink between La Canada and Wrightwood, it's usually a pretty healthy business, with bikers, hikers, and skiers when there is snow. But if you block the road for any reason, they start hurting immediately.

 

Jon