Dixie Mine Trail

[Trainwreck]

Saturday morning's outing was the Dixie Mine Trail. This is a series of trails in the McDowell Mountain area that we recently became aware of due to a connector off of one of the park trails. Several of us had made a preliminary investigation a few weeks prior but had not delved this far into the area. The majority if the trail was fairly primitive, most rideable with the exception of some steep, loose rocky climbs and some insanely steep sustained climbs. I soon learned that any relief in the form of a short downhill burst was met with harsh retribution. It finally got to the point of trying to ride this stuff or living to see my kids someday graduate from high school- I chose the latter. But we finally reached the top of the climb in the ride and the sweet reward of a several mile plunge (watch those slick rocky corners!). We had been watching a storm building north of where we were riding and ended up racing it back to the trailhead. It ended up being quite severe with the temperature dropping from the low 90's to 66 degrees in a very short period of time. Post ride cervezas were served in the cool rain following.



Nice parking area and facilities

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/IMG_4482.sized.jpg



Nothing like jumping right in to the climbs

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/IMG_4484.sized.jpg



Heading up

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/IMG_4486.sized.jpg



More rocks

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/IMG_4487.sized.jpg



Trail view

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/IMG_4491.sized.jpg



Looking up one of the steep rocky sections

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/IMG_4494.sized.jpg



Looking back down from the same point

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/IMG_4495.sized.jpg



Nice Seven that was on the ride

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/IMG_4496.sized.jpg



The sad truth- 2.17 miles in about 28 minutes

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/IMG_4500.sized.jpg



View looking back at the trail just traveled

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/IMG_4506.sized.jpg



The actual Dixie Mine

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/IMG_4510.sized.jpg



The storm passing through the area we just returned from

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/IMG_4511.sized.jpg



Another view

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/IMG_4513.sized.jpg



The rain and a cloud rolling down the side of the mountain

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/IMG_4522.sized.jpg



Ride profile

http://www.tatumriders.com/albums/dixie_mine2/Dixie_Mine.jpg

[splat]

Nice pics

[Skookum]

Awesome, it's so cliche but like the sayin goes, "If you ain't hikin you ain't mt biking"

All that being said it's always fun to try new trails and see what they're about.

[Quo Fan]

"What did you do yesterday?"
"I took my bike for a walk."

Nice pics.

[I Are Baboon]

Cool. I want to see mine pics.

[TreeSaw]

Cool pics...I love the one with the storm passing.

[Trainwreck]

Cool. I want to see mine pics.

I've been wanting to check that out as well but we were running from the storm. I'll be sure to get some next time. There's also some petroglyphs close to the mine entrance I'm wanting to get some shots of too.