Peavine Mtn Ride

We've been having delightful weather - but we're losing our snow! So
I decided to take advantage of the weather (and Dina's offer that I could take the "day off") to do something I've been wanting to do for a while: ride a loop from the house up the west side of Peavine and back down the east into Keystone Canyon (by way of "the bacon strip") and home. After a couple of false starts, I left the house at ~10:30 and headed west on Mayberry. From there I rode up to Sommerset and "hit dirt" after about 35 minutes.


Then I just rode up the main rode to the top of the "Cow Canyon" ride and kept on going. I hit the pine forest around noon and took advantage of the scenery to stop for lunch.


I finally got a look at the top of Peavine after realizing I had been looking at the false summit for a while. I was surprised by how far I had to go yet.


That's not the summit on the left, the summit is further back.
In the picture on the right you can see the radio towers on the very top of the mtn.







I finally reached the summit a bit before 2pm - 3 1/2 hours after leaving home!








Now it was time for some "screaming downhill", but I wanted to be sure to catch the "Bacon Strip", so I ended up stopping a lot to check out my position (as best I could). I even ended up riding back up the mtn about 20 minutes to find my best shot at hitting the right road. But I did find it and then enjoyed some wonderful single-track back out to McCarran. I met another mtn biker, John, who offered to take this picture:



Looking back up I was amazed at how fast I dropped vertical, and how fast the day was slipping by.










I got home just after 4pm, almost 6 hours out, 31 miles and 5100 vertical feet. And I came home to find my trusted dog waiting for me.












The loop: