Rattlesnake

I'm talking about the trail, not the animal.  This was the first time I have been on this trail, and I will not do it again by myself.  It is 1.4 miles and most of it is not too bad, but there is about 300 yards of it that is really steep and super rocky.  You plow through one rock garden practically sitting on your back tire, you can see the end of it, then you come around the bushes and there is a second rock garden that is steeper and nastier than the first.  Pick your line through the second and you round the corner to the third, but this rock garden has a clear line avoiding the rocks or you can bomb straight down through them, either way you come out with some speed and right into the last rock section which is hidden from above by another bush and has some rocks that are big enough that you definitely have to go around them and pick out good lines.

I went into the first rock garden too slow, and got hung up several times.  I came around the corner and stopped before the second rock section to check out  the line I wanted.  I picked my line, visualized myself going down that line, then launched into it.  The first thing that went wrong was the 2' drop that I hadn't seen, I hit it wheel down and weight forward, this threw my whole plan out the window and I just muscled my way down.  The third section I took the line that avoided the rocks and got some good speed, in fact I got enough speed that I launched off the first rock in the fourth section and completely bottomed out my 6" of suspension which sent my ass into the rear tire causing it to stop and the rear end to slide out into the next rock.  Off this rock it bounced out the other way and somehow corrected itself with me still being on the bike and I was able to ride out cleanly.  Then I went down the fire road to Mach One and climbed back out of the canyon.

All in all it was a fun ride, but next time I will not do this trail alone and I would like to be on a downhill bike.