Today my buddy LarDog and I took a drive up to Azuza to do some climbing in the Angeles National Forest to Crystal Lake. We met Gary, Scot and Scott at a parking lot near a bike trail to start off our day. It was overcast in the morning but it looked like the sun was starting to come out at 8AM.
After a bathroom start we met up with a couple more guys to start climbing. Below is the route of the climb for the day.
The ride is on an awesome paved road that climbs up from Azuza into the San Gabriel Wilderness for 26 miles to Crystal Lake Campground. It was slow going up this climb going between 6 and 10 miles an hour for about 2 and a half hours but the view of all of these switchbacks is worth it.
The very top has this awesome Crystal Lake Cafe where you can get some food as a reward for all of your climbing. The sun was out and we were loving it.
It was cool at the top but not cold.. and as you can see there was snow pack lingering in the parking lot…good to hold up Gary’s bike
It was good to get some food in with the whole group before bundling up for the fast decent down the winding roads we had just climbed.
The ride down was totally fun zooming down at speed up to 42 miles per hour down the curvy switchbacks on a newly paved road – awesome! It was great spending the day with such a great group of men.. hope to do it again soon…
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