The Old Ridge Route

Thanks for Lance for letting me know about this wonderful bit of road. He had read about it and driven it the previous weekend. For the full scoop, you'll just have to look at ridgeroute.com to learn about the historical significance of this route. Suffice it to say, it's an old twisty single lane road through the mountains that runs between Castaic Lake and highway 138. About 6 vehicles passed me on a Saturday morning in June 2003 when I rode this, mostly curious folks driving the road I suspect, rather than people using it as a way through - it's very slow.

The Thomas Guide shows Ridge Route starting from Lake Hughes Rd, just off of I-5. So I drove up there and drove north on Ridge Route. The first few miles have been hugely widened, with housing estates along the way. After a few miles, you cross a road (I *think* this is Warm Spring Road, looking at my maps) and about a mile later, the road passes a couple of remote farm-type buildings, and there's a metal gate which is open, and you can see that at this point the road deteriorates quite a bit. So I decided to park and then ride from here. This picture shows the gate.

I like my rides to be uphill all the way, downhill all the way back. Unfortunately, this isn't one of those.

But, none of it is very steep so it's quite a pleasant ride. The last few miles are all downhill, until you reach Quail Lake on highway 138. Quail Lake is a significant part of the California Aqueduct system. In fact, from the top of this hill, you can see the upper end of the mighty 1900ft elevation-gain tunnel at the bottom of which is the Edmonston Pumping Plant in the Central Valley.

I think I was breaking the speed limit at least some of the time:

This is the northern end at the junction of Highway 138.

Here's a typical view part way along the route:

Now, every time I fly out of Burbank heading up for the Bay Area, I always get a window seat and look out for the Ridge Route. You can nearly always follow it. It really is super-wiggly but very spectacular.

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