Santa Clara Truck Trail.

More thanks to Vaughn at Electrosonic for telling me about this one. This starts off just north of the Newhall pass. From LA, go north on the 5 or 405 until they combine, then take the 14 towards Lancaster. Exit at San Fernando Rd (the first exit). The road almost immediately dead ends. It's a park'n' ride lot, which is marked on the Thomas Guide® ref C3 pg 4641.

This turned out to be an awesome ride. I rode this 16th Feb 2001 and it was a pleasant 65 degrees or so, and a ton of snow at the top of the mountains after some heavy rains the previous week. You start off jumping over the barbed wire fence at the end of the parking lot, and heading up to the right. This was muddy and steep to start off with.

I resisted pulling out my camera to take pictures as while I was climbing up, I was sure I'd just be riding back down again and figured I'd take pictures on the way down. As it happens, I managed to make a loop out of this so missed out taking pictures of snow on the road, and other interesting landmarks. The snow only remained in the shady parts of the trail. I'll have to go back to explore this some more - many side trails and single tracks to explore. I just took the main drag which climbs up and up. You get nearer and nearer some radio towers, but then go past them leaving them on your right. A turning further on looks like it goes to them.

The dirt road is very rutted and is solid sandstone in places. As you go further it gets less steep. Finally, the dirt road joins a proper road. It keeps on climbing and much of this section was shady and snow-covered. Riding on snow is really quite exciting - sometimes your wheels spin and you don't go anywhere! There was a very noisy helicopter hovering close by with people dangling from it. It turns out this was a Fire Service helicopter doing some kind of exercise. I know this because, around the next corner was a fire station or "Fire Suppresion Camp" as they like to call it. It was quite a little community up here in this rather remote spot. Having realized that real vehicles could reach this point, I then explored making this ride into a loop. I passed through the Fire Station greeting Lucy the black lab, and the road starts to descend somewhat.

In the distance I saw some people hang gliding, and saw that they actually launch off from two separate spots along this road. I was told they land in a field in Sylmar which is also the location of this club's headquarters. At one point I think I counted about 10 hang gliders in the air.

This ride even had a dam to look at - albeit from a distance. This is the dam forming the Pacoima Reservoir.

So from here having watched the hang gliders all launching themselves off the edge of the moutain, I decided to chance my luck and do a loop. I was pretty sure the road I could see in the Angeles Forest headed back towards Santa Clarita. I shot down this hill, passing 2 guys on bikes holding on to a truck as it drove up! I came across the Bear Divide Ranger Station (Thomas Guide® ref F4 pg4552). I called in to take a look at their map. It was easy to return to Santa Clarita along Little Tujunga Road, which turned into Sand Canyon Road. Now here is where I could have saved myself some boring riding. I should have turned left on Placerita Canyon Road, but instead went ahead until Sand Canyon Road eventually crossed the 14 freeway. Then I went left on Soledad Canyon Road, then left on Sierra Highway. The last few miles on these roads were the most boring tedious riding among new housing developments, oil fields and urban sprawl. Eventually I reached San Fernando Road again, turned left under the freeway and returned to the car.

All in all quite a decent ride - about 2500ft elevation gain and about 20 miles.