Tony's Loop (and a HD report)

Tony's Loop was introduced to us by Mr. Aleto. It starts innocently enough with your basic counter clock-wise Hangman Loop -- down Hatch, out Hangman to Valley Chapel. Then you go up a monster gravel climb called Stoughten that eventually hooks into Palouse Hiway at Steven's Creek, which is also a gravel climb. That pops you out at the top of Big Rock.

The snow/weather combo was such that -- for a while -- stuff kind of jammed up: snowy-ice built up in my top derailleur pully to make my chain jump and snow packed into Bill's fenders to (mercifully) slow him down.

But check out how beautiful it was. None of these photos do it justice: the clarity of the blue ski coupled with the bright white snow and the sunshine was just glorious. I was surprised that we didn't see others out on the Hangman Loop.

As for Highdrive Trail conditions: I'd put it at Red -- stay away. I don't have any good photos, but with the warmer temps, there's a lot of slop. Glen and I took a loop yesterday that dropped off the top and down into the south trails and eventually came back north on the middle trails. We tore up a lot of trail just being out there.