Lesper4

nice

Pug

In order to stick a fork in this, from my perspective, I rode to Dawson Saddle on Sunday May 18 from Encanto Park. The weather was much cooler compared to my first attempt on Wednesday and that made a huge difference. I also left earlier (6:30am) from Encanto Park, and that worked well because I had a lot of shade up to 9am or so. A few other observations:

- 39 is clean all that way from Crystal Lake to 2. However, Caltrans still has a presence on 39 in the form of heavy equipment and it seems like they are still doing clean up work during the week. As such, it was easy getting through on a weekend, but until Caltrans is done with the project, if you try to ride through M-F you might get turned around by an active construction zone.

- Temps really cooled off between Crystal Lake and Dawson saddle. Like 20 degrees cooler at Dawson Saddle. I was tempted to put on arm warmers but wound up not doing so.

- For a flat lander like myself, the altitude started getting to me at around 6,000 ft. Nothing really bad, but I had to stop every 1 mile or so, for about a minute, to catch my breath.

Strava link here which includes more instagram photos.

Lesper4

Any new what the conditions are like since this last downpour, I am guessing bad considering what happened in Baldy Village?

TGT1

Went up as far as the west fork Wednesday after work.

It was completely clean and the DOT plow truck was making another run up as I was on my way down.

bitingduck

I saw some pics on facebook of the closed section after the rain & mudslides and it was pretty well covered. I haven't seen any followup about it being cleaned, but will probably check it out in the near future.

diphthong

was riding on hwy 2 from wrightwood to cloudburst summit and back today.
made a little detour down the 39 on the way back. went about a mile
down the hill to where they are doing extensive canyon edge road repair
and then turned around to head back to the 2/wrightwood. the road had
just been swept (i counted 2 smallish rocks on the road just after clambering
around the gate). there was a decent amount of sand on the road (nothing deep
tho). go get 'em boys and girls. enjoy!

bitingduck

Awesome, thanks for the update. I'll probably do it tomorrow.

diphthong

i pretty much only did the little one mile recon because of the existence of this thread. is that wrong? happy to be able to update la riding conditions as a san diegan.
did two rides in the angeles nf and looked at my back tire after today's ride from glendale up to red box down to n3, down big tujunga canyon into verdugo hills. i have exactly
zero idea how i didn't have a blowout/flat. lots of threads showing/bald spots. examined rear tire last night after angeles crest highway ride and it was fine. n3/big tujunga
ripped the hell out of my michelin pro 4 endurance tire. wth?! upper big tujunga was smooth. lower part...not so much. plus it was bleeping toasty!

bitingduck

We rode up 39 to the 2 today, and then down via the 2. The good news is that Caltrans has done a great job of clearing all the way through. There are a number of long sections where it looks like they had mud about a foot deep that has been plowed to the side. Most of it is clear enough for 2-way motor traffic, with a few spots only wide enough for one way. They had a small crew up there today (about 6 people) watching equipment and maybe doing a little work.

The bad news is that there's a fire in three canyons along the 39-- a fire truck went by with the siren going while we were sitting at Newcomb's, and we saw the plume when we looked back after rolling a bit further. It sounds like it's in steep spots-- they have a lot of air tankers working it, and about 200 on the ground. It sounds like the lower part of 39 is closed, and they're doing escorted evacuations through the closed section.

TJKnight

I rode up Hwy 39 to the 2 then on to Dawson Saddle on Friday, 8/29/14, and although there was an active CalTrans crew moving dirt, they were very nice to me and waved me through their zone. The driver hauling the dirt even motioned for me to ride ahead of him so I wouldn't have to breath in the dusty air his truck stirred up.

Although the closed section still has lots of potholes and big cracks, there were no rocks as of last Friday.