Stagecoach 400 - Day 6 - A Winter Storm at Our Backs to Anza and Lake Henshaw
I'm buzzing with anticipation as soon as my eyes open. The room is warm, the bed welcoming, and my legs tired. But, I know the next round of Santa Ana Winds are brewing a concoction of snowstorms on high and thunderstorms down low. We dress at 5 am, eat breakfast, and flip on the TV. Sure enough, the local news is plastered with images from downtown LA where the Santa Ana Winds are ripping and roaring. Trees are shorn, stoplights whipped, and even cars crushed from falling debris. The news reports gusts of wind hitting 70 - 80 mph. Holy shit. We open the drapes and see nothing yet that strong outside our room at the Idyllwild Inn. Janna and I both put some substantial layers on as we prepare to exit into the cold. It's absolutely brooding outside, a mix of moody clouds and swirling gray that indicates the atmospheric instability overhead. We push past the door and down into the empty town of sleepy-morning Idyllwild where we are one of the few out. We had debated last night which route to take this morning. The official route descends off the mountain on dirt roads and singletrack. The alternate is to just ride the highway straight back down the way we came up which is shorter and faster. I've done the latter two years ago on this route (when the dirt descent was closed from wildfire damage); I'm hungry to see the official way down so we start the morning ascending through neighborhoods until we hit dirt and enter the San Bernadino National Forest…
