70-MILE (METRIC CENTURY) & 115-MILE (CENTURY)

These two rides will be challenging for most riders, with 5,700ft of climbing on the 70-miler and 9,000ft for the biggie. We’ll start off heading out Hyampom Road along Hayfork Creek for 24 miles, winding up and down to the valley of Hyampom. After the steep descent into the valley, we make a right across the creek and another at Corral Bottom Road, and follow it left through part of town to “The Climb.” Hopefully we haven’t spent too much energy showing off for our friends getting to this point, because we’re going to need lots of it to get to the top of this 7-mile, 3,000ft climb that starts out steep and stays that way for the first 4 miles, with a couple more steeps before we hit the right turn to Corral Bottom. The route gives us a break here with a twisty descent of 2 miles into Corral Bottom. Don’t look for any services here, only a few homes and ranches and some gentle terrain before we head up over the next 12 miles to the high flanks of Hayfork Mountain. The views north from this section are superb—vast expanses of wilderness stretch out to the north, east and west, with the Trinity Alps and their 9,000ft peeks as the centerpiece of this scene. The ride tops out at the turnoff to the Hayfork Bally lookout, which is an occupied station during the fire season. The road now drops quickly on a very well-paved and twisty course down into the Big Creek canyon where, at the bottom, you will encounter the unpaved 3.5 miles of very negotiable Forest Service road. A right turn onto Hwy. 3 will take us back into Hayfork and finish the 70-miler at the Fairgrounds. The 115-mile people will pass the Fairgrounds and head out on the "Wild-Peanut" loop described in the 45-mile course section above. See the route map for rest locations.

View part of the 70-mile loop through the eyes of a rider in the 2009 ride, Click Here.