You see, Friendly Paul grew up in the quaint berg of Ojai, California and has been telling us about the riding in the region for many moons. Our planets finally aligned this Memorial weekend and Aaron, (who, it should be noted is the best scout master money can buy), Casey, Skinny Bee, Loudass and the guide, FP all converged on the region armed with mountain bikes, cameras, an arsenal of weaponry, and an assortment of consumables to keep us straight through our time away.
Of course, being the wrecked ship that we are, Aaron began attempting to secure a camp site within a couple of weeks of our arrival to town. Obviously we were going to have to play this by ear, so first things first, we stopped by The Madonna Inn for a head clearing cocktail, and to figure out our next step;

After finally arriving to town and scouting some spots to set up camp, we found this tree, that left me totally confused;

If anybody knows whats going on here, you wanna let me know?

Anyway, we ultimately found a sweet spot to dump our stuff, and by 'dump our stuff', I mean that very literally;

Once the load was lightened, we began a search for a well off the beaten path locked gate to a fire road that only twenty vehicles a day are allowed to pass upon. Aaron in his scout master ways somehow secured the combination to the lock, but during our hunt we came across a spot that can only be described as an utter disgrace;

This was only a tiny fraction of what some total douchebags left behind. There were computer monitors, headboards, televisions, fans, plates, broken bottles.. The list goes on and on, all abandoned in this once pristine creek basin.

Nature is awesome.

However, at the risk of sounding like a total hypocrite, the reason we were looking for the aforementioned super secret road was to bring out our own collection of fire arms and shoot up some beer cans. In our defense however, upon our departure, I'd like for it to be known that we diligently picked up every single spent cartridge, and shredded beer can and packed it back out.

I haven't had alot of experience with fire arms, so it was a bit of a treat to get to play with this kind of fire power, but more over, I especially enjoyed the incredible surroundings;

But you put an automatic weapon in the hands of a green horn monkey, (that would be me) and they are going to pull the trigger, (and note the three shells arcing through the air.)

Say hello to my little friend.

I mean, 'say hello to our little friends.

Those beer cans didn't stand a chance.

We packed up our goods for the trek out and began preparations for the following day's adventure, but not before throwing knives at Bee's feet;

I won that particular competition.

Waking up at the ass crack of dawn the following day, we donned our stretchy pants and awaited for FP's arrival. He took great pleasure in pointing out the very highest peak in the distant range, saying "you see that one? We're going to one just behind those trees that's a little bit higher." We rolled out and began the ascent which was between 13 to 15 miles, all the while gaining 6000 feet in elevation.. As an example of the gravity of this feat, I present exhibit A;

If you travel down the road to the middle of this shot with your eyes, you might barely see a tiny black spec. That is one of my compatriots, and at this stage in the game, we'd been riding for about 45 minutes to an hour. The cliffs you see in the background we actually ended up off to the left of, at an even higher elevation. Intimidation does not begin to express the sensation a few of us were feeling at this point. However, before I continue, I'd like to include a nice shot of Loudass frolicking in a stream for three reasons. One because it's kind of a nice shot, two, to prove that he was there, and three because this was about the last time I saw him.

Surprisingly, despite the epic expanses that surrounded us, we didn't see any of it's natural inhabitants. Black bears, Bobcats, Mountain Lions, Deer, I would guess wild Turkeys, wild Boars and so fourth, as well as tracks or any evidence whatsoever were mysteriously nonexistent. I did however, see a million of these little buddies;

Every time I saw one scamper across the rocks in front of me I heard Steve Albini scream "I'm a little lizard trapped in a man's skin!"

Of course the seemingly endless climb wasn't all discussions about heart rate and VO2 max. Once or twice we stopped to engage in some quality Trundling;

At the end of this video you hear Casey say "Where'd John go?" to which Aaron replies "He won't stop cause he can't stop."

Eventually we found that the two donut and coffee breakfast wasn't quite enough fuel for the Loud one and he had to turn back to lick his wounds, but a short time later we finally reached the summit and drank in our surroundings;

Had I had the foresight to climb up that little rise behind me in the video, you would have seen this;

After a couple of miles of screaming fast fire road descents, with a little more climbing thrown in for good measure, we reached the point that we'd all been looking forward to, which was a little picnic table, more breathtaking vistas, and roast beef sandwiches that FP thoughtfully bought for us at a local market before we began our adventure;

Paul said one of the best things about white knee warmers is that they allowed him to sit with his feet daintily crossed.
Besides calling Friendly Paul 'Friendly Paul', for obvious reasons we sometimes call him Euro Paul as well.

After lunch we continued on to either the last mile and 1000 more feet of elevation gain, or the beginning of our hard earned six mile single track descent.
We flipped an invisible coin and opted for the latter;

After returning to camp and cleaning up as well as one can with a box of baby wipes and a camp site faucet, we met up with the the whole Friendly Family, but unfortunately I just got a single shot of Friendly brother and Friendly Dad;

When asking friendly Mom if Friendly Dad had ever not had a moustache, he interjected "I was born with a moustache!" As you can well imagine, Friendly Dad and I had alot to talk about.

After dinner we returned to camp where one more quotable quote was made by Casey in reference to our tent's oversized glory hole when he simply exclaimed from the confines of our shelter, "I've seen alot of bad things."

In an attempt at wrapping this post up, I have to once again give Scout Master Aaron credit for his view of vacations. He elaborated on how at one time in his life he felt the need to get home as early as he could the day before work in order to decompress from his time away and prepare for the following day in the salt mines, however now his perspective is to attempt to turn the return into an extension of the vacation itself, which was met with resounding approval and resulted in minature golf and the driving of tiny cars;

The only bummer part of the whole weekend was when the space shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base on Sunday, breaking the sound barrier and creating a sonic boom that was so epically loud that we all sat at the picnic table staring slack jawed at each other, certain that any second we were all about to get swept away in an enormous wall of hellfire, but that only lasted for about 35 seconds.

It really wasn't anything that another can of beer couldn't ease.

So that's it. The bummer life was once again avoided with the grace and confidence that only a group of trained professionals could muster.

Thanks for tuning in and sitting tight. I know it was a wordy one and I hope not too boring.
Rest assured, we'll get back to the regularly scheduled assortment of jackassery on Friday.

With a pinch of over and a dash of out, I'm gonesville..