Camba's Festival of Trails

I spent most of the weekend working at CAMBA's first annual Festival of Trails, held up in the Hayward area of Wisconsin. I signed on as a volunteer with the Backcountry Mountain Bike Patrol to see what the group was like, and to have the opportunity to ride some of the trails in the Chequamegon National Forest.

Arriving Friday afternoon, I wandered over to the Hatchery Creek trail head where registration was in full swing. I had a chance to visit with some of the CAMBA board members and their enthusiasm for the trail system was infectious. Unfortunately, they had not had many pre-registrants but given it was the event's first year, were optimistic (ultimately, about 100-125 folks registered.

I hooked up with a few other members of the patrol who offered to take me on a ride on the Hatchery Creek Loop. I really enjoy riding trails, single and double track and gravel but when they were giving out the "balance" gene, I wasn't given the full dose. It's not that I fall down a lot but the idea of riding off perfectly good ledges or bunny hopping logs doesn't really have much appeal. The loop was described as "intermediate technical" single track and I was soon to find out what that meant.

As we approached the trail head, one of my colleagues proceeded to bunny hop onto a flat boulder, do a track stand and hop back off before heading up the trail. Cautiously heading up the track, I attempted to keep up until I fell trying to ride around a sharp corner climbing a hill. This was the view I had of one of the other riders most of the way around.

Despite a few falls, I completed the course injury free and rode it a second time without falling once.

The American Birkebeiner race is run here each year and the CAMBA trails often crisscross the race course. I actually preferred riding the Birkie course over some of the technical single track -- easier to take pictures and see the scenery.


On Saturday, I rode a few loops of the Mosquito Brook trails before venturing north to the Namakagon circuits and rode parts of the Namakagon and Patsy Lake trails. I enjoyed these trails even more as they were far less technical. All of CAMBA's trails are very well marked.

Volunteers have done an amazing job creating and maintaining hundreds of miles of trails up here.

As we were patrolling the Namakagon loop, the skies opened up and we got a solid rain for the next 4 hours. This was taken just as the rain got heavy, and the final few miles back to the trailhead were fun. The trail got wet and muddy fast and the rocks and roots that much slicker.

I am anxious to get back up here, preferably mid-week, and ride more of the trails.

Equipment wise, I rode the Pug Monkey, set up with 29'er wheels. 29'er is definitely the way to go -- you float over most of the obstacles in the trail. I had my first aid gear loaded on the back rack which threw the center of gravity off a bit. And, racks don't really work well on the PM, especially with disc brakes. I rode between some trees on the trail and when the rack hit a tree, it slammed up against the disc unit, rendering it inoperable. Some trail side repair with help from another patroller got it semi-functioning again. I think a frame bag or back pack is definitely the way to carry gear.

Kudos to Mark at HC for sharing his extensive mountain bike experience, and to Jim for building a bullet proof set of wheels.


Despite almost 4 hours of heavy rain, not one drop of water got into my Lunar Duo tent. Most of the others tents had some leakage but mine held up well. Definitely happy with the investment.

All in all a great time. I can't do much about a shortage of the "balance gene" but I still want to get back up there and ride those trails.

Cheers