The Warriors Annual Race

A friend and I chose this weekend to hike up Santiago. He's training for Whitney, and this was the first hike of his training. When we got to the parking lot, we found out that it was the weekend of the Warriors (A mountain bike club) annual race. The Warriors that we met at the trail head were on foot, and warned that if we decided to continue we would be sharing the trail with a lot of racers coming downhill. They were very friendly, and didn't try to talk us out of our hike. We continued on the hike, soon after the junction of Cussin Jim Trek and the Holy Jim Trail we saw our first racer. The racers were spuratic, but all of them were extreemly friendly, careful, and sharing with the trail. When we met the main divide road, we were told by another group on foot that the volume of racers was going to increase significantly. At this point, we were slightly pushed into taking the road rather than the trail. The road was boring, there were several parts that were completely washed out and couldn't be passed with a vehicle. We summited, and were able to take the entire Holy Jim Trail down with the racers all beneath us. My main reason to post this trip report is to point out how friendly the Warriors were. They were really sharing for a group that spends so much time maintaining the trail and then having one main race to enjoy that maintenace. Nice job Warriors, Thanks. One more point, the upper section of Holy Jim Trail is my favorite part of the whole hike.