Irish Hills
(Gary Sletten rolls down the Irish Hills towards Prefumo Canyon Road – Cerro San Luis lurks in the background).
You won’t find this one in the guide books. This is a local “after work” ride. Short mileage, with challenging climbs, and fast rocky descents on singletrack makes this ride a good one. It is easy to loop this ride, or ride it as an out and back.
You can find this ride at the end of Madonna Road, or you can start it the more challenging way (steeper climb) from the parking lot on Prefumo Canyon Road.
From the end of Madonna Road (near Home Depot), you will find two singletracks that head up the hill. They both go to the same place, but the one on the left is a little longer and more gradual. If you loop this ride, come down the fork you’ll see on the right.
Ride the single track up until you come to a paved road, turning left. The other previously mentioned single track pops out down to your right once you hit the pavement. Continue up the pavement for a short distance. The road will soon turn to fire road, completely covered with rocks. Although this looks bad, it is actually cleanable if you keep a good line.
Eventually the rocky road will turn to single track again. Pass the Mine Trail on the right (bad for riding) and continue forward. You will soon come to an intersection. The left takes you down to a dirt road which climbs back to the pavement. There is a pretty good little stretch of singletrack there, but it is really short.
Go right and continue along the top of the ridge. You will soon arrive at yet another intersection. This climbs up for a rocky loop, and has a decent overlook of Prefumo Canyon if you take the spur off to the right. The right fork takes you all the way down to Prefumo Canyon Road, and is the best singletrack downhill of the ride. Be careful.
From the bottom, you can climb back up the way you came, or ride Prefumo Canyon Road (paved) to Los Osos Valley Road. Los Osos Road (left) returns you to Madonna.
the mine trail?
is there an actually mine?
Not sure if there is actualy a mine out there or not, but I would guess that there probably is. There are a lot of rides in SLO County that have old mines here and there. Some good views of some old mine sites can be found on Rinconada and Cypress Mountain.
Yes there really is a mine up there and if you go far enough to the the top there is a couple caves.
Just did the tail to day did KING TRAIL it was pretty fun but short
The Irish Hills is a mix of pretty good trails and terribly rocky trails, in my opinion. Some of the trails (ie the Prefumo side of Mariposa and Mine trail) are way too rocky and I had to walk my bike up much of them. The picture above is about as smooth as it gets; there are much more rocky areas.
It is a rocky ride…but very rideable if you like riding on rocks.
I went on this last night, as an after work ride. got bounced around like a pinball! I want to try it again now that i know what to expect. Dual suspension is a must for the decent.
These trails are quite rideable without dual suspension. I used to ride these all the time when I only had a hard tail. It’ll be rough, but it’s definitely doable. Oh, I’m speaking of riding down them. Riding up them is another story.
Just did the Mariposa trail as an out and back this weekend. Glad to know it wasn’t just me who had to walk up those freaking rocky trails. The descent made it all worth it though. Now that I know the Madonna road side is an easier climb, I may just do the loop starting on that side and enjoy the descent on the Prefumo side.
Just did the Mariposa from the end of Madonna and over the the Perfumo Canyon parking area, then back around on the pavement. Pinball is right. Had to walk it in a few places, but I am just getting back into riding after years away. Loving my first full suspension bike. Had a great time but glad I didn’t run into anyone, there are some tough spots to meet someone coming the other way in there.