I’ve been wanting to check out Toro County park for a while. Unfortunately the trail conditions are quite poor. Like Fort Ord, it’s sand based and the trails at Toro are steep so there were really bad ruts from the recent rains. I also accidentally started riding with my hiking shoes instead of my flat pedal shoes. I was far enough away from the car when I realized it that I didn't want to turn back. Plus after Toro, I was supposed to loop back by the car so I could change then. Well it was bit of a mistake. My hiking shoes don't give enough support and my arch was collapsing causing my foot to roll inward and my knees to do the same. I had to focus on keeping the pressure on the outsides of my foot. I was excited to try Pipeline out but it’s pretty gnarly to start and then it becomes pretty badly rutted, narrow, exposed, singletrack. That didn’t seem like fun so I noped out and to Toyon Trail instead. Toyon is wider but it’s steep to start and pretty badly rutted and loose so it’s not like you can really send it. Oh and it starts off exposed too. Toro just doesn’t seem to have any trail maintenance. There was a fallen tree across Toyon and people have started to form a new trail going around it instead of cutting the tree. I also forgot about the 20% grade towards the top. Overall, would not recommend. Fort Ord was definitely sandier than at Christmas. The storms have made the ruts worse and all the sand that’s been washed away has accumulated on the flat sections. The sand was thick and still too wet so it was SLOW. I had so much fun smashing technical stuff on the Stumpy though. I didn’t even have to think about the rocky part at the start of Trail 32. I just rolled it. I also tried some new trails, including descending Trail 49 like we wanted to do last time. All the new trails were great and will be part of the route going forward. After Toro, it really wasn’t until Trail 42 when I felt like I was getting my flow on. It was also warmer than I was expecting. I wore pretty warm clothing but I’m so glad a brought my normal kit too because I would’ve overheated if I didn’t have it to change into. It's pretty funny because everyone else's activities from today were complaining about how cold it was. I guess it was cold in the Bay but not cold down in Salinas. Because of the change of route (and starting slightly late) and how slow the sand was feeling, I decided to cut out the Trail 84 loop. I wanted to make sure I got back before the gates closed. Sad to cut it out but my legs probably wouldn’t have loved doing the extra loop anyway. 😂 But looking at the map now, I could've easily done it and finished in time. Oh well. Oh and Trail 31 is trash! I don't know what happened to it but I was going to take it instead of Trail 72. I got on it and it's covered in straw which is hiding the fact that the dirt is clumpy and wrecked so you can't pick a line and it also doesn't look like anyone's taken it because of that.