I had hoped to do a longer gravel ride today but things didn’t turn out as planned. Then most of the morning was spent trying to decide what ride to do instead, further shortening the time I had. I thought I’d check out the top of Monte Bello since I hadn’t done it in such a long time. I got a sandwich on the way and had lunch in the parking lot before starting the ride. The weather was very pleasant and the trails were in good condition. As I got closer to the east side of the park, the trails were more fine, loose gravel over smooth, hard pack. I haven’t done the loop at the east side since I first got my gravel bike. Last time it was muddy. This time it was really nice. I had hoped to ride White Oak trail but it was still closed because of muddy conditions. I thought I’d still be able to cut across the trail that connects Canyon Trail to Skyline and Skyline Ridge at the south end of White Oak but that was part of the closure too. (So Steven's Creek Nature Trail is closed and Skid Row Trail is the trail I was thinking of and it's what Steven's Creek Nature Trail turns into west of White Oak). My legs weren’t feeling great on the earlier climbs but going up the steepest part of Canyon Trail, my legs really weren’t happy. They just weren’t there today. So now I had another reason to cut my ride shorter. Not only was I skipping Skyline Ridge but because of my legs, I decided to skip the doing the loop through Russian Ridge too. I didn’t feel like doing the climbing so I just stayed in the ridge line. A nice unintended benefit of staying on the ridge was staying about the smoke, haze and poor air quality. Crazy Pete’s was a little muddy in places. Dirt Alpine was the muddiest of all the trails by far. I hope when Midpen takes over Dirt Alpine, they’ll fix the drainage but I worry they’ll just close the trail like they do others during the winter.