Tahoe!

Okay, it's been a year since I last updated this here blog. I guess it's about time...

Mike B and I went to Tahoe to do some mountain biking. Not the lift stuff this time... just as much singletrack as we could get in while we were there. We stayed in Northstar at Pitt's condo (oh thank you thank you thank you Pitt!!), and drove to trailheads from there.

Yessir, just the boys. Drove up after work on Tuesday the 6th, and as soon as we got there, we cracked a beer, poured a whiskey, and started talking about chicks, sports and trucks. Oh yeah.
Okay, maybe not, but we did have a beer.

Here's the overview of where we rode. There's Lake Tahoe, but there aren't any more obvious landmarks in this pic.















Here's a map of approximately the area in the above pic:


View Larger Map

Day One - 7 Oct:
We did the "Sweet, this is really ... oh dang, we're at altitude, aren't we?" ride. Hole in the Ground off I-80 west of Truckee. Yeah... altitude. Even when we were being mellow, it wasn't always super easy to breathe. Cool stuff to see everywhere, though. Riding new singletrack is really a major high. Or... perhaps it was just the lack of oxygen... hard saying.

Parked near the bottom at the firestation, and after a little detour of a couple miles on the road while we looked for the right place to turn, we finally started up the trail.

Thought this looked pretty cool with the way the trees were all bent, and the light coming through.

Here's the lake that we stopped at for lunch. Sand Ridge Lake. Again, very cool stuff. This was our view from where we sat on the rock while chowing down.


There was another lake on the way down... Lake Montez

Day Two - 8 Oct:
We rode the "We're from Florida, and we're rad" ride. Took the shuttle (for shame) up to Mt Rose, and rode the Tahoe Rim Trail down to Marlette Lake, and did the Flume Trail to the south end of the lake with great views of Lake Tahoe (not that we took any damn pictures of it!!), and then around Marlette Lake and down Tunnel Creek to the car.

Looking east over Washoe Lake just north of Carson City, NV.


First of the only two pictures (in the same location) of Lake Tahoe from the Flume Trail. Stopped here and had some lunch.


Second of those pics...


Marlette Lake. Just so you know, we are NOT hugging in this picture. I'm trying to keep myself from falling off the rock into the lake. Really, that's all it was.



This is looking west over Marlette Lake and then Lake Tahoe in the background.


If ya gotta change a flat, you might as well have a damn fine view.

Day Three - 9 Oct:
This was the "You don't have to be embarrassed if you're lost" or the "My direction sense says that I'm about ten miles from where I'm standing, and I'm looking west regardless of the fact that you've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt with your topo map and GPS that I'm not where I think I am, and I'm looking south" ride. Oh my god, this guy that was hiking was just unbelievably stubborn. There was just no way that he was where he thought he was. We told him where we were. We pointed out landmarks. We showed him the trail map. We finally got out the GPS and showed him that it also put us in exactly the location on the map that we had been indicating. No go. He was not there; he was about 1o miles away. But he did tell us that there was no reason that we should be embarrassed, and he's been turned around before as well...

Anyway... out along the Truckee river on the west side of Lake Tahoe out of Tahoe City. Up ... some trail (Western States?)... to the Rim Trail and Watson Lake for lunch, and then back down the Tahoe Rim Trail to Tahoe City. Then to the Bridgetender for a famous burger that was okay, but perhaps shouldn't be famous...

Looking southeast over Lake Tahoe.

Lunch stop at Watson Lake. I tell ya, there's something supremely cool about coming upon a lake out in the forest.

Just finished ride number - yes, count the fingers - three.

Day Four - 10 Oct:
Okay, so I thought of some name for this ride awhile ago, but now I forget what it was. It was pretty epic, though, and there was a fair amount of snow at times, and we got up to right near 10,000 feet, and we did 5000 feet of climbing, and we rode a lot of singletrack, and ... and ... and....

Up to Star Lake, and then along the Tahoe Rim Trail in the southeast corner of Lake Tahoe over Freel Pass and Armstrong Pass, and then a sweet drop down Saxon Creek Trail aka. Mr. Toads Wild Ride.

Um... wheee. Really.

This had it all... climbing straight up a fire road. Pushing bikes through the snow. Climbing straight up a fire road while pushing bikes through the snow.... Beautiful views, fun singletrack at the top, 46-yo women telling us out of the blue that she and her family essentially didn't flush every time they peed in order to save water, more fun single track, and an oh-my-god-fun descent. It was a good day.

Well, this pic ain't all that great. Mike's pointing to a snow-capped peak and a pass that we're riding up to, and, well... it's kinda washed out. But it was a hell of a long way away, and it was really white (I'm pretty sure that's from being snow-capped...).
And we'd already done a lot of climbing...

A little section of snow that I thought was pretty cool. At least until we hit more snow later on...

Sorta like this. (But it still got better.)

Okay, you know that earlier comment about coming upon a lake? This was one of the best examples of that. This was just awesome. Really beautiful. Star Lake.


Same place but with us... (I know what you're thinking: "MUCH better")


Okay, remember that little bit of snow on a big ol' open fire road? Yeah. A bit tough to ride this on such an angle. But we're total studs, so ... um ... anyway, we didn't always fall...


A long way down. We started this ride down in that flat area near the lake. This is looking sort of northwest-ish as I recall.


Cleaned that section... oh yeah.


This is the highest point in our ride at Freel Pass. Somewhere above 9700ft. Yeah, okay, we're hugging. So what? Sheesh! This is looking sort of north-northwest.


Also at Freel Pass. Looking west-ish at some cool rocks.


Still at Freel Pass... looking south-ish, and on down the trail that we headed out on.


Just a pic of Mike on the side of a hill to show what the angle of the trail was like.


And coming up through some rocks around the bend.

And that's it for the pictures that day, because we didn't slow down too much on the downhill. Most of the climbing was done at that point, and it's hard to stop the joy on the downhill to get pictures.

Mike: "My climbing tank is pretty much empty at this point, but my descending tank is still pretty full." That may have been what I was thinking the name should be. Great quote, Mike.


Day Five - 11 Oct:
We checked out of Pitt's place in Tahoe, and drove down to Nevada City and stayed at the Outside Inn where Addie works. Then we went and rode the South Yuba Trail. This was possibly the "thank god we didn't get shuttled to do the whole loop like we'd planned" ride. Ended up being a pretty good ride just as we did it which was only half of the singletrack that we had originally planned.

Not too many pictures, because I swear, every time there was a cool view, it was looking into the sun. But here's one looking down at the river and some of the swimming holes. You can see that the water level is pretty low.


Here's another pic looking down at the river and some possible swim spots.
(Again with the sun...!)

After the ride, we went out to dinner with Addie and Henry, and then Mike and I went down to Coopers. Which is a bar. And we celebrated our last night on the trip. Perhaps a we bit too much, because ....

Day Six - 12 Oct:
A short out and back from Nevada City. The "I'll never drink whiskey again" ride.
There are no pictures.

And there you have it. The quick rundown of the Tahoe Trip with Mike B. last month. Big fun. Great rides, great views. Will definitely have to do something like that again.

(Hmmm, that really wasn't worth waiting a year for, was it...?)