07/06/15 - Biking North Lake Tahoe

Marlette Lake (left) and Lake Tahoe (right)

To see the GoPro video of the trails click here:  Adventure 2015: Episode 7: North Lake Tahoe

I can honestly say that Lake Tahoe has been my favorite place to ride so far on this journey.  There are so many trails, and they are all high quality.  The North side of Lake Tahoe was no exception.  The Flume trail is widely known, and despite its intermediate ranking I had to give it a go.  I have to say that the Flume trail itself was pretty boring.  The views, however, were excellent.  I rode to the Flume trail from Tahoe Meadows on the Tahoe Rim Trail and all of that was some excellent and fun trail riding.  The next stop was Northstar California ski resort.  I knew they had a bike park and I really wanted to give it a try as well as explore another of Vail Resorts' properties.  After getting shut down by a couple days of rain I woke up to blue skies on the 5th.  Rather than ride up to the

Sand Harbor, NV from the Tahoe Rim Trail

summit and maybe get to sample a couple of the trails I decided to buy a lift pass for $52 (no discount, by the way, for Vail Resorts employees, lame).  The purchase of the lift pass was well worth it.  I was able to ride all the double black and black trails and some of the blue trails.  There were so many excellent descents I managed to use up all of the battery on my GoPro for the first time this trip.  Unfortunately some of the best trails I rode came after the battery died, but I think I got some good footage none-the-less.  My favorite trails there are Sticks and Stones, Gypsy, and Boondocks.  Sticks and Stones and Boondocks are full of rock drops, jumps, super techy sections, and super smooth berms.  Gypsy is full of jumps and wooden bridges and ramps to drops that got my adrenaline pumping.  Unfortunately my GoPro battery had died before I rode Boondocks or Gypsy.  I managed to wreck myself pretty hard once (also no footage), and less hard a bunch of other times.  Thanks to Drew Barber for loaning me some Kali knee pads so I didn't destroy my legs too much!  I am most definitely planning on going back to Lake Tahoe some day, and riding at Northstar again is high on my list of to-do's!  I finished up my time at

Nearly ripped my nose off at Northstar

Lake Tahoe by meeting up with a friend from Vail (Kim aka Thunder Bunny aka Honey Badger) who is hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and just so happened to be arriving in Lake Tahoe on the 6th.  Since I was wrecked by all my crashes at Northstar, and she had hiked 1,200 miles in the last few months we decided to make it a beach day.  We jumped off the dock a couple of times in Emerald Bay (beautiful) and finished the day by watching the sunset from Regan Beach (more beautiful) and falling asleep under the stars (my heart is breaking from all the beauty!)

Sun over the sand at Regan Beach

Sunset from Regan Beach (thanks to Kim for the photo!)

07/01/15 - Biking Yosemite and South Lake Tahoe

Yosemite Falls

Check out the video of the week here: Adventure 2015: Episode 6: South Lake Tahoe
As I mentioned in my last post, Lake Tahoe is just super.  But before I get to that I have to, briefly, address Yosemite.  Yosemite is beautiful, and I'm sure if I had been intent on backpacking and buying a bear proof food tin, I would have had a different experience.  I did drive all the way through the park from East to West and then down South to the heart of the Yosemite Valley.  Upon arriving in the main valley I was greeted by stop and go traffic and people scurrying around like ants.  I stopped to grab a few blurry pictures and got the heck out of there.  I drove North for about three hours before spotting a sign for a campsite and stopping for the night.  After sleeping in my car on the side of the road for the last week I wasn't going to take any chances about not finding a site as I got closer to Lake Tahoe.  After spending a few days just enjoying the woods, reading, and generally recharging my batteries, I continued on to Kirkwood.  I was interested in stopping in Kirkwood only because it is owned by Vail and I would like to ski here when/if it ever gets snow again.  Not knowing anything about the biking here I was not impressed to see a sign bragging about 12 miles of singletrack trails.  I quickly rode all twelve of those miles along with some climbing up the service roads in between.  Nothing spectacular for my first ever biking in California.

Kirkwood

 I continued on to South Lake Tahoe.  My first thought as I rolled in to town was, "oh, poop."  South Lake Tahoe is weird.  The state line between Nevada and California passes right through the middle of it and looking into the Nevada side is like looking in to a miniature Las Vegas.  If you don't know my feelings about Las Vegas let me tell you now, it stinks.  Literally and figuratively.  So seeing a bunch of neon lights atop casinos made me immediately uncomfortable.  I turned around and headed back to the California side.  Checking my very handy Singletracks.com phone app I found a trailhead nearby.  Thinking I would just camp there for the night I struck up a conversation with a gentleman who was loading his bike on to his car.  He worked for the local trail organization and they had just finished building a new jump and a couple new bermed corners on one of the trails in the zone and he thought I just might have enough daylight left to ride it.  Thanking him I geared up and headed out.  The ride up is on a very steep paved road.  It is not much fun.  The descent was totally worth it.  I started on the Armstrong connector trail and was pleased by all the fun technical

Star Lake

sections spaced well between some super fast flowy sections.  I joined with the Corral trail where I was expecting the one jump and a few berms and was surprised to find a whole series of table jump lines and lots of perfectly built berms!  Unfortunately the light had nearly disappeared by this point, so the video is garbage, but the 10 mile trail was spectacular.  Encouraged by my find I woke up early the next morning and greeted the few people that were milling about the trailhead.  One was a guy named Matt and just so happened to be planning to ride the same trail as me.  We joined forces and set out to tackle Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, a ~20 mile loop.  Matt and I have virtually the same climbing speed.  You may have an idea how nice it is to find a complete stranger who climbs at nearly the exact speed as you, but if you don't, it is glorious.  The climb up had the perfect amount of technical sections, just enough to keep my brain engaged, and not so much that it got exhausting.  At the top we grabbed a snack and prepared for the descent.  I was super happy to have my new dropper seat post as we rode along the ridge for about five miles.  Being able to raise and lower my seat along with the undulations of the trail without stopping was super convenient.  As the descent began in earnest I was, once again, delighted to discover that Matt rode at nearly the same speed as me!  The descent was full of rocky

but rideable technical sections dispersed between super fast and flowy sections.  All in all I was exhilarated!  Matt and I are nearly perfect riding partners and plan to ride again in Downieville this weekend.  The next day I decided to do a ~40 mile loop that combines the Cold Creek, Star Lake, Tahoe Ridge, Van Sickle, TPT, and Powerline trails.  This trail was also super fun and scenic and rides through California and Nevada.  After working up quite a sweat, and noticing for the first time that my shins were caked in black dirt, I finally hit the beach and took a swim in Lake Tahoe.  The shallows of Lake Tahoe are really warm; surprisingly and delightfully warm.  After discovering this I decided to spend the whole next day on the beach and let my legs recover from the nearly 100 miles of trail riding I had done in the last three days.  From here I

am planning on biking some trails on the North side of the lake before I meet up with Matt again to ride the famous Downieville Downhill.

Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park