Wild Weekend at Tahoe!

On Friday I went with my friend Dan from my ward up to Truckee/Lake Tahoe for some biking. We were planning on riding a couple of trails I have been interested in for a long time. One was the Emigrant Trail near Truckee, a 20-mile out-and-back trail that has a "fun" but not challenging reputation. It met expectations. I took a nasty fall while trying to ride my bike over a fallen log and my front wheel got torqued into a bad angle as I came down the opposite side. It was on a slope, and I fell to the downhill side onto the fallen tree which had a whole bunch of short, stumpy branches sticking out of it which stuck straight into me and bruised my chest and cut up my knee pretty bad. My bike landed right on top of me, as is usually the case in a bike wreck. I walked it off though.

Things didn't get really interested until we headed south to the hills above the southernmost end of Lake Tahoe. The plan was to ride the infamous Saxon Creek Trail, better known among bikers as "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride", not sure where the nickname came from. I had seen some videos and heard rumors that it was the sweetest downhill ride in the area, but you had to work for it. The top of the trail sits at 9200' elevation, and the trail to get up to it starts around 6500'. 3000' of climbing is tough, I don't care who you are. But we had several hours and we were going to take our time. We planned our route up Armstrong Pass trail, much of which is a paved road. When we hit singletrack at the end of the paved road we met up with a group of bikers who were coming down. I asked where they were riding from, and they said they had been heading for Mr. Toad's, but turned back because of the snow. I had been told it would be spotty, but not bad, but these folks had turned back because of fields of snow on the ground and more snow falling from the sky! It had been cloudy at the bottom, but far too warm for snow. We figured we could hack whatever they were talking about and we kept going. We started climbing this canyon, and the trail was immaculate!! We climbed smooth granite formations and wound through the ponderosa pine trees, even hit some of the man-made obstacles just for fun! After a while it began to rain, real lightly. Crossing our fingers, we kept going, hoping it would taper off. The higher we climbed, the colder it got. We had climbed about 2300' when we stopped to evaluate. The rain was getting heavier, and the temperature was noticeably colder. While we were stopped, we could feel the temperature dropping, and watched as the rain began to mix with big, wet snowflakes. That made the decision for us. All I had for warmth was a now-soaked cotton sweat shirt and my under-armor. We gave up on Mr. Toad's, and I made some solemn vows to return and win the battle.

However, the day was not lost. The Armstrong Pass Trail we rode up on had been a fun climb, but the downhill was not to be missed! It was incredibly fun until we got back to the paved road, where we found another singletrack trail called the Corral Trail, which would lead back to our car. It quit being fun at that point though. The Corral Trail was S-I-C-K-E-N-I-N-G!!!! Words can not describe the intensity of this trail. It was fast, real fast. And it was extremly windy (not windy as in blowing wind, but twisty, back and forth constantly) so it kept us on our toes. Jumps appeared out of nowhere and I would suddenly find myself 3-4 feet off the ground. The turned were banked just perfectly so I could minimize the amount of braking I needed. And one long, final stretch was so perfectly straight and banked on the slight curves that I did not even need brakes -- I just flew like mad, faster than I have ever ridden on singletrack. There were some dips built into this section of trail that literally tossed my bike into the air and caught me in the next one, which would drop down and toss me back up again -- repeat. I have never ridden a trail like that, ever. I can't imagine Mr. Toad's could have been any more fun. I'll still get down there, but it's got some pretty stiff competition with the Corral Trail.