Unplugged

Monday was a tough day. I was coming unglued. I had dealt with a few tough customers over the weekend plus I went on a blind date that I thought went well, but she didn't agree. I needed to get away for a few days. Luckily I had two days in a row planned off of work. My plan was to head to my cabin near Pinecrest Lake and ride Sonora Pass on the road bike one day and Pinecrest Peak mountain bike trail the second day. I needed to just get away for a few days where there is no e-mail, no cell phones and where I can just unplug. My cabin is the perfect place for that.

Tuesday morning, I awoke to the sound of rain on the roof and thunder in the valley. Failing to have any desire to submit myself to inevitable hypothermia and possible elecrocution up on Sonora Pass, I rolled over and went back to sleep. Riding the pass requires not only every ounce of desire you've got, but some luck with the weather as well and I knew better than to be up there at nearly 10,000 feet in a storm. I'll save it for some other day.

After a hearty brunch, tons of coffee and a good nap, I decided that I should probably do something active so I headed to Pinecrest Lake to take a hike at sunset. In my 33 years of going to the lake, I have never seen it as full as it is right now.

Little did I know this would play a significant role in Wednesday's ride (more on that later). With the rain finally stopped and the clouds finally clearing, it made for a great sunset.

Wednesday morning I awoke to clear skies and warmer temperatures. Not wanting to risk riding the pass with the freshly fallen snow, I decided to go for a mountain bike ride on Pinecrest Peak Trail. I had never ridden this trail before so I had no trail knowledge. I stumbled on one of the best trails I have ever been on. It starts out climbing up a Forest Service Road along Herring Creek with a ton of great scenic views along the way.

One spot I stopped to dunk the legs in the creek just to cool off as the nine mile gradual climb was getting quite warm under the high Sierra sun.

As I reached the 7200' mark according to my GPS, I hit patches of snow and finally constant snow. My ride was turning into a push. I must have trudged two miles through the snow. Luckily I wore some wool socks and despite that, my feet started to turn numb. There was so much snow that the road signs were all but buried. I managed to find my way, traveling somewhat on instinct.

I finally reached the peak to find an amazing bird's eye view of Pinecrest Lake and the surrounding Sierra peaks of Tahoe to the North and Yosemite to the South. The trail literally dives off the peak onto a very faint singletrack on granite shale. Down, down, down the trail dives. Quickly it reaches into the trees where the trail is quite a bit more distinguishable. As if the granite shale and boulders were not challenging enough but the pine cones were a whole new challenge.

Clearly I was the first person to travel this trail this year. I saw no other tire or foot tracks on the snow above, and in places the trail was covered in so many pine cones, downed branches and boulders that I was really the first for sure. There were many times where I had to hurdle downed trees as well, which all made for a great adventure.

The trail ends up along the creek that is downstream from the Pinecrest Dam. As I noted earlier, the lake was full. So full, in fact that the creek was a raging river. Normally, you can ride through the creek, jump onto the fire road and you are five minutes from the trailhead. Not today. I was now at the greatest challenge of the whole ride. It was not scampering across desolate snow fields with little or no evidence of the road I was to follow with frostbitten toes. It is how to ford this creek turned river by all of the overflow from the dam which is near flood stage.

I hiked upstream with my bike till I found this downed tree that looked like it would work as my bridge. Carefully I hoisted my bike onto my back Cyclo-Cross style and balanced on the fallen tree. I made my way over the 40 feet of raging waters to the other side where I had to now climb up and over the roots of the downed tree. This probably looked funny to the fishermen on the banks of the creek. Some skinny lycra clad dude carrying an expensive carbon mountainbike across a creek on a log and having to scale the roots of the tree and crawl up the boulders on the bank to reach safe ground. I managed to avoid any dirt naps in the pine cones and any scrapes from downed branches all day till I climbed over that last boulder. So I guess it's not a great ride till you bleed.

I gotta get back here and ride.

More pictures of the trip can be found on my new Flickr site.

Happy Birthday TNW if you are reading this.