Sierra's Ride w/ The Rads
This past Friday, Sat, Sunday was spent up high in the south/western Sierra's riding a bunch of trails that were completely new to me. The Laguna RADS do an annual Sierra's trip to celebrate the Fossils B-day, who I believe turned 64 on this trip and this year I decided to join the party.
The DR. and I drove up Thur. night after traffic, arriving in Camp Nelson at 1am and pretty much got straight to sleep. Fridays ride was the one I was looking forward to most. Bear Creek was the first portion which started with a climb that lasted a bit over an hour. A bit rough at 8k ft, but for whatever reason time seems to go by faster when you don't know the trail or how long the climbs are. After some scenic photo opts, my most favorite being next to the GIANT sequoia trees that had to be over 200ft tall with a trunk of 15ft wide, we started ripping downhill. A few short climbs here and there, but the majority of the climbing was behind us. Some random ladder drops and dirt jumps on the way down, but mostly just natural terrain that was fast.
After about 3 hours we were done and back to Shidan's house in Camp Nelson where he was cooking up burgers on the BBQ. Some time to relax, eat, get some fluids back in us and then we were heading back up the mountain for a shuttle run. Not everyone had the energy for this, but I was not missing out and I'm glad I didn't.
The Camp Nelson trail rocked. About 25min of all sweet singletrack that had some amazing sections. I could have spent the entire day just shuttling this trail, but the day was about over and we had to still drive almost 2hours to the next camp spot.
Day 2 was an EPIC. I probably wouldn't have went the long route if I had known how hard it was going to be, but looking back on it, I'm glad to say that I did it. 33miles, 7.5 hours out on the trail, 6300 ft of climbing on peaks that went up to 9350ft, ouch!!! But the downhills were sick and the challenge to stay strong both physically and mentally was awsome. I was surprised how good I felt, considering some guys were hurting real bad. Throwing up on the trail, having to lay down for naps, taking bail our routes and having to get picked up an hour away from camp, and rolling in hours after some of us had already been back. I will chalk it up as one of the hardest rides I have done, but also one of the most satisfying.
Day 3 I wasn't sure would even happen for me. I thought I would just be too punched from the day before, but how could I pass up a shuttle that was going to get us over 6k ft of elevation drop. Luckily I didn't feel that bad and thank god because there was still about 2k ft of climbing in this shuttle. Most of the climbing was in the first half of the ride, but it wasn't too bad. Most of it you could actually pedal up and the meadows we rode thru were amazing. I felt like I was in Colorado at one stop were we had a break. After about 1hr 45 min of pedaling we got to the big DH. About 30min of downhilling with some major elevation drop. The trail was sick, the speeds were maching, and the grin was permanent all the way down to the Kern river.
Couldn't have thought of a better way to end 3 days of epic riding and can't wait for next year when the RADS head back up. But, in the meantime I am already planning an enduro trip back up there as most of the trails are moto legal.... hell ya!
Posted by Brian on June 30, 2009 8:43 AM