The Bacon Strip

“I don’t know if you’re so tough cause you ride trails like these, or if you ride these trails because you’re so tough,” I wondered out loud towards Sean McGuinness as he waited at the top of a steep, loose, decomposed granite jeep trail at 8,500′. He laughed a little, fired back some words of encouragement to us and looked out across the terrain. As a backcountry ranger in areas west of the Pacific Crest, south of US88, Sean knows where the roads are, what trails we can ride and how best to link them up. He also knows a ton of human and natural history about the place - “Ooo, if I’d remembered, I could’ve pointed out grave sites from Mormon pioneers that we’d ridden past. Pretty much just a pile of rocks in a meadow now, but interesting.” Crazy to imagine wagon trains, families, oxen, and about everything they’d need to homestead coming over these hills. We were having too much fun just riding and pushing our bikes over the remnants of their wagon trails.

Last year I showed Sean one of my personal favorite suffer fest bike rides and this time it was his chance to turn the screws. I drove out from Reno Saturday evening, high into the Carson Range on US88. After a car bivy close to Sorenson’s Resort, where I’d hoped to score a cup of coffee in the morning before finishing the drive to the trailhead. I rolled up to the cafe and detected coffee in the air, but it was too early for the kitchen to be open. Vehicles with bikes onboard were parked just about everywhere, road bikes with number plates, and ah-ha, must’ve just missed the Death Ride. Maybe next year I’ll try that one (anyone ever heard of a fixed-gear attempt at the Death Ride?) Back into the rig and westbound to the Bear Valley Reservoir dam to meet the guys - Sean and Dave (of Grognard) with single speeds, Blair and Steve with geared bikes. Covered in sunscreen, loaded with water and food, we rode away from the vehicles on the west shore of the reservoir, north, east, and up up up. A few miles of climbing on asphalt gave way to a few more miles of climbing on good gravel road.

OHV riders passed us in either direction - some slow, others not so slow. We topped out on our first bit of climbing at a cloud seeding station where 3 quad riders were taking in the view. Nice guys, Sean discovered, as he broke the ice and started up talking to them right away. Cut-off sleeves, beer guts, AWD quads with winches, one might be compelled to jump to conclusions.

I was impressed when they described to us the function of the cloud seeding tower, that it uses a solution of silver iodine in acetone to provide nuclei for ice crystal formation, hopefully increasing snowfall in areas downwind. They asked where we were riding and Sean mentioned Squaw Ridge to the Thunder Mtn. Loop, over 88, back to Silver Lake and eventually returning to that spot via the dirt bike trail - looking out to the eastern horizon and following that with gaze and a nod. “Ha, you’ll be going further than us!” the quad riders said.

From there things got more interesting. Road conditions varied from mellow packed dirt jeep trail to unconsolidated gravel, rolling baby heads, and moon dust. The further up we went, the more it resembled the latter. Occasionally we got some fun granite rockstacles to play with, riding slabs, wheelie dropping ledges, and powering over boulders in the road. Then we’d get a real hill, submit to walking, and consider it a nice rest from standing on the pedals for the last 4 hours of riding. Water was getting low and we were maybe a third of the way through the ride. Our group was spreading out a bit, but moral was good. Sean pulled over at a trail koisk for an access point into the Mokelumne Wilderness suggested we regroup and walk in to a spring a short ways. Black flies mobbed us sitting in the shade, but the temps were tolerable and mosquitos were not around. We all headed into the spring, an old 1″ steel pipe sticking out of a verdant little patch of grass with a trickle of clear, cold water pouring forth. We all topped off and headed back to the bikes. Steve suggested he’d be best off doubling back and we discussed logistics and formulated a plan. He was hanging well, but knew that continuing further on increasingly technical terrain - getting further from the start - was a bad idea. Wishing us well, he rested a bit longer in the flies and shade and we got back into the climb. It was another half hour or more before we got to another vista, Round Top to the SE, Thunder Mtn. to the NE, nothing but granite and wild country as far as you could see.

The jeep trails got quite technical and finally gave way to dirt bike trails just below the ridge. Sean and Dave got out in front of me after these pics, then stopped at the top of a nasty little climb. I head them say something about beer and put the hammer down. Apparently, Sean said something like, “I’ll buy you a beer if you clean this climb!”

Finally, we turned onto non-motorize trail and in no time were hiking again. It was about a mile and a half to the ridge with a mile of walking, but it was rad. The views from the high point of the trail were super good, especially when you looked down the other side of the saddle and saw a ribbon of sweet trail snaking along the ridge and down, up, then down, down, down…

Let’s just say the trail riding from there was more than good enough to make that 5.5 hours of climbing in loose, dusty, OHVy jeep trails were readily forgotten. Mule ear, aster, and dodecatheon jeffrei, castallea, corn lillies, you name it, it was all in bloom on the north facing descent. I was too busy enjoying the ride to stop and take pics, or even wait for the other guys. Eventually we popped out on the highway and regrouped. Boy I was stoked when Sean showed us across the road and on with more epic single track! A few miles and we hit a campground. From there it was some pavement and back across the highway to more single track. Dave and Blair opted out of the detour along Silver Lake to the lodge and opportunity to resupply. We agreed to meet them in a while along the highway at the top of the day’s last major climb. Sean showed me through a menagerie of ancient cabins along the Lake and onto a fun and technical trail through granite slabs and shrub. We rolled into the main lodge area on the west side of Silver Lake and went straight for the general store. I bought a bean a cheese burrito and called him on his offer to buy me a beer. 8 hours into our ride and only 2/3rds of the way through the mileage, it was happy hour!!!

I dusted the burrito, finished my beer, ate some trail mix, then went back to the general store. I returned with a cola and an ice cream sandwich, Sean laughed and was sure I’d be regurgitating it all on the 1,500′ climb out of the Lake basin to where Dave and Blair were waiting. We took some time to chat with old timers and hear stories of how they used to ride horses and hike in the backcountry we’d been traversing all day. Back on the bikes the climb out to meet the guys was all paved. We found them, off loaded cola for their enjoyment and waited till they were all shred ready.

From that point, we had only short bits of climbing, some OK jeep roads, and several miles of technical shredfest riding on a dirt bike trail back to the cloud seeding station we’d visited early in the day. Late on a Sunday afternoon, no one was out but us and the woods were quiet. Drops, boulders, slabs, steep climbs, creek crossings, and a hour later, the end of the trail. I was real stoked to be rolling 29″ wheels through that techie stuff.

We regrouped at the end of the trail and were quite happy to Steve’s tire tracks heading back to the trucks. Apparently, he’d made it at least that far on his early return. That eased any lingering concern that he’d have trouble backtracking to the starting point. We had just a bit more easy climbing to go and 8 or 10 miles of fun descending back through the dust and rolling baby heads to asphalt roads and finally, recovery drinks and a swim to knock the tall crust off.

Thanks, Sean, for showing us a great trail ride. Good riding with you guys, Dave, Blair, and Steve.

See you in the mountains,

Japhy rider