Tahoe Riding at it’s Best

Over the weekend I hooked up for a couple of Tahoe rides and I have to say that as great as Tahoe riding normally is it is even better right now.  The early snow we had followed by a dry weather since has made it sort of a mini spring up there.  Dust is at an all time low and even the ubiquitous sand and pulverized granite seemed much more tame than it usually is.  On Saturday hooked up with my brother from his time-share at Heavenly for a 13 mile out-and-back towards Star Lake along the Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT).  TRT is as always great, this time it was better.  The trail was sticky and much less dusty.  There were some little patches of snow on North facing mountainsides and in a few places on the trail the snow crossed the trail. Generally where it crosses the trail it was thin and melted off but a few places it thawed then refroze into a slippery ice pack.

On Sunday I met up with Gary (Finch Platte) and Johnny (JFR) for a Toads run.  We my favorite Toads route up Oneidas to Armstrong Pass trail then Gary and I took a bit of a detour towards Star Lake and Johnny who’d been chasing us the whole time just kept cruising towards Toads. We hooked back up with Johnny just about in time for the DH. Then it was our turn to try and play keep up with him.

Toads was incredible. I can attest from my position in the rear of the Downhill that Toads was exceptionally dust free. The trail was also super tacky going down Toads. I’ve never bombed down those bermed out sections the way I did Sunday. Sweet!  On a personal note, I rode more of the technical sections that I even have, and I climbed better than ever as well. All in all a personal best performance all around on the climb and on Toads.

If you can get up to the Sierras before it snows… It doesn’t get any better than this.