Fred Riding near the Trailhead.

Jeff, tackles a log on his 29" Redline Monocog.

The first six miles of this ride were pretty much endless steep fireroad. There were some truly incredible views of the Sierra Nevada though.

The climb up the Jeep Road sort dead ends shortly after you see the domes pictured here.

After the jeep road ends there is a brutal 1/2 mile hike-a-bike up to the Rim trail. Mark was suffering quite a bit here and this and several other hike-a-bike sections were probably was a big part of why he cramped up later in the ride.

The 'trail' you take up to the Rim Trail is very faint and hard to find but if you head uphill and do a little searching you can find it.

From the Rim trail there are some incredible views of Sonora Pass and the Sierra Nevada.

What the? This was Fred's day for flats. Fred had a total of 4 flats including this bizarre bead failure/ hemorage. Then after we were done with the downhill I got a pinch flat goofing around on the fireroad at the bottom.

The Rim Trail has some great riding as well. Unfortunately we missed a big section of slickrock riding somewhere along the rim trail :(

The Main Course... Eagle Creek trail, a brutally technical trail with tons of rocky technical sections (think Toad's Wild Ride with a lot less traffic). There was some snow on the trails and tons of downed trees along the route we took, plus the trail was highly rutted out from runnoff so for the first mile or so of the downhill we wound up walking almost as much as riding. Jeff and Mark seemed to think that later in the season the trail would be cleared up quite a bit. After the first mile or two the trails got much better.

Fred riding one of the smoother sections on the Eagle Creek trail.

The first and smallest of 3 creek crossings. Fred was so happy to be here that he broke out in song.

Fred's singing was catchy so Mark decided to show us some back-hills log dancing

Actually at this point in the ride Mark was hurting pretty bad. At the top of the climb he started cramping and could barely walk and almost turned back. We waited for about 20 minutes and finally he decided to keep going down the hill.

Mark and Fred cruising through a meadow right before the last creek crossing.

The second and third creek crossings were deep and fast. Jeff (pictured) and I crossed the creek first then came back across to help Mark cross. The water was all fresh snow melt and so cold that by the time I crossed the first time my legs were in pain and were nearly numb by the second crossing.

Fred Living it up on the DH.

Near the bottom the trail flattens out a bit and there are some really fun/ fast sections. This ride was nothing like what I expected but it was a true adventure in every sense of the word.