I see lots of posts about riding up 108 in the Deer Creek area and higher. While several of those rides are on my short list, I'm curious if you all know of any routes/trails up highway 4?
 
We just bought a little cabin in Arnold and I'll be up that way more than a few times this summer. I know of the Bear Valley / Lake Alpine trail, but I've heard that ride is often as busy as Dry Creek on a holiday weekend. I'm wondering if it's so busy because it's one of the only rides up that way. I've heard it's not a technically challenging trail either. Some of the stuff through Bear Valley looks promising... waiting for the snow to melt.
 
There's a trail head on the east side of the bridge that crosses the north fork of the Stanislaus where Boards Crossing Road (east out of Dorrington) meets the river. I didn't have time to chase it as I had my 3 year old in tow... I'll have to go check it sometime later. Google Earth pics weren't that hot either.
 
A fair amount of looking has yielded a few suggestions, but nothing even close to what can be found up hwy 108 with just cursory searches.
 
The Bear Valley Adventure Company is supposed to have pretty good trail maps, I'll be checking next week and will post my findings here. In the mean time, I 'preciate yer replies.  
 
Oh yeah, gonna be riding/working Dry Creek some time tomorrow, probably around noon-ish... going to do a little trail maintenance.

Quote from george on 04/29/08 at 07:16:38:

 
Yep.

i've ridden a lot up in the arnold/bv area. great riding. not as crowded as other areas. bryan is right...see the bv bike shop for a map/guide of local trails. there's lots of single track, jeep trails, climbs, dh, views, etc.  
 
in the arnold area you're looking at the penny pines area behind big trees market. you can actually ride all the way to avery in the backcountry. pretty fun. also, look on your left hand of highway 4 heading out of arnold toward bv. you'll see one of the coolest all wood parks for mtnb. unfortunately it's all private, but some people poach the property. you can park on the highway and check it out. looks totally fun!  
 
i'll post on here when the wife and i head up that way to ride. we ride a lot up there around june-october. great riding in both areas!

Well, I've made a few decent finds in and around the Arnold area and a couple up near BV. I haven't been up the the Bear Valley Adventure Company, just haven't had time. Have been pretty busy just getting stuff ready for summer (defensible space and all that) ... and this weekend it's raining cats and dogs outside. I'm planning to get back up here in the next few weeks so more info is coming.
 
- First discovery was a cut trail literally right off my front door. It's on private land and I don't yet have the owner's permission to ride it... working on it. About 5 miles of everything, steep downhill, mellow cruise, and a few sections where you gotta get off and push it. The locals use it as a walking access from one side of the ridge I live on to the other. I hiked the whole loop, it looks like it'll be a lot of fun on a bike. Details forthcoming.
 
- Interface trail system. There is a trail system open to all (hikers, motorized vehicles, mtn bikes, horses) that runs from Sheep Ranch Road in Avery almost to White Pines Reservoir northwest of Arnold. Was told by a local that it's a good ride from east to west. In looking at the map, to do that you'd need two vehicles because riding it in the other direction is almost entirely uphill. There are specific trails that don't allow motorized vehicles and the map shows some. Have been told that there are lots of fairly technical sections to this trail system. Overall, it appears to be approx 10 miles in length but with the myriad of joining and offshoot trails, it's probably a lot longer. Don't have a scanner at the cabin, but when I get back into Modesto I'll scan and post here.
 
-A trip to the ranger station produced a few maps, including the Interface map described above. Near Bear Valley, I found maps to trails I've previously found by Googling and a few new ones to boot. Again, I'll scan and post later.
     
     - Bear Trap Basin. Published loop. Trail head is right near the cross country skiing area you can see on Hwy 4 as you go east. The map says it's 8 miles with some good climbing and ridge views.  
 
     - Jelmini Basin Loop. This trail's head is in Tamarack, near the Caltrans maintenance station. Looks to be about 10-15 miles via the photocopied map I have here. No ride characteristics available.  
 
     - Slick Rock Ride. Not sure what's up with this one. Studying the map seems to reveal that part of the ride route is actually on highway 4 from Tamarack to Bear Valley. If so, it'd probably be best to park a car and ferry the bikes along this section, especially on weekends like this one. There's a lot of folks up here, even in spite of the weather. Anyway, it goes east from BV and then turns south as it skirts along the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness area, where wheeled vehicles of any kind are prohibited. The route forms a circular loop. In terms of a clock face, if the section between Tamarack and BV along highway 4 were 9:00 to noon, the rest of the route would be the remainder of the clock face, so it looks promising in terms of length. A conservative rough guess is about 18-20 miles. The map offers no details of ride characteristics.
 
      - Elephant Rock Loop. Highway 4 isn't even on this map, so I'm not exactly sure how to get to the trail head. This route forms a loop between Utica lake to the west, Elephant Rock lake to the north, and Mud Lake to the east. There is a county line marker on the map that bisects the loop. Alpine cty to the east, Tuolumne county to the west. This one doesn't look too long, probably about 10 - 12 miles tops... again, no info about the ride.
 
- Sierra Nevada Adventure Company (SNAC) in Arnold was helpful. Didn't catch the guy's name I spoke to. Even though he couldn't tell me directly where to find trails, he told me where I could find someone who could. He also mentioned that the word on the street here is that a new specialty bike shop is planning to open in Arnold some time this summer. Will post info as I get it. FYI, SNAC is more into kayaking and hiking than biking. While a helpful and courteous bunch, don't run in expecting to find any bike parts/accessories.
 
As I get time and weather/snow melt permitting, I'll ride these trails out and post up my findings here, with GPS data. I'll also get the BVAC guide and post up what I can from that.
 
I'll post here when I come up, if you want to explore ... the more the merrier.

Quote from Uncle Stinkyy on 05/25/08 at 08:21:32:

 
Thanks for the info.
 
I'll take you up on that. I'll be up again in the coming weeks, getting ready for a long stretch of days at work then I'll be up here for at least 4 or 5 days, probably the second week of June for me. Will PM you with contact info sometime soon.
 

Elephant Rock Loop. More coming...  
 

Since we're posting maps, I'm going to sticky this.
 
 
 
george