Bear Valley Bike Festival
9-19-03 to 9-21-03
Report by Fred Randall

Fri. -Dave, Joseph, and I set up camp and had just started around the back side of Lake Alpine heading for Slickrock when Alex came over the radio. We met him back at camp and off we went. Back side of Lake Alpine to Slickrock to Wolfsboro. This is the trail we got lost on a few weeks ago. Thanks to Kevin Kee, I knew where it came back on Spicer Res. Rd., so I took the road while the rest of the group took to the single track. I went down to where the trail exited and on down to the “T” (we missed before) and met up with the main group. The trail is now tagged with several red ribbons where you should turn right . The Wolfsboro Trail added 40 minutes over taking the pavement back to the bridge over the river. Good info if you’re on limited time. We climbed back on the road to Hwy 4 looking for the Cow Camp Trail that comes out in the middle of Lower Tamarack Trail but it had been gated off and the landowner was sitting in his living room watching us. We opted to stay on the pavement and road all of Lower and Upper Tamarack back to Bear Valley to Alpine. Alex went on up to Cape Horn to spend the night. We went up to watch the forest fire burning in the canyon below Cape Horn in the dark. It was so surreal and eerie. The Cape Horn Trail had been closed off due to the fire. Depending on the wind, the smoke was generally away from Bear Valley.

Sat.- Curtis show up and we signed up for the Bike Fest at registration so that made 5 TROGS out of 30 total participants, road and MTB. We left on our guided ride at 10:30.Here’s the route best I can recall, it was brutal. Up the Slabs, to Lodgepole, up Mt. Reba Trail, down Bee Gulch, down Tahoe-Yosemite Trail, west on Hwy 4, to Lodgepole and back down the Slabs to BV. It was all really kickass especially Mt Reba trail totally kicked mine.
We had lunch at Base Camp watching a trials group from Santa Cruz put on a demo. Joseph and I got a chance to “star” in some of their video action. I’ll send the link at a later time. Alex and Curtis hooked up Todd and Max and took off on more exploits that someone else will have to report on. At Base Camp that night, some ate, some partook and all won raffle prizes.

Sun- The ride today left north out of BV on a little no name singletrack to Koala Access up to the ski area. I don’t recall any trail names but we ended up on top the “Bear Chair” down the backside to some singletrack that traversed the back side just past Corral Hollow Trail and down a trail labeled Classic Trail in the BV Trail Guide but the locals called Elusive. At that point we were sworn to secrecy and showed a sweet, tight, super secret/private singletrack trail known only to the locals that takes you all the way from Corral Hollow Trail to BV. Ride with us next time and we’ll spill the beans.

The folks at Mountain Adventure Seminars (M.A.S.) could not have been nicer or more accommodating for their first bike event.