I here there actually is a hole in a ground somewhere there but we never saw it

I hear there actually is a hole in a ground somewhere there but we never saw it. But I did see a lot of classic sierra singletrack.

After a few stops between home and the trail head it ended up being 7 of us for the ride. John riding the 29er, another John, Gary (Finch), Jim, Scott, Gui, and me.

The ride starts from the Soda Springs exit off of Hwy 80. Take the exit and cross to the north side of the freeway and take the first right. A few hundred yards up the road the end of the trail dumps out so just park on the side of the road and get ready to ride.

We rode back across the freeway to the south side and followed the road for about a mile past the "Slow down or Else" sign looking for a dirt road that ends up paralleling the freeway. Climbed this to the Boreal lot then take the paved road under the freeway and follow it shortly where it turns to dirt again. The dirt road split and we went right. All this time it's a mellow middle ring climb and we kept climbing on dirt until we came to the "Hole in the Ground" trail head. It has a nice big trail head sign with an overview map.

From the trail head it's about 1 1/2 miles to the top. All the way it's mostly a nice loamy brown dirt trail. The interesting part is that there are a lot, and I mean a lot of switchbacks. Tight switchbacks and each one (except one) was reinforced with pavers. You'll notice at the start of the trail is a sign that says that this section of trail is maintained by a Folsom/Auburn crew. So someone installed pavers on every switchback to keep them from eroding. Nice!

I was middle ringing about half the climb up but each switchback is steep, so eventually I gave up the middle ring and dropped it down to an easier gear, but then finished off the last third in the middle ring again. At the top the trail opens up with a really nice view of Castle Peak. A large rocky mesa that looks like a fortress of ramparts and spires. From here the trail goes down.

This is typical loose sierra singletrack with LOTS over pavers mixed in. Loose rocks, semi steep, and fast if you want. But it doesn't go down for long. What happens after this is that the trail turns into a cross country trail with ups and down and ins and outs, pavers and granite. Lot's of granite. Plenty of boulders on the edge of the trail so that you can take little detours and pull hucks of various sizes. Up and over the boulder, or up the boulder and drop off the back side. A few times we just stopped and played on the granite sections picking different lips to try to drop off. It's a playground.

Ride, play, ride, play. With about 4 miles left to go in the ride we took a short detour to a quiet lake. We sat up on the rocks and just soaked up the sun. Chatted, farted, noshed, not in that order. Right before we left, John tried to sum up the nerve to ride down a 30 ft fallen tree. He mounted his bike along the down tree where he could hold another tree for balance and just looked and looked, and then got back down. It would have been cool, but he was about 4 ft off the ground on his end and it would have been ugly if he didn't make it. Next time.

Back down to the trail and then it opens up into a fireroad and then you see a big sign that says "Private Road". So now here's the deal, the fireroad becomes a private road for a small section, good thing there was a nice sketchy singletrack that makes the shortcut for you. You jump out into some more fireroad, another "Private Road" sign and one last bit of singletrack and we were back at the cars.