Kernville/Sequoia Trip Day 4: Camp Nelson

After the five and a half hour epic that was the Bear Creek trail yesterday, I thought I would be tempted to skip the last ride of the trip and relax before the drive home later today. But I woke up feeling fine, and heard a lot of good things about our final ride of the weekend: Camp Nelson trail.

It was billed as mostly downhill, with tons of bypassable stunts and some of the best scenery in the area. Apparently the trail wound through some amazing sequoia groves, and there was even a section where the trail went right through the trunk of a massive sequoia itself. There was no way I was skipping this one.

We started out right from camp, and the trail lived up to its billing. It was mostly downhill, and though we did stop to session several stunts and log rides, there was also more flow to this ride.

It was the scenery, though, that made the trail special. Bear Creek was extremely scenic in its own right, but Camp Nelson was even more gorgeous.




The trees lined the trail and stretched to the sky, and it was so quiet and peaceful that I couldn't believe it.


One of the coolest parts was the sequoia that was bisected by the trail. It was surreal riding right through the middle of this massive tree.

Right after that, there were even two log rides that I tried, but after being so tentative all weekend, I locked up on both and didn't clean them. I know I could have made both if I'd had a little more confidence and another shot, but I spent the whole time at the back of the pack, and didn't want to fall behind.


Sean, on the other hand, had no such problems. He cleaned this drop, along with some hairy portions of the trail right before it, with no problem.


Others in the group got even bigger air on the jumps further down the trail.



The whole ride was under two hours, and was definitely a highlight of the trip. At the bottom of the trail, we all piled into Art's pickup and shuttled back up to camp. We had packed everything up earlier in the day, and pulled out of Quaking Aspens around 3:30.

It was an amazing trip of riding, and I had a tremendous time for my first out of town trip. I can't say enough about Sean and what he did to make the weekend a success. From planning out the entire itinerary, to handling all of the logistics, to buying and making all the food, to doing all of the driving, to providing the RV, to playing bike mechanic for me on the trail, he was a phenomenal blessing.

I was sorry Doug had left us early, but after getting a text from him during our drive home, it sounded like he made the right call. I also had hoped to get to know Brent and Sean a little better on a personal level, but it seemed both guys were relatively private, and there wasn't a lot of personal chatter throughout the weekend. They were certainly friendly, and I enjoyed talking riding and hearing a little about the work they do together at GA. Maybe as we ride together more I'll get a chance to get to know them each better. I hope so, because they were both really quality people.

At the end of the day, thanks mostly to Sean and his planning, the trip cost me about $250 total. Amazing. If someone had asked me to describe my perfect vacation for this time in my life, I couldn't have painted a better picture than this trip turned out to be.

One thing I would change lies totally with me: I would have had a much better time if my conditioning had been better and my riding skills were more advanced. I was riding above my head most of the weekend, and while I never felt like too much of an anchor, I'm unaccustomed to being at the back of the pack with anything I do. I know time and experience will help fix some of that, but I want to be generally continuing to work on my fitness level as well. Sean mentioned some winter trips, maybe to Flagstaff or Sedona, and several of the guys I ride with do a Moab trip every spring. If I want to go on some of those, and enjoy them to the fullest, I need to improve my endurance and bike handling skills. So I'm going to get to work on that.

Here are the stats from the Camp Nelson Ride:

Total Distance: 5.29 miles

Total Time: 1:54:31

Ascent: 2066 feet

Average Speed: 2.8 mph

Top Speed: 25.1 mph

Bike: Specialized Enduro Elite

Map:

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Kernville/Sequoia Trip Day 3: Bear CreekTrail

Saturday brought the marquee ride of the day: Bear Creek. It was billed as an epic ride, with sweeping views and an amazing downhill that descended six thousand feet in only a couple of miles. Sounded great to me. The only problem was the beginning. Which was billed as two hours of solid climbing. And that was a concern.

I spent the morning a little anxious. We had a group of nine guys, and the last thing I wanted was to be the anchor. There were no stunts on the way up, so it was going to be solid riding all the way to the top. I had hung pretty well so far on this trip, however, and was determined to keep a good attitude, ride as hard as I could, and not stress about the rest. And once I got riding, that worked.

We got a bit of a late start, but with the altitude and the fact that the trail was mostly under tree cover, heat wasn't really an issue. It was the riding uphill that was the problem.

We started out from camp, and the uphill began almost immediately.

One of the rider's sisters was thoughtful enough to drive down earlier in the day and drop a shuttle vehicle at the bottom of the trail so that we could drive back up to camp. I began looking forward to seeing that shuttle vehicle very early on in the ride.

I actually handled the climb OK for the most part. I HAB'ed literally 70% of the trail on the way up, which meant I hiked about 5 miles pushing the bike. I tried to get back on and ride several times, but my legs and lungs would have none of it. I was at the back, but could see riders ahead of me almost the whole time, except when we were in a section of trail that included tight switchbacks or dense trees.


The scenery was universally beautiful, and despite the fact that I was dragging my bike up a mountain, I kept a pretty good attitude. It was just too pretty around me to allow me to get upset. And I was on my first vacation in years, a fact that I kept reminding myself.


I didn't take many pictures during the climb, because I was too busy pushing the aforementioned bike up the mountain. But about halfway up the entire group stopped at a lookout for a short rest, and I snapped a few shots while trying to get my heart rate to return to a healthy pace.




Eventually, after about two hours and 25 minutes of climbing/hiking, we reached the top. I was tired, but not wrecked, and was looking forward to the downhill. We had a snack and most of the guys got geared up in preparation for the features to come. This was the view from the top.

I had been warned that there were several stunts and jumps on this trail as well, but there were generally bypass trails that people like me could ride. That turned out to be generally true, but since we stopped to session almost all of the trail features, the bypasses were irrelevant. I always stopped to watch the show, so there was little flow to the downhill. But the show was impressive.



Sean once again exhibited his courage and ability by taking on several of the stunts. He cleaned this one, and most of the others. He also had a couple of nice crashes.


Eventually the stunts became less frequent, and the trail began to have some flow. I had to watch my speed in several sections, but generally had a blast flying down the portions that I could handle.



As we descended, the scenery became even more beautiful, and we started seeing some giant sequoias.




We did stop at one ridiculous wall ride/drop that no one in our group elected to hit. Good call.

The last 3/4 of a mile or so of trail was the most fun section of the day. It was just the kind of riding I enjoy most: tight quarters, lots of tight turns, slightly off camber with switchbacks and small drops. I didn't stop for any pictures, as this was the most flowy and enjoyable part of the ride by far. After not enough time, the fun section ended and the trail section of the ride came to an end.

After regrouping for a minute, we rode across a cool log bridge and made the short pavement ride back to the truck.


This was definitely the "big ride" of the weekend, and I was almost totally spent at the end. I ran out of water in my pack right at the end, and was getting pretty hungry by the time we hit the truck. There were times during the ride that I wanted to be off the trail and back at camp, but for the most part I tried to enjoy myself, even during the difficult sections. I never felt like too much of an anchor, and enjoyed the camaraderie and socialization of riding in a big group.

As I rode in the truck back to camp, I felt a sense of accomplishment and joy, knowing that this was "real" mountainbiking. And I was on vacation.

Here are the stats for ride #4, Bear Creek Trail:

Total Distance: 11.56 miles

Total Time: 5:30:06

Ascent: 4597 feet

Average Speed: 2.1 mph

Top Speed: 25.9 mph

Bike: Specialized Enduro Elite

Map:

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Kernville/Sequoia Trip Day 2: Summit Trail

Day two of the trip dawned early, and we got underway relatively quickly to head from Kernville to the campground at Quaking Aspens. The drive was about an hour and a half, and we made excellent time. In fact, we even had a chance to stop for a bit at a tourist spot on the way called the Trail of 100 Giants. It was a giant sequoia grove, and was worth stopping for. I may post some pictures from that hike in a different post later.

We arrived at the Quaking Aspens campground around 2:00, and spent a little while getting settled. Once again I was thankful for the RV.

It was very peaceful and remote; we didn't even have cell coverage. This was the view of a nearby meadow from our campsite.

We met up with a good sized group of STR guys who had come up from LA for the weekend to ride. Jeff (from Kernville) and his family were there as well, and we had about 10 or so people that were planning to ride over the next couple of days.

We didn't waste any time, and decided to ride a portion of the Summit trail that Jeff and some others had been doing some significant trailwork on for the last few months. Apparently the trail was once well traveled, but in recent years had been all but abandoned. Jeff had spent several weekends both maintaining the actual trail and building an impressive array of stunts and jumps that proved to be a ton of fun for many of the guys who came prepared to huck.

From the campsite, we threw the bikes in Sean's trailer and hooked it up to Jeff's truck.

All 10 of us piled in and we drove the short distance up the paved and dirt roads to the trailhead.

Once we got to the top, everyone was ready to get riding, and after a few minutes getting geared up, we headed out.


The trail was fun from the get go, and it was clear that it hadn't been very popular in recent years. Even so, Jeff knew where he was going, and even when we couldn't see the trail that well, we always seemed to be heading in the right direction. There were some points where the trail was marked as well.



We quickly reached the first stunt that Jeff had built, which was a gnarly log roll with a medium drop at the end. Jeff nailed it with no problem:

The standard operating procedure for the day became as follows: ride the trail for a couple hundred yards, and then stop and session the most recent crazy stunt for about 15-20 minutes. It was clear Jeff had put tons of hours into the trail features, and the look on his face as many of the riders attempted and cleared his creations was really neat to see. He was definitely enjoying seeing others reap the benefits of his labor, and his pride and excitement were fun to witness.

I skipped all of the stunts and log rolls. My inexperience, combined with my lack of skill and the proximity (or lack thereof) of medical attention made me decide discretion was the better part of valor. And while watching almost everyone else session stuff and have a good time was a little embarrassing (and sometimes boring), I just enjoyed the fact that I wasn't struggling to keep up with the group on the trail and basked in the peacefulness of the surroundings.

Here's another example of one of Jeff's creations:

Sean did several of the stunts, including the one illustrated in the following photo sequence:



Impressive. And he was doing it on his 4" XC 29er, which really impressed everyone on their 7" travel DH bikes.

After almost two hours of sessioning new stuff every few hundred yards, someone realized that it was getting dark, and we were still about four miles from camp. From then on, we rode a little more purposefully, and stopped less.

We did, however, stop at one particularly crazy stunt that consisted of a log roll spanning a small creek. The log was about 8 feet above the ground, and the penalty for failure was steep. Everyone who tried it made it, however, which was amazing.

On the way back to camp we passed through a gorgeous fern grove, and Sean was thoughtful enough to stop ahead of me and take some pictures. They don't even do the scenery justice, it was breathtaking.



Also on the way back, near camp, we ran into a herd of cows that apparently have free reign of the area. One of the guys in the group yelled at them and caused a stampede. In the opposite direction.

We finished with a short road ride back to camp, and I was feeling pretty good. The frequent stops made keeping up with the group easy, and once again the surroundings and scenery were awesome. I did feel a little like an outsider as one of the few that didn't do the stunts, but that's just not my thing, and there wasn't anything I could do about it on this trip, so I decided not to worry about it.

I did have a minor mechanical on the ride that I couldn't explain or adequately fix. My drivetrain started ghostshifting, and despite Sean and Brent looking at it, didn't stop for the latter part of the ride. Whenever I would try to pedal hard, it would shift, which became frustrating. I hoped that it was simply the result of a dry chain (though I had lubed it that morning) and figured I'd look at it later that night.

After getting back to camp we cooked chicken on the grill and Sean made an amazing pasta dish that was delicious. I didn't even mind the sun dried tomatos. We went to be relatively early and dreamt of the rides we'd done and the rides to come.

Here are the stats for Ride #3, Summitt Trail:

Total Distance: 7.03 miles

Total Time: 2:27:26

Ascent: 2126 feet

Average Speed: 2.9 mph

Top Speed: 9.0 mph

Bike: Specialized Enduro Elite

Map:

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