A classic Foresthill loop

I played hooky on Wednesday to ride before a big rain came in. Never know when the snow will shut if off up higher for the winter.  Where i live outside Foresthill is pretty far out. Heading up higher on Foresthill Road gets you even farther out.  There’s a big OHV park that’s got something crazy like 150 plus miles of trail several miles up from town. Some trails are just ok on a bike, some are damn good. The ones on the southeast side of the road are more remote, more technical, and have a bit of hike-a-bike. But they are pretty cool for the most part. The average grades of some are over 20% so they’re fun going down but up…? It can hurt. Never a mellow ride here it feels like. You start each ride in the opposite orientation than how I’ve always done it – with a downhill. You end the rides climbing a few thousand feet back up. Life on “the Divide.”

The Western States trail is no different. Steep up and down with lots of switchbacks going in and out of the many steep-walled drainages. You have to be wanting to suffer a bit because there’s not a lot of bailout points.

I hadn’t been on the Codfish Point trail (Trail 6) since moving here so I did a loop from China Wall staging area out to Codfish, dropping into Eldorado Creek, up to the WS trail at Deadwood (they’re still logging from last year’s American Fire so trail 6 on the Deadwood side of the ridge is closed), then down back to cross the creek lower down and head up to Michigan Bluff. It’s really not that long of a loop (maybe 30 miles) but the 5500ft of elevation gain just wore me down. But feels like a second fall, the leaves are pretty perfect up there right now.

My ride from here at the edge of Codfish Point goes down to the creek, up to that left ridge, then down to the creek again, then up the right side to Michigan Bluff and then back to the car. I was around 10 miles in at this point of the ~30 mile/5500ft elevation gain ride.

leftside ridge is Deadwood, where i’m going after descending into Eldorado Creek

I think i could follow fall for a long time

Some techy sections sneak up on you

switchbacks are plentiful here

Doesn’t do this tree justice. It’s big.

Another massive one.

Nice trail in many spots, overgrown thwacking of the bars and bike, surprised it’s a maintained moto trail. Still a bunch of hike-a-bike out of the creeks especially.

The first creek crossing

WS trail heading out of Eldorado Creek

Outside Michigan Bluff heading up to Chicken Hawk Rd.