Truckee to Yosemite 3-Day (Mis)Adventure
Day 3: Hike-A-Bike Hell and a Brewery Bail
Day 3 started even slower than the previous day. We made coffee and breakfast in our sleeping bags using my JetBoil, then I took forever to get back into my wet, smelly, dirty kit, clean up from breakfast, and pack up my gear while attempting to keep the wet sand we slept on from sticking to everything. To his credit, Will waited patiently through my dicking around with baby wipes and camp towel until I gave up and accepted the sand and dirt coating everything. Once on our bikes, we weren't even given time to warm up before the road pitched up for the start of a steep (>10% avg. grade) 1,100' climb. The road beneath us had largely crumbled away, leaving a surface composed mostly of large, sandy potholes and small boulders from the surrounding mountainside. To add insult to injury, the infamous Sierra mosquitoes were out in force, offering plenty of motivation to stay on the bike rather than hop off and walk up the steeper, looser pitches. Thankfully my Achilles was feeling a little like a creaky hinge, but was no longer a source of severe pain, so I embraced the climb as I so often do. Will, meanwhile, was dealing with issues staying clipped into his bike, as his Eggbeater pedals were starting to fail. As we would find out later, it was due to metal fatigue in the pedal springs; the metal eventually fractured, leaving him with a sad-looking, barely-functioning pedal. #TooManyWatts.
We took a short snack break when the road leveled out near the top, and soon after enjoyed a short ~1mi-long descent. Invigorated by the speed, I left off my brakes, hopping over and around potholes and rocks, glad for the opportunity to be covering ground quickly for a change. A ways down I thought my back end felt weird, and slowed down to take a peek. Meanwhile, Will kept bombing down the road, even though he himself now had a tubed tire to worry about. I decided to stop and take a closer look at my rear tire, and as soon as I did so, it let go with a pffffft and went completely flat. Well, great. I called out "flat!", hoping Will would hear me before he got too far ahead, but it was too late. I found a shady spot and got to work, hoping he'd figure out what happened before too long. As I was finishing up, Will came riding back up and berated me for not saying anything when I flatted. "I did; you were just going to fast to hear me in time!" We were now down to one good spare tube between us; our margins were getting thin, and we were still planning on following the original route for a while longer, maybe all the way to Pinecrest, for another 65mi day.
We soon came to a paved road running along the top of a ridgeline, and stopped for snacks and pictures (Key rules of bikepacking: eat early, eat often, and take lots of pictures). With a view down a valley we could see all the way across California's central valley and on to Mount Diablo, and could just barely make out the Berkeley Hills through the distant smog. I got my hopes up that we would be on nice pavement for a little while and blew past a dirt road off to the right, but quickly realized that the dirt road was our route. *sigh*. If only we knew how bad the 'roads' would become, we might have stuck to the pavement anyways...
The dirt road we turned onto was the first in a series of unmaintained forest logging roads that we'd follow for the next 4 hours. The first section was an okay descent, dropping us smoothly down into the middle of the logging zone, but soon the road crumbled away to loose moon dust and baby heads and climbed back up a bit, all the while exposing us to direct sunlight and temperatures of 90+F. A half hour in we came upon a large stream crossing before a monster-looking climb, and feeling pretty sun-baked I decided to take off my shoes and soak my feet in the cold, clear water. It was amazingly refreshing, and although the water was really cold, I didn't want to get up again. While stopped, we made sure to refill our water reserves as well; we were going through a lot of water in the heat.
We finally got moving again, but not for long. Within 10 minutes the road we were following disappeared into a sloping tree- and bush-covered meadow, with no clear path available regardless of the fact that Google Maps clearly shows a road passing through our exact location. After an abortive bushwhacking attempt, we consulted my offline maps app for an alternate route. Given the ruggedness of the terrain and our lack of trust in the roads on the map, we decided not to try to follow the original route, which would have had us follow more forest roads for another 10 miles at least. Backtracking to the last paved road would not have been any better, taking us not only miles off of our route, but also requiring serious effort to get back through the rugged road that brought us in in the first place. Our last remaining option was to find an alternate, more direct route to the nearest major highway, which we were heading towards eventually anyways. We spent some time staring at the topo lines on the little screen, attempting to divine the least bad route out of the available options while debating the pros and cons of each. Eventually we just picked a route and started riding. Either way, we had 1,500' of climbing ahead of us to get up to the highway.
The roads alternated between barely rideable and pure hike-a-bike hell, with scant shade and scorching temperatures providing an additional level of hellish punishment. Even hiking our bikes was difficult and dangerous, and I may have kept up a steady string of curses under my breath as I stumbled and slipped over the sand, gravel, ruts, and baby-heads that the road consisted of. If I could have rage-quit, I would have - unfortunately, there was no way out but to keep going. It took us nearly two hours, and I was close to tears with frustration, but we finally made it to the top, where we sagged to the ground in the shade, pulled out our food and water, and planned the end of our trip. I grabbed my Garmin off my bike while stuffing my face with gummy bears and spicy Trisquits to look at our stats for the day, out of morbid curiosity. In 6.25 hours we had covered just over 21 miles, but it felt like we had covered 100. It was also still scorching hot, and seemingly as a sick joke, my Garmin estimated my calorie expenditure at not even 1800 calories. Are you kidding me? I had probably eaten closer to 3000 calories that day, and I'm not sure that would even be calorie-positive. Hike-a-bike hell burns a lot of energy.
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Will said he knew of a brewery in Arnold - just down the highway - that we could stop at, and by continuing further on down the highway we could find somewhere with cell service to call for a ride back to his place. What followed is the longest mostly-continuous descent of my life: starting from 6,700', over the next 35 miles we descended just over 5,000' to where we ended in the foothills. Although we were happy to be out of the woods - both figuratively and literally - I was also a little disappointed that we had to return to civilization for the end of our trip. On the other hand, we hadn't had access to running water (besides water running in streams) or 'real' food since the previous morning, so the thought of burgers and beer just down the road was a tempting siren calling us forward. The traffic along the highway kinda sucked after having so many empty roads all to ourselves, but for the most part we didn't care because we were covering ground at a phenomenal rate compared to the day's hike-a-bike. We posed our bikes for a victory shot in front of the brewery then hobbled inside to gorge ourselves on nachos, beer, and burgers. After two beers (hey, I earned them, dammit!) and a ton of food I was ready to enter a food coma, but we still had a little ways left to ride to our pickup location (actually, we hadn't even managed to call for a ride yet due to a lack of cell service).
Ten miles down the road a 'coal-rolling' douchebag in a big truck drove up next to us, slowed down, then stomped on the gas and released a cloud of soot directly at me. I couldn't see anything for a second, and it was so thick I couldn't breathe; I nearly fell off my bike while coughing my lungs up. Will, right behind me, got some of it as well but not nearly enough to slow him down. Instead, like a pissed-off guard dog, he grabbed his long frame pump from his bike and sprinted downhill after the truck, which was slowing for a stop light. Fortunately for said douchebag, the light just barely changed before Will could smash his window in. Denied vengeance, he pulled off onto a side street to calm down and let me catch up; when I pulled up I was still coughing up soot. After a few minutes to calm down, we checked for cell service; he called for our ride home while I looked for a coffee shop for us to hang out at. Sadly, all the coffee shops in town were closed for the day. Instead, Will led us on a detour to French Gulch Road, which started with a steep climb he assured me would be worth the effort. The road led through beautiful California grassland foothills, ending with an exhilarating 50 mph descent back to the main road. After that final bittersweet piece of remote country road, we were just minutes away from our final destination of Angel's Camp / Altaville. I found us a Starbucks to cool down and wait at, and by the time our ice-cold frappuccinos were ready our ride had arrived in Will's truck. Exhausted but grateful, we disassembled our bikepacking gear, and I was amazed at how light my bike was underneath all the gear. "OMG it's a rocket! I feel like I can PR ALL the climbs!"
And with that, the adventure was over. We spent some time admiring all the cool pictures we had taken, uploaded proof of the adventure to Strava (if it's not on Strava it didn't happen!), and in general began the process of converting the trip into Type 2 fun. We were disappointed to not complete the entire route to Yosemite (especially since I've yet to make it to Yosemite), but were nonetheless happy to have spent three days living on our bikes in the mountains. Of course, I vowed to get back at Will for the utter route failure with a future trip of my own (although when I finally did, I ended up doing slightly better on the route planning, and we completed a two-day trip without serious incident). I've always loved being high up in big mountains, but It's safe to say I'm now hooked on more adventurous bikepacking trips, even if it means getting a little lost, worrying a little about food, water, and bears, and having to endure some (or a lot) of hike-a-bike.
Day 3: 57 miles, 10 hours, 6,200' of climbing.
Total Stats: 241 miles, 40 hours, 28,000' of climbing, countless thousands of 'empty'-calorie snacks, >200 pictures each
Strava here.
Stay tuned for the next adventure!
And with that, the adventure was over. We spent some time admiring all the cool pictures we had taken, uploaded proof of the adventure to Strava (if it's not on Strava it didn't happen!), and in general began the process of converting the trip into Type 2 fun. We were disappointed to not complete the entire route to Yosemite (especially since I've yet to make it to Yosemite), but were nonetheless happy to have spent three days living on our bikes in the mountains. Of course, I vowed to get back at Will for the utter route failure with a future trip of my own (although when I finally did, I ended up doing slightly better on the route planning, and we completed a two-day trip without serious incident). I've always loved being high up in big mountains, but It's safe to say I'm now hooked on more adventurous bikepacking trips, even if it means getting a little lost, worrying a little about food, water, and bears, and having to endure some (or a lot) of hike-a-bike.
Day 3: 57 miles, 10 hours, 6,200' of climbing.
Total Stats: 241 miles, 40 hours, 28,000' of climbing, countless thousands of 'empty'-calorie snacks, >200 pictures each
Strava here.
Stay tuned for the next adventure!