This weekend quite a few of us headed up to Donner Lake for an BONC, ROMP, MBOSC and others camping weekend. Some even swam the trans Donner Lake Swim which was 2.7 miles of cold choppy water. It's debatable whether that was more fun than the trail work everyone else was doing. Since I was there with family we were looking for easier rides we could do with our 2 year old in a wee ride. We found two great trails so wanted to blog about them here.
Emigrant Trail: 22 miles of sweet smooth single track with little climbing. It's 11 miles out and 11 miles back. super nice we all loved it. More information from MTBR. This would be a great spin if you arrive at Truckee in the middle of the day and need a quick spin after you've set up camp. We saw two folks walking out with busted tubeless tires. We never got a flat. You could even do this ride with a bob trailer and camp by stampede reservoir (but there will be car camping boaters there so it's not a total wilderness experience).
Forest Hill Divide: a sweet 11 mile loop with more climbing but nothing terrible also not very technical and a great route. Easy to follow. More information is available from: Forest Hills Trail Alliance and this PDF map. We rode counter clockwise from the east entrance. We were only confused one time 1 mile near the end where you're dumped out in a big parking lot on a gravel road, but some local riders showed us where the trail started again and it was a short climb back to the car. This is in Auburn, CA so is either on the way to or back from Tahoe.
Both great rides for beginners, or people with kids.
Emigrant Trail: 22 miles of sweet smooth single track with little climbing. It's 11 miles out and 11 miles back. super nice we all loved it. More information from MTBR. This would be a great spin if you arrive at Truckee in the middle of the day and need a quick spin after you've set up camp. We saw two folks walking out with busted tubeless tires. We never got a flat. You could even do this ride with a bob trailer and camp by stampede reservoir (but there will be car camping boaters there so it's not a total wilderness experience).
Forest Hill Divide: a sweet 11 mile loop with more climbing but nothing terrible also not very technical and a great route. Easy to follow. More information is available from: Forest Hills Trail Alliance and this PDF map. We rode counter clockwise from the east entrance. We were only confused one time 1 mile near the end where you're dumped out in a big parking lot on a gravel road, but some local riders showed us where the trail started again and it was a short climb back to the car. This is in Auburn, CA so is either on the way to or back from Tahoe.
Both great rides for beginners, or people with kids.