TR - Orogenesis 2024

[evdog]

Here's something to distract from the political / election BS....


The ride was in late Sept, Bass Lake area.

I wanted to ride each of the three main trail networks around Bass Lake - Goat Mountain, Mary Jane/Willow Creek, and Shuteye Peak/Blind Squirrel/007. Looking at my to-do list though, I realized I was starting to run short on time for the trip. And I wanted at least half a day for Yosemite the next day. So I decided to take on the challenge of riding all three systems in one day. If you're bikepacking, that's what you'd be doing anyways, and without a shuttle.


I headed to the bottom of Goat Mtn just before sunrise. Orogenesis climbs up Spring Cove Trail and drops down Goat Mtn Trail. So that's what I did. Spring Cove is a stout climb of 850ft in 1.5mi, but almost all rideable.




It didn't take long and I was at the top. I had ridden Goat Mtn before but not the Spring Cove Trail. Goat was fun as always and I saw no one given the early morning weekday start. At the bottom is an easy fire road pedal back to the truck. The ride only took an hour for 5.5mi and +/-1,000ft




Next I drove up to the north end of the lake and parked near the bottom of the ride. Orogenesis uses Mary Jane and Willow Creek Trails as descents, and Chepo Saddle OHV road as a climb for those heading north. I had never ridden Chepo before so this would be a loop as well.


It starts off as normal forest road and then hits a bunch of rock gardens and granite slabs for about 3/4 mile.




The rock garden sections required hike a bike, otherwise it was mostly rideable.




It took a couple hours to get up top where the singletrack begins. After eating my lunch I dropped into Mary Jane. Fun, flowy trail with a lot of granite.





At the bottom of MJ there is a cool alternate trail a couple big log rides that avoid wet stream crossings on the main trail.





Next there is a steep hike a bike up a rocky jeep trail to reach the top of Willow Creek trail. Then you get a fun chunky descent.




Lower down, the trail follows right along Willow Creek for a while with some big pools and waterfalls.




Of course there can be tons of hikers heading to these. Fortunately I only saw a few people. On a weekend morning you'll be stopping often.




This lap took 4 hours and was about 14mi with +/- 2,500ft. I still think MJ and Willow are a bit on the tough side for bikepacking but even though they are steep and rocky, they at least have a solid trail surface. Most riders should expect some downhill hike a bike with a loaded bike.



Next up, Shuteye Peak with a partial shuttle. Orogenesis doesn't go up Shuteye Peak but it does incorporate 007 Trail and Blind Squirrel. Those heading south will probably climb fire road instead of 007. We will have alternates for Blind Squirrel so you'll get to descend it whether you're heading north or south.


I had a solid 2,000ft climb up Shuteye Peak OHV 6S59 from where I parked. The first couple miles were pretty nice climbing, then it was on and off hike a bike the rest of the way up.




It's a cool road to climb and I took plenty of breaks.




And the views aren't bad. Looking north towards Yosemite




Made it up to the fire lookout.




Dropped in without wasting any time. I rode the uppermost trail, Skyfall years ago, and it was a rutted, torn up mess at the time (it's a moto trail). But the Yosemite South Gate Trail Cooperative did a bunch of work on it in June this year and it is back. Still burly and loose, but really fun.

Near the top of Skyfall







Blind Squirrel is best riding in the area IMO. It's a huge granite playground with a MTB trail running through it. I've ridden it before and sort of know the lines, otherwise it would be hard to follow. Much of it doesn't have cairns so you're trying to spot tire tracks entering and exiting granite sections.







There are three distinct slab sections separated by a bit of forest riding. By the time I got lower down, the sun was setting. Not a bad place to take that in!




At the bottom of Blind Squirrel you pick up the Browns Creek ATV trail. After turning onto it I came around a corner to a cloud of dust. No humans around that I could tell, so I took chase





I've chased a bear down a forest road before on the moto (and couldn't keep up), but never on the bike! Super cool. He ended up on the switchback below but took off trail for good at the next corner.


After that I had the forest all to myself. I dropped down a forest road for a mile to Central Camp where I picked up the Fourth section of 007. Lots of people love 007 but the first three sections see the most traffic by far. I was just hoping there wouldn't be a bunch of deadfall. There wasn't, but it was slow going. Orogenesis uses 2/3 of Fourth and all of First, Second and Third.


Things sped up as I hit Third, and the trail gets better and better the further you drop. Second is very rocky. First (pictured) is a riot.




Finished the ride around 830pm. 22mi, +3,100 and -6,100ft. One of the best full days on the bike I've had in a long time.

[evdog]

Late Sept, Yosemite

I had some errands to run and admin to deal with in the morning, then I headed into Yosemite since mandatory reservations had ended for weekdays.



I made the drive over to Glacier View first. This is my favorite view in the park.




Definitely not waterfall season. Some of them were completely dry. The others were barely flowing




They need this sign on the trails in Bass Lake. That bear the day before could have hurt itself in a wipeout.




My original plan was to do a full day hike in the park. But getting here mid day when it was hot had me changing my mind on that. I headed down and did a hike on some of the valley trails instead.




Compared to other times I've been here things were pretty quiet




Getting into golden hour I found a good swim spot and then checked out more of the views




Had to use the 30x zoom to spot these climbers on El cap. I showed this to a family that was hanging out who had no idea people could climb a wall like this. And then I mentioned they'd be setting up a hanging platform to sleep on up there




Definitely need to make time for some bigger day hikes or backpacking in Yosemite at some point.....

[evdog]

Late Sept, Yosemite area


I had never been, so I decided on a little side trip to check out Hetch Hetchy Reservoir before following the route further north. It's about 15 miles northeast of Hwy 120 on a winding, narrow paved road.

Shortly after the Yosemite NP entrance booth a car coming the other way flashed brights and motioned a speed trap up ahead. Huh? Sure enough, a NPS ranger was hidden off the road on a long straightaway. Then I passed another one further on. One section had reduced speeds to 20mph due to frequent bear crossings. It's a fun road to drive, I can see why people would want to haul ass. Not good for bears though. Getting hit by cars is the leading cause of death for bears in Yosemite.


There isn't much at Hetch Hetchy - a small campground and hiking/backpacking trailhead. And the reservoir. It's pretty scenic. Lots of good hiking from the looks of it. The hike I wanted to do goes out to top of the cliffs in the middle of the pic. But it's a full day hike so I'll have to wait for another time.




The Tuolumne River spills out from the dam. It was hot out so I planned to swim in the river later.




Heading back to the route I took Mather Road to Cherry Lake Rd. Looking down over the Tuolumne River. Kirkwood Bridge is out of sight down below.




Found a good swimming hole near the bridge




Time to head north. Orogenesis crosses the Tuolumne River further west using the Lumsden Bridge, which has been closed to vehicle traffic for years. I rejoined the route where it turns onto FR 3N01. 3N01 is a pretty narrow forest road but really nice riding with mostly gentle grades.




3N01 was in rougher shape than I remembered with some ruts and other water damage. Further north, the route turns onto 2N14 which seems to have been upgraded for logging truck traffic.




Where 2N14 intersects 3N01 again the route turns on to a series of moto trails. I had never ridden these before, but planned to on this trip.




As I passed by I checked to see if these trails had seen recent traffic. They had, which was a good sign




I needed to get up closer to Pinecrest that night and with available daylight I opted to re-scout a trail that drops down from Spring Gap. I'd have enough time to descend it before dark, but would have to pedal back up with lights. Unfortunately I never made it down. The area had been logged recently and once the trail entered the tree line it was covered in logging debris. It wasn't worth trying to continue.




So that ride was a bust. I think that trail is too steep to be good for bikepacking, which is why I wanted to refresh my opinion of it. There aren't many alternatives aside from taking forest road.

The route follows Philadelphia Ditch (an active flume) getting to Spring Gap. It looked like there had been recent construction on it, so I rode along it for half a mile. It's all good to go




Water control facility at last light.




The parts of the route I had driven were all in good shape. I really like this area for biking. The ridgelines are really long heading north-south and a lot of the roads contour along up high for long distances. Much nicer than other areas where they constantly drop down and climb back up.

[evdog]

Late Sept, Pinecrest area


I staged the self shuttle right from the ranger station in Pinecrest. The plan was to do a point to point starting with the moto trails from the day before. Then cross the Clavey River and head to Pinecrest the back way following the current Orogenesis route. There are some old hiking / equestrian trails that go all the way from Bourland Mtn to the pack station on Dodge Ridge. Then I'd hit the MTB trails that drop down to town. I had scouted all of this except for the moto trails a few years ago. A fire burned part of the back 40 in 2023, so who knows what condition the trails will be in now.


The first moto trail started off good. Then I ran into a few big downed trees. The trail finally disappeared into a mess of logging debris that had not been cleaned up. The second trail was better. Steeper, but lots of pavers were used to keep the trail from getting rutted.




Crossing the Clavey River




The third moto trail started off as a road.




After half a mile a singletrack turned off to the right. This was the best trail of the three, meandering trail with decent grades and nice tread. Part of the area had been logged but the trail had been cleared of debris.




The route teed into a forest road and I turned right, dropping down and crossing the Clavey River again. Now the climbing begins...

The next couple roads used to be rutted out enough they would require high clearance. They've now been graded and were nice and smooth. I'm guessing they will be doing some logging here soon.




I turned onto Rock Creek Road. This road was impassable to vehicles when I did this same ride a few years ago, with big logs laid across the road at the intersection and what looked like big piles of dirt and rock dumped to further block access. The road was well on its way to growing in.

This time, logs and deadfall had been cut out to ATV width and the road had been seeing some traffic. It's still rough, but I was able to ride all of it except for one loose rocky section.




The road surface higher up. Great place to camp!




Turning onto Rock Creek Trail. Things were looking promising at this point.




But any optimism soon faded as deadfall started began




This trail definitely flows better the other direction (when not covered in trees). Between the route finding, the deadfall and the rocky terrain I wasn't riding much at all.




I was able to follow the first half of the trail. But this got harder the further on I got. About half mile before the Coffin Hollow intersection I lost the trail completely. It might as well have never been there.




I spotted the trail sign for another intersection. But there was no trail in any direction to go with it. I stopped trying to follow the line on the gps and went cross country using whatever route looked easiest to pass through.




I was able to find the Rock Creek/Coffin Hollow intersection and a few hundred feet of Coffin Hollow while it was up on a side hill. But then it dropped down into a flat area and the deadfall started again - big trees. I couldn't find any trace of the trail.




It was getting into late afternoon and I made the decision to bail on the route. I didn't want to be searching for lost singletrack in the dark. There was still about 3 miles of unknown trail left to where I knew the trail would be good.

The map showed a forest road on a ridge above less than 1000ft away, and a "route" marked by cairns that leads up to it. I don't think I found the actual route but I did make it up to that road.

Unfortunately, it was just as bad or worse than what I'd been on. Covered in white thorn. So I just continued cross country straight up the slope hoping the road condition would improve on the switchback above. It did, and the further I went the better conditions got. I was finally able to ride.




I got to an intersection with a well travelled forest road. The "sure thing" exit was a 10-mile pedal on forest roads to Dodge Ridge. The "bad decision" exit was one of two singletrack descents that were 1-2 miles the other way up the forest road. I went for option B. What could go wrong, dropping into a double black trail I've never ridden before, at last light?

Had to hunt around a bit but I found the first singletrack. It runs over the gap in the rocks on the left.




If it looks like I'm about to drop off a ledge into darkness, that would sum up the trail pretty well.




The trail was super janky up top and I walked a bunch of features. Then it transitioned into steep slabs and I was able to ride a lot more....as long as I could spot the next cairn in the darkness.




I was out of water and came across this stream at the bottom of the descent. Stopped to filter some water. Fish seem to get stupid at night under bright lights. This one just hung out here and didn't know what to do. When I moved the light it finally took off and hid under a rock.




The end of the trail got a bit confusing with some large slabs that were not well marked and then another logging area near the road. After a mile long climb up to the pack station I picked up the trail down Dodge Ridge for a happy ending of flowy singletrack goodness.




Stats for the ride were 24mi, +3,600 and -3,700ft.

It was a bummer that Rock Creek and Coffin Hollow were in such bad shape. We can't send bikepackers on them in their current condition. Unfortunately there are not a lot of people doing trailwork in this area. These trails do not see much use as most hikers and horses head into the Emigrant Wilderness. Looking on the bright side this will force us to come up with an alternate route. None of the trails between Rock Creek and the pack station are very fun for bikes which is too bad because they make a perfect connection for Orogenesis. The few riders I know who have ridden/scouted them did not like them much.

[evdog]

Late Sept, still in Pinecrest area


The weekend was approaching so I had texted a friend about doing some riding. There was a birthday ride going on for a local guy and he invited me to join them.


Found a nice campsite fairly close to town but with a steep/rutted entrance that most campers would avoid (meaning the site was available). Perfect.




It was a pretty good sized group of varying abilities and speeds. I cruised at the back of the pack.




The ride was about 20 miles and 2800ft vert. I had ridden one trail before, the other two were new to me and really fun descents through the forest.









Found a nice swimming hole after the ride. Headed back to camp rather than ride/explore more.

[evdog]

Start of October, Bear valley area


From Pinecrest I headed north, bypassing Bear Valley and turning up Hwy 88 instead.

The current route for Orogenesis heads east from Bear Valley on a few singletracks, hops on Hwy 4 for a bit, and then goes north on a rocky jeep trail through a wilderness corridor to Blue Lakes. I had always wanted to explore an alternate route around the west side of the Mokelumne Wilderness from Bear Valley to Thunder Mtn trail to Caples Lake, just north of Blue Lakes. After running some errands I made it to Lower Bear Creek Reservoir, which is about the mid point of that western route. I had no info on most of this route so the first task was to see if any of the forest roads actually exist and are passable/fun.


Lower Bear Creek Reservoir. The main road crosses the dam at the west end of the reservoir and then follows the shoreline half way across the south shore.




View from the road crossing the dam, looking down the outflow drainage




I headed east from the reservoir up forest road 8N14 first, which is a narrow paved road. At a junction I turned onto Bear River 4x4 Road, a jeep trail. It was marked double black diamond in a few spots on my map so I didn't know how far I'd be able to get. The goal was to get to the intersection with the Long Valley moto trail 17E28. I planned to explore beyond that intersection on another day as a loop from the opposite direction starting at Thunder Mtn.




Came across a warming hut parked on the side of the road




It's not gonna keep you very warm with no windows or doors




View of Mokelumne Peak to the south




Looking north was a sea of granite




Bear River 4wd Road turned out to be fully rideable all the way to that junction. I debated going further, but since it was getting late and because I'd scout from the other direction later, I turned around.




On the way back I checked out a dirt alternative to paved road 8N14. It was nice, narrow doubletrack that ran along a ridge top for a couple of miles. I was a bit surprised to ride through a tract of homes where the road became paved. Beyond the homes it reverted back to dirt and dropped down to the main road between the reservoir and the Mokelumne River.




The road to the Mokelumne River is called Running Bear Road. It is narrow pavement and drops 2,800ft to the river with some awesome views along the way




Looking across the valley. I think line on the opposite side of the valley is a flume, not a road




I crossed the flume a bit lower down. It would be cool if you could filter water from it. It would also be cool if you could float tube it. Unfortunately they had it thoroughly fenced off.




I made it down to the Mokelumne River. There is a campground there as well as some dispersed sites once you cross the bridge to the south side of the river. From there a forest road climbs up out of the valley but it was signed and gated as closed to motor vehicles. Not being able to use that road would mean a much longer shuttle when I explore the connection to Bear Valley. The route won't use this road. Instead, a trail drops down to the river here which is part of the Mokelumne Coast to Crest trail. I hoped to ride the MCCT all the way from Bear Valley to here.




Sunset from the road higher up. Got back to the truck after dark. So far, this connection was looking like it might go.

[donutlynx]

Just want to write that I really appreciate your posts on the CA Oregenesis route proofing. This thread has been a great read with awesome visuals. Thanks for taking the time to document and share with the TRGz.

[evdog]

Early Oct, South of Tahoe to Markleeville


Lake Tahoe is about as far north as I've scouted. Fortunately there are some dedicated riders in that area who have done an awesome job finding a cool route from Tahoe down the East side of the Sierra towards Lone Pine.

Charity Valley Trail is one of those gems - seldom ridden, remote, scenic, and challenging. And a perfect connection for the route. The trail drops from Charity Valley in the Blue Lakes area down to Grover Hot Springs by Markleeville. Sadly the trail burned in the Caldor fire. The lower part burned especially bad.


I opted to follow Orogenesis' ride of the month route starting at Red Lake Wildlife refuge, heading south on Blue Lakes (Forestdale) Road.

I reached the point where the trail turns off but opted to do a side mission up the road to see how things look. The road takes you right up and over a pass.




Just before Lost Lakes there was a good view of Upper Blue Lake. The road was about to drop all the way down to the lake and I didn't think views would improve any, so I turned around.

Had I continued south this road passes by Lower Blue Lake. There, you can turn south onto Deer Valley OHV trail which drops down to Hwy 4. This is the current Orogenesis route.




Instead I dropped 800ft back down the road, and turned east onto the Forestdale Creek Trail. Until Orogenesis released the ride of the month which included this trail, I hadn't been convinced it actually existed. But it does, and it's pretty nice with views of the mountains behind. It is used by fisherman to access the creek which helps keep it in shape.




A couple connector trails south bypass all pavement and connect directly to Charity Valley Trail.




The trail climbs up through some meadows and open hillside where views opened up. That's Charity Valley behind, to the south.




The trail alternated between buff singletrack and technical granite sections and janky rock gardens. Really fun riding where you have to be on your a-game. This is much more a hiking trail than a biking trail. Bikepackers will be walking many of the hard sections.




Had to get creative here, riding up on the angled rock on the right then over the rock in front.




Sometimes you get to ride between the rocks rather than down them, but not often




Fall colors in full force up here




Entering the burn area. Orogenesis marker in place.




This was the start of a half mile of relentlessly loose, chunky trail with awkward, tight switchbacks. There were many dabs.




The trail flattened again for a bit before starting the main descent down to Grover HS.




Grover is down below near those meadows. The trail descending down there was not chunky like the previous section. Instead, it was sand-covered switchbacks down a steep side slope. After so much slow tech riding it felt strange to be able to let go of the brakes a bit. Near the bottom of the valley the trail was a bit overgrown as vegetation comes back with a vengeance. Finally there were a few easy miles out to the trailhead.




What a great ride that was, with a bit of everything. It's definitely on the difficult side for a bikepacking route but I'm not aware of any other suitable option to get from Markleeville to South Tahoe. I will definitely do this ride again.

[evdog]

Just want to write that I really appreciate your posts on the CA Oregenesis route proofing. This thread has been a great read with awesome visuals. Thanks for taking the time to document and share with the TRGz.

Thanks! Hoping it will inspire people to get out and explore some of these areas. There is so much potential and so few riders along much of the west side of the Sierras.