Lake Tahoe

I just got back from a real quick trip to Sacramento and Lake Tahoe for an engagement session which was a blast! But more about that later :)
I stayed with my long time friends Ian and Casey and their two kids at their home just above Placerville. Ian and I rode and raced mountain bikes together all through high school and both still ride as much as possible. We headed up the hill to Tahoe with Ian's friend Jerry (also an ex-racer) at the wheel to squeeze in a ride before we all had work to do. As soon as we pulled up we knew we were in for a pretty unique experience as there was way more snow than we expected! The ride started at about 7,000 feet, dropped down to the town of Meyers, which is near South Lake Tahoe, then headed up to about 8,500 feet where Mr. Toads trail begins. As we got close to the top the snow went from patches to a solid blanket but was only about 4 inches deep and offered enough traction to still ride.
Truly, the downhill was the most fun I have ever had! The downhill is about 5 or 6 miles long and was completely snow covered 3/4 of the way down. I managed to only crash twice and had the time of my life. All said and done, we rode just about 30 miles with a little more than 4,000 feet of climbing in about 3 1/2 hours which wasn't bad considering how much the snow slowed us down.
I can't wait to ride that trail again though I have a feeling that it will never be quite as much fun as it was yesterday.

Sorry I didn't take more pictures but I was way too busy having a great time! This first picture was what we saw getting out of the car. The snow was pretty patchy so the trail was easy enough.



I was wearing a ton of clothing, I look like a marshmallow but I was warm! It was 25 degress when we got out on the trail and probably about 30 in this picture. If you look real carefully you can see a couple tire tracks that showed us where the trail is. We were very lucky in that someone who obviously knew every corner of the trail had gone through the day before and we could follow their tracks.


Here is Ian showing off his bike handling skills. What you don't see is that he has to make a 90 degree left turn right at the bottom to avoid going off a 30 foot drop-off into rocks!