Unsupported Middle-Of-Nowhere Mountain Metric

[RolliePollie]

Sounds great - good job!

You know what I always ask... WHERE was it??? Give me some route info! What lake is that? Gorgeous!

When I ride/hike in Yosemite or anyplace really remote, I will generally carry my PUR pump water filter. It's the hydration equivalent of a Schmidt hub, I guess.

I was trying to do mapmyride but I have dial-up so it's basically impossible. But I can describe where we were

We started at Ice House Road and Hwy. 50...about 6-8 miles east of Pollock Pines before you get to Kyburz. We rode up Ice House Rd. north about 25 miles to Wentworth Springs Rd., took a left, and rode 30-ish miles to Georgetown. Then we took local roads down to Coloma on Hwy. 49. The lakes in my pictures are Union Valley Reservoir and Ice House Reservoir (great for waterskiing, fishing, camping, and hiking!). You can see Union Valley from the road we were on but Ice House is a few miles back in the trees. They call that whole area the Crystal Basin because the mountains are the Crystal Range. It's just gorgeous up there.

I wouldn't recommend doing this ride on your own unless you really know the area. I'm not entirely sure the way we did the ride was all that safe. It would be best to have a SAG vehicle up there with you. That would also help with the fact that the start and end of the ride we did were about 30-35 miles apart! I know there are cyclists out there who ride back up from Coloma to Placerville and then to Pollock Pines, but that would add 4,000' of climbing. And you'd have to ride on the freeway to get from Pollock to Ice House Road! Also, Ice House Rd. can have horrible RV and boat trailer traffic in the summer and the climb up from Hwy. 50 is narrow, curvy, and basically on the side of a cliff. We had light traffic at 8:30 on Sunday morning but there were still a few tight squeezes.

Wow, that paragraph was kind of negative . I just think that anyone considering this ride needs to get lots of details before they head out. You could really get yourself into trouble...there is no cell coverage and it's very remote and isolated up there. But it's a great ride!!!! Dare I say...almost epic?