Offseason Adventure Mountain Biking

This story really begins about three years ago when Pete meet a hippie mountain biker who told him about some new trails that he and some of his buddies were building north of Grass Valley. Mesmerized by the stories the tie-dyed shirt wearing, hippie passed along, Pete has been begging me to get out to these trials ever since. I managed to avoid the trip to this theoretical trail system mostly because I didn't believe that it actually existed. I fully expected our 2 hours of driving to be rewarded with a few miles of unmarked overgrown trails.

Following a week of unseasonably amazing weather (and some internet research that indicated that the trails really did exist - http://foresttrailsalliance.org/), we decided Sunday the 6th of November was the day. We woke up early (for us...) and picked up our friend, Peter, and drove 2 hours to the trail head..... which was surprisingly well marked! I took this as a good sign.

We were on our bikes at 11 am.  The trails were amazing, burmed switchbacks, lots of fun rollers, jump options and numerically marked technical sections!

Did I forget to mention that the forest was gorgeous in all of its Autumn glory!!

Unfortunately we didn't print a map. Pete hand drew one.... our printer was out of ink. And there was no cell phone coverage in the valley. And, big surprise, we kinda sorta got lost... 

After a bunch of super fun single track, a flat, and 2.5 hrs of riding, we were supposed to ride a bit of fire road to more fun single track that would take us around the the town of Forest City and up the valley we just spend a few hours riding down. The fire roads were not well marked on our hand drawn map (surprise, surprise) and soon we became tired of riding down similarly looking (and named!) fire roads that all turned out to be dead ends. 

Also, for obvious reasons, we were at least moderately worried about gun sling'in back country folk.

(In case you missed it, please note the spelling of the spray painted sign....)

Still unsure of our location and a bit frustrated, at about 2:45 we had just enough daylight to ride back to the car the way we came. The boys decided that the best option was to continue riding further from the direction of the car on the largest fire road we could find, hoping it would either lead us to the thriving metropolis of Forest City (population ~2) or to the only paved highway in 50 square miles. 

Fortunately they were right...

Feeling relieved that we would not be spending the night freezing in woods, we took the opportunity to explore the old mining/ghost town for a bit. What a cool place!

In case you were wondering, yes, you can rent this old Dance Hall: $100 for 24 hrs

After looking at the map posted in town, the boys decided that the best way back to the car was a fire road that would lead us to the single track we had been searching for all day. 

The fire road ended up being a hike a bike all the way to the top of the ridge.

However we did eventually end up on single track.... 

only to realize that we had already ridden it... 

the same direction.... 

that morning! 

Awesome.

We made it back to the car by 4:30 pm, well within my "as long as I am back at the car by dark" request.  We even managed to eventually find the trail we were looking for... at the trial head :) 

We concluded our great day with some killer burritos and dinner time trivia at the infamous Maria's Taco Shop in Auburn. 

We may be heading back sometime soon to ride the trails we missed, anyone want in!?