Where in California is the longest continuous non-paved downhill? Single-track, double-track, fire road - whatever - as long as you're losing lots of elevation rapidly. (Please no jokes about jumping out of a plane. ;) )

I'm guessing that a descent like this would probably exist somewhere on the East Side of the Sierra, or maybe even 7,000 feet up on a logging road on Mt. Shasta.

Who knows?

Don't know about longest, but there is little place that nobody knows of called Downieville that is pretty good.

I'm not sure if it is the longest, but the Cannell Trail sure has a lot of drop. Unfortunately, even with a shuttle you still have to do some climbing to get the descent.

http://www.ogrehut.net/trails.php/KernCounty/CannellPlunge

-Derek

I've ridden from 11,000 feet (all singletrack) to the base of shasta. That was pretty great.

Downieville's long.

There's "rock creek" trail by Bishop, CA that's really long as well.

I've ridden from 11,000 feet (all singletrack) to the base of shasta. That was pretty great.

Downieville's long.

There's "rock creek" trail by Bishop, CA that's really long as well.

I'm a Mountaineer and I've summited Mt. Shasta 6 times via several routes (on foot)

1) you need a climbers permit to go above 10,000 feet on Mt. Shasta
2) there are no trails (only mountaineers paths) above 9,000 (Horse Camp)
3) Hellen Lake is at 10,500 Feet and there is a HUGE snow pack there till Aug. every year

4) I just got off the phone with the Ranger station and the local climbing store in Mt Shasta City and they were laughing their butts off when I told them about this post.

I've ridden from 11,000 feet (all singletrack) to the base of shasta. That was pretty great.

Downieville's long.

There's "rock creek" trail by Bishop, CA that's really long as well.

11,000 feet!? Damn, that would put you just above Hidden Valley, or Helen Lake. All I can think is LOOSE SCREE. Though it deffinately sounds like a looong downhill. And what route did you take? Thanks.

I'm a Mountaineer and I've summited Mt. Shasta 6 times via several routes (on foot)

1) you need a climbers permit to go above 10,000 feet on Mt. Shasta
2) there are no trails (only mountaineers paths) above 9,000 (Horse Camp)
3) Hellen Lake is at 10,500 Feet and there is a HUGE snow pack there till Aug. every year

4) I just got off the phone with the Ranger station and the local climbing store in Mt Shasta City and they were laughing their butts off when I told them about this post.

Cuz I think we know he didn't climb it on his bike!

Jed, what da hey :confused:

Mt. Shast from a distance
http://photos.rockclimbing.com/photos//188/18814.jpg

one more from a distance
http://photos.rockclimbing.com/photos//113/11350.jpg

Some dude I don't know at about 11,000
http://photos.rockclimbing.com/photos//230/23096.jpg

Some other guys I dont' know at 13,000 you can see down to 11,000
http://photos.rockclimbing.com/photos//173/17319.jpg

Me on my first solo summit, 14,162
http://photos.rockclimbing.com/photos//58/5857.jpg

Well, I'm going to continue this mountainbike-turned-mountaineering thread for just a little longer. Rye, I climb a lot as well. Like you, been up Shasta many times, from most sides. Anyway, weather permitting, I'm going to climb, and not bike down, Green Butte to Sargent's on Feb 26-29. If you're interested, drop me an email or message.

Uh, maybe Jed got his elevations mixed up....it's not exactly a capital offense is it?

No, but miss information on the net like this has cause a lot of problems in the climbing community (I.E. the British mix-up on a web site that said the down climb off the top of the highest peak in Scotland was a over a 1,500 foot cliff).

There is at least one climbing death on Shasta every year; it's not a place to play if you don't know what you’re getting in to. I've been injured there by rock fall and trapped at 9000 feet in a freak storm for 2 days. I'd hate for a DHer to go up there expecting to find single-track and get killed falling in a crevasse.

Crawdad; won't be able to make this trip. I'm having a custom Cyclocross bike made up and I'm strapped for cash right now. But the climbing season is just starting, I'll e-mail you my info maybe we can hook up for a trip.

edit: check your PM's (couldn't find your e-mail address)

Nice shots. I've summitted Shasta twice. Those pics bring back some good memories.

Werner

I've enjoyed an ascent of Shast with friends but we didn't ride down, either. We glassaded down on our butts using our ice axes for brakes and what a hoot. I don't remember how long it was but we were rolling in the snow at the bottom laughing.
I haven't thought of that in years.

That's such a great looking ride, at least as Mtn Bike Bill video'd it. Whoa! I wanna do that ride! I was so happy to see Miles Todd not falling off a cliff in this particular vid. That's his butt in front of the camera for about 2/3rds of the descent. Truth is, Miles is one of the coolest dudes on the planet, if not THE coolest. And I oughta know; I rode with him back in the days when he used to actually squeeze mud between the knobs of his tires (he used to live up here in Orygun).

I'll never forget the time Miles got a brand new Amp B3 fork (did I mention this was a long time ago?) and we all went for a ride down Hardesty Mountain. We arrived at the switchbacks about half way down the trail and Miles tried to clean a tight one and endo'd badly. Tried again -- same thing. Miles is no quitter. He must have slammed himself onto the ground at least a half dozen times before deciding he'd had enough. Or maybe he finally cleaned the damn thing, I don't even remember. Anyway. compressing that type of fork changes its rake dramatically, and Miles wasn't used to this phenomenon. But he showed us all what determination looked like that day -- without ever uttering a cross word.

Now he rides nothing but a rigid singlespeed.

The guy just plain rules.

--Sparty

I'm not sure if it is the longest, but the Cannell Trail sure has a lot of drop. Unfortunately, even with a shuttle you still have to do some climbing to get the descent.

http://www.ogrehut.net/trails.php/KernCounty/CannellPlunge

-Derek

Good story on Miles...major Huevo's..nm

5,000 ft. drop in 8 miles. One big 100-200 yd. hike a bike about a third of the way down. A very few rollercoaster ups but pretty much all downhill for the 8 miles. And all singletrack! The Cannell Trail, which is about 20 miles long prior to the Plunge, has some pretty good climbs along the way.

Who knows?

Oh, about 5-6 years ago I got in on a 'downhill' ride from Bear Valley. I was told it was a 50 mile downhill ride. I thought wow... 50 miles, all downhill. It's amazing how much climbing is involved in a 50 mile downhill ride. I pulled something in my back about 1/4 of the way down and had to bail on the ride, but the climbs and the hike-a-bikes I was told of kind of made me glad I had to bail.

When ever I hear about these loooong downhills I just wonder how much climbing there is. But I have ridden stuff like the Cannel Plunge which does indeed have many miles of trails going down.

You're going to have more luck finding a long (10-15 mile) downhill fireroad than a pure downhill singletrack that long. I've climbed shut eye peak near bass lake. We shuttled part way up central camp road and climbed 11 miles to get to the summit and then took the singletrack face trail, and then cut over to 007 to get to the bottom. There was a little fire road climbing between the two trials but for pure downhill length, Central Camp road would have been close to 20 miles of downhill. I'm sure there are longer fireroads out there.

george

No, but miss information on the net like this has cause a lot of problems in the climbing community (I.E. the British mix-up on a web site that said the down climb off the top of the highest peak in Scotland was a over a 1,500 foot cliff).

There is at least one climbing death on Shasta every year; it's not a place to play if you don't know what you’re getting in to. I've been injured there by rock fall and trapped at 9000 feet in a freak storm for 2 days. I'd hate for a DHer to go up there expecting to find single-track and get killed falling in a crevasse.

Crawdad; won't be able to make this trip. I'm having a custom Cyclocross bike made up and I'm strapped for cash right now. But the climbing season is just starting, I'll e-mail you my info maybe we can hook up for a trip.

edit: check your PM's (couldn't find your e-mail address)

LOL. Sorry about that Mr. Factchecker.

We started at the top parking lot. Rode up the fireroad until it ended. Climbed from there up to about snowline (in september). From there was singletrack, led down all the way down to near the college.

In 1995 I pedaled to above 14,000 ft elevation on White Mountain. Coming back down pavement restarts about 12,000 so that doesn't count for a lot of drop. There used to be a road ride up from Big Pine and back. But looking up at the range from the Owen's Valley you can see old roads heading up to the ridgeline, always wondered if any of them were still rideable. A potential 9000+ ft downhill... Maybe I'm dreaming.

pretty darn long, fun and fast....El Dorado Canyon trail. Starts 18 miles past Foresthill (near Auburn) at 5500ft....ends up at something like 1000ft (then you have to climb back out to Michigan Bluff) at 3000)...good stuff!
s

I'd like to try the Cannell Plunge. What time of year is it usually free of snow?

thanks
-rob in SF

Last year spring was very cold, wet and late. Yet I did the Cannell Plunge and Trail on June 17th. No sign of snow so it had probably melted out at least a few weeks earlier. I'm planning a late May ride this year. But I will contact the local Mountain and River Adventure (http://www.mtnriver.com) people by early May to see how the trails are progressing.

We started out at the parking lot at Bunny Flat (think that's the right name), on Everett Memorial Hwy, and went up a fire road from there just a bit so maybe a bit over 7000 ft at the point where we started down, singletrack pretty steep (with some stunts and drops)until we got down to cross Everett Memorial Hwy again, then there's a bunch of interlooping singletrack (close to the highschool in Mt Shasta City), then up for a bit on fire roads to the intersection of the road to the new ski bowl and hwy 89 then down various fire roads to Soda Creek and out near hwy 5, then a bit on pavement on to my buddy's place in Sweetbrier (elev about 2000 ft, a little bit south of Castle Crags). We figure that's 30 miles or so of mostly descending dirt.

We've also ridden from the new ski bowl but that's a bit more pavement on Shasta, not nearly as much fun as that singletrack from Bunny Flat (and we understood there was a fairly rocky more sketchy downhill singletrack starting from the old ski bowl parking lot, which would be about 8000 ft up I think).

I've heard about some of the other rides on this post and once that snow melts this year...

This is from Deadwood down and then up to Michagan Bluff?
Did you drive down to Deadwood or ride from Foresthill Rd?
Sounds like fun, but prob'ly too early in the year right now.

I'm gonna (try to) ride Foresthill to Michigan Bluff and back this weekend...

patrick


pretty darn long, fun and fast....El Dorado Canyon trail. Starts 18 miles past Foresthill (near Auburn) at 5500ft....ends up at something like 1000ft (then you have to climb back out to Michigan Bluff) at 3000)...good stuff!