Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

Cannell Trail & Cannell Plunge
Kernville, CA

June 17, 2006

Take me to the video. After a cold and wet winter, which resulted in a lot of snow in the Sierras of California, I've been eagerly anticipating a return to the high country. The Cannell Trail/Plunge is about a 28 mile ride which starts at 9,200 ft., high in the Sierras about an hour east of Kernville, CA. The Cannell Trail consists of about 20 miles and a couple thousand feet of climbing through beautiful high altitude conifer forests and across several meadows. The high point is about 9,400 ft. Eventually you go down some really gnarly descents, some old rocky creek beds, and through a narrow canyon to about 7,500 ft. When you get a beautiful view of Lake Isabella many miles below, you have reached the top of the Cannell Plunge, which then descends 5,000 ft. over the next eight miles. With often high temperatures, deep sand, many narrow rutted spots, steep drop-offs (hundreds of feet), and a lot of dust, the Plunge is a very challenging ride. 

CrashDang, Plim, ET_SoCal and his friend Fred joined me for a great ride. Except for about 12-15 downed trees, mostly on the upper section, the trails were in excellent shape, with less sand than usual. After about an hour of huffing and puffing above 9,000 ft. I began to question why I do this to myself. But once we started hitting the gnarly, rocky downhills the memories of that pain were soon forgotten. I did pretty well on the Cannell Trail, but I'm not a downhiller and I'm not particularly fond of the Plunge, particularly since I'm afraid of heights and the very steep drop-offs to the side really scare me. Near the top of the Plunge CrashDang's front hydraulic brake cable broke so he had to limp down using just the back brake. Fred was long gone down the Plunge, Plim was feeling pretty frisky and moving quite quickly, and ET_SoCal was doing his best to slow down enough to be in my video. I was doing my best to keep up with him, which wasn't very good, when about half way down the Plunge I nearly went off a cliff. I had to lay my bike down on the trail to prevent myself from going over. After several minutes of calming myself down I decided the video just wasn't that important. When I caught up to ET_SoCal I told him to go on without me and I'd stay with CrashDang, who was doing remarkably well with just a back brake. It was also about that time that we really started feeling the 102 degree heat. 

But as always, after riding about two miles back into town on a baking road, we felt quite satisfied with ourselves. Thanks for a great ride guys!

Click on an image to enlarge it

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Plim Trail maintenance Plim CrashDang Fred, CrashDang Snow plants
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Big Meadow CrashDang
on a break		 Fred Plim ET_SoCal CrashDang
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CrashDang Gate closing Lake Isabella
below		 Plim at top
of Plunge		 Guys at top
of Plunge		 ET_SoCal,
CrashDang
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Lake Isabella
below		 On the 
Plunge		 Other riders On the 
Plunge		 On the 
Plunge		 Other riders
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On the 
Plunge		 CrashDang
(center)		 CrashDang CrashDang Bottom of 
Plunge		 Kern River
 

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