Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

Cannell Trail & Cannell Plunge
Kernville, CA

October 25, 2003

After my last Tahoe Ride two months ago the knees have been bothering me quite a bit so I've been taking it easy by doing fairly short local rides about every other week. A few days ago I finished my last series of Synvisc injections and the knees have improved quite a bit. With the coming time change and upcoming winter in the mountains, I decided to try to get in one more ride up in the high country. I put out a call for riders on mtbr.com and Keith Krieger expressed an interest.

I met Keith and two of his riding buddies (names to follow) at Mountain and River Adventures at 8 am and we got a pretty quick start. Since the ride started at Sherman Pass at 9,200 feet we were a bit apprehensive about how to dress. We all took cold weather clothing but it turned out we didn't need it. At the pass the temperature was slightly cool but once we got moving it was near perfect, and the temperature quickly climbed throughout the day. It was probably at least 75 degrees by the time we hit the top of the Plunge and it warmed up even more on the way down.

I headed down the Cannell Trail towards the Plunge by myself and the others took off in the opposite direction to Sherman Peak at 9,900 feet. I can't just start climbing cold and doing those extra four miles might not get me off the mountain by dark. I'd hate to get caught in the dark on the Plunge, particularly since walking downhill kills my knees. These guys were good and I figured they'd catch me about the time I got to the Plunge. The Cannell Trail is about twenty miles of fantastic, sometimes smooth and sometimes very rough, steep, rocky singletrack through beautiful conifer forests and across several giant meadows. 

It never ceases to amaze me that I don't seem to lose much aerobically, even if I can't ride. I guess that's why I found running so easy. Altitude doesn't seem to bother me either. Too bad I don't have the knees to match my aerobic abilities. I seemed to move along at a pretty good pace and I took a good bit of time off my last two trips, and without anybody pushing me. For a change it was nice to have people following me in case I fell and hurt myself.

Once I got to the Plunge it was about a 40 minute wait for the guys to show up. Over the next eight miles the Plunge descends 5,000 feet on some fantastic singletrack. I did my best to keep up with the guys but they were way too fast for me. Fortunately, however, we regrouped every once in a while. Therefore, I got at least two of them in the video. Both the Cannell Trial and Plunge had even more decomposed granite (DG) than I remembered, making them a bit treacherous in spots. But I needed a good video so I just hung on for dear life and did my best to keep up. Towards the top I started losing control in some DG and rather than go towards the outside edge I went inside, smashing my knee into a big boulder. But of course I was wearing my knee pads so it didn't affect me at all. Farther down on one long, narrow, rutted stretch I tried crossing over the middle rut at high speed and I did a nice endo. Much of it was caught on tape. However, since I rolled over on my back the impact on the camera in my pack caused the tape to skip, so there is a bit of a gap between the fall and rolling slightly down the bank. Again, the knee pads saved the day. 

I did a lot more of the technical stuff on the upper Plunge but little of it made it on the tape. The connector to the battery pack started wriggling off and on every good sized bump the picture went out. Fortunately, however, I checked the tape and corrected the problem at the top of "the wall" a huge hike-a-bike about a third of the way down.

I made a few of the upper left hand switchbacks but once we hit the gnarly ones towards the bottom I told the guys to leave me. Keith got a flat tire so I eventually caught up with them. I finished about 30 minutes faster than my previous time and about 90 minutes faster than the one before that. Not bad for being off most of the past two months! Many thanks to Keith and the guys! I'll add their names when I get them. Here is the trail map at 1:100,000. Sherman Peak, to the northwest of Sherman Pass, is not shown.

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