Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

Cannell Trail & Cannell Plunge
Kernville, CA

July 16, 2005

Take me to the video. Today I had a fantastic ride on the Cannell Trail and Cannell Plunge with Anita (Lemonhead), Mike (Plim), Tim (UncleMTB), Doug (Pacman), his son Tom, and Jerry (Crashdang) and Martin from SoCal. The Cannell Trail starts high in the Sierras (9,200 ft.) about an hour east of Kernville, CA. It 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 9,6000 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 deep sand, many narrow rutted spots, steep drop-offs, and a lot of dust, this is a very challenging ride.

It was predicted to be over 100 degrees in Kernville but since we were going to be riding above 9,000 ft most of the day we didn't worry too much about the weather. And for most of the trip it was quite pleasant. However, it hit a record high of 111 degrees in Kernville! About half way down the Plunge we really started to feel the heat. If we hadn't been going downhill the rest of the way I would have been really concerned. There were quite a few falls and near misses on the way down. I saw two each by Jerry and Anita, Tim said he fell twice and Mike had a spectacular save from a potentially disastrous endo by dancing down the trail with his bike between his legs. But nobody was hurt. I think one or both of Lemonhead's falls were caused by a flat tire. When we stopped to fix that it finally hit us as to how hot it really was because there was virtually no shade. We huddled near a bush about two feet high for shade and we couldn't even sit on the trail because it was too hot. By the time we got rolling again I was getting a bit more concerned but we were almost finished. At the bottom of the Plunge we still had to ride the road for a least a mile back to our vehicles and the pavement was really hot. Fortunately Doug had driven his van back to the bottom of the Plunge and he gave Anita a well deserved and much needed ride back to our vehicles. I'm a bit stubborn so I had to complete that last mile. And it was a good thing it was only a mile because I don't think I could have done much more.

This was my sixth time doing this ride and I still think it ranks as the greatest epic ride I've ever done. And this was the best group I'd ever done it with. We stuck together and we had a great time. And despite several long stops for mechanicals as well as the heat, it was still the fastest I've ever done it. Thanks everybody! And special congratulations to Anita. She's a great rider and she has been riding many years. But this was her first successful wilderness epic. Ironically, her Tahoe ride last week was cut short due to cold weather. So now she has seen both extremes. Below are a few photos. We were moving too fast on the cool gnarly sections and the Plunge to get many photos. Perhaps others will have some to post. 

Click on an image to enlarge it

Unloading at Sherman Pass	Anita ready to rock	Tom, Doug Tim	Anita, Mike, Doug Tom, Jerry, Martin Tim	Mike	Mike Jerry
Anita Tim	Anita, Mike Tim	Martin Doug	Martin Jerry	Near Big Meadow	Near Big Meadow
Jerry, Anita	Big Meadow	Big Meadow	Doug in a meadow	On the trail	Martin
Cannell Trail	Cannell Trail	Tom	Doug	Doug	Another Meadow
Mike	Anita	Anita Climbing	Jerry	Tim	Jerry on the Plunge
Lake Isabella	Anita on the Plunge	On the Plunge	On the Plunge	Anita shooting jerry	Near end  of Plunge
Lake Isabella	On the Plunge	Anita climbing "The Wall"	On the  Plunge	Anita fixes a flat	Happy Camper!

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