Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

"The Punisher"
Tahoe Rim Trail: Kingsbury Grade down Mr. Toads Wild Ride
Lake Tahoe CA/NV, July 22, 2006

Take me to the video. A few weeks ago K-Max proposed about a 40 mile epic ride on the Tahoe Rim Trail from Spooner Summit to Kingsbury Grade, on to Heavenly, and then down Mr. Toads Wild Ride. A lot of people expressed an interest. However, since the ride included several thousand feet of climbing at elevations ranging from 7,100 to nearly 10,000 ft. I suggested those who had not ridden at Tahoe or altitude might want to reconsider. Since I had never done the Heavenly section and I'd heard for many years how technical Toads was, I suggested a shorter ride for some of us. Dan'ger came up with the idea of a "mere mortal" ride, just Heavenly down Toads. This had once been an mtbr gathering ride called "The Punisher" since it was about 25 miles long, started at 7,500 ft., eventually climbed to nearly 10,000 ft and ended with the technical downhill known as Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

So about 16 of us met at the bottom of Toads, sorted out who was on what ride, and we shuttled to our respective starting points. Dust Bunny (who did Spooner to Kingsbury roundtrip) and Fiona graciously handled returning the vehicles to Toads so we didn't have to retrieve them at the end of our rides. Thanks ladies! Six people: 8Trak, Dan'ger, Grrrah, and three really fast guys, Dan, imridingmybike, and Josh, accompanied me on the Punisher, while about 8 others did the proposed epic ride, now called the Extreme Punisher. Names I recall on the latter include: The 0gre, Fast Eddy, Jilm, Bigboulder, Morganfletcher, and K-Max (perhaps somebody can fill in the rest). I suspect they'll have a separate report anyway.

Well, The Punisher lived up to its name right from the start. Perhaps the hardest part was the initial steep, loose climb, cold from the parking lot at 7,500 ft., under warmer than normal temperatures. As usual I began to question my abilities (and sanity), but it was just my typical slow painful start. I settled down after about an hour and we made the first 5 mile climb to over 8,800 ft. and then the next 4 mile climb to 9,100 ft. Star Lake faster than I expected. The next 5 miles included an exhausting climb, often with a lot of hike-a-bike, to nearly 10,000 ft. Freel Pass, before a great descent to 8,700 ft. Armstrong Pass. I felt a bit dizzy for a while after pushing my bike across a snow field at the highest point and about that time Dan'ger started getting sick. He felt pretty badly for about the next 8 miles until we got near Toads. He came back to life and led me down that quite well. Toads was not as bad as I expected. There were 3-4 short but really gnarly parts near the top but after that I made most everything. The real surprise was how many miles of really fast twisty and swooping singletrack there were after the gnarly sections. But perhaps the highlight of the ride was a really cool, long descent from Freel Meadows to the top of Toads. I wish I had known it was coming because I did not turn on the helmet cam until we were nearly finished with it. Thanks for a great ride guys and especially Dan'ger for arranging the ride. Congratulations to 8Trak on his first Tahoe ride, and nice meeting and riding with Grrrah! And special thanks to K-Max for instigating the whole ride!

I actually think I could do the full epic ride, perhaps in about 12 hours, provided it was at my own pace and with fewer stops. Maybe someday. Here is the elevation profile, courtesy of Dan'ger and here is a map of the route (Toads is Saxson Creek).

Click on an image to enlarge it

Most of group pre-ride	Loading up	8Trak	8Trak	Dan'ger, Grrrah 8Trak	On the trail
Dan'ger	On the trail	Star Lake	Dan'ger filtering water	Grrrah	Dan imridingmybike Josh
Lake Tahoe	Boring scenery	Dan'ger	8Trak	Star Lake	Hike-a-bike
Lake Tahoe	8Trak, Dan'ger Grrrah 10,000 ft.	Grrrah	Cool rocks	Glacial features	8Trak taking a break
Freel Peak?	On the trail	Cool tree	Grrrah	8Trak	Grrrah
MTB Canuck, Suzy	On the trail	Lake Tahoe	Really bored	Grrrah	Most of group post-ride

Click the image for larger view  

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