Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

Tahoe Rim Trail and Flume Trail, Lake Tahoe, Nevada

August 24, 2002

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." 

Most things are grossly overrated these days, but the beauty of the Flume Trail exceeded all my expectations. It was a perfect day, about 70 degrees, and both the skies and Lake Tahoe were the clearest blue I've ever seen. Dennis and I took the shuttle up to Mount Rose, at 8,700 feet, with the intention of doing the Tahoe Rim Trail followed by the Flume Trail, and then heading back down via the Tunnel Creek Trail. After the shuttle drop-off you climb up another few hundred feet via The Rim Trail, so you are at about 9,000 feet. I'm always slow to warm up so the start was quite a challenge once the altitude hit me. The Rim Trail is spectacular, through fields of huge boulders with many natural and artificial rock "stairs" to go up and down. Although I had heard about the "sand" (pulverized granite), it wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. On the way up in the shuttle an experienced rider told me not to slow down and try to steer through it (which I normally do), but to keep up my speed, get way back on the saddle, and let the front wheel float through it. This technique worked quite well. Early on both of us did an endo. I essentially cleared the largest drop I'd ever done but panicked coming down, touched my brake, and I went over the handlebars, landing flat on my back on a huge block of granite. However, my full pack took all the shock except for a crack on my helmet. I got right up totally unscathed. Dennis had an early encounter with the famous "sand" after clearing a huge drop off. Unfortunately, neither fall was caught on tape.

About an hour into the ride Dennis cleared a series of four huge granite drop-offs but somehow he hit a huge boulder at the bottom. Based on his injuries and the tire marks on the trail I believe he hit his face and shoulder on the boulder and then he flipped over it because he landed on his back. He emitted a groan so loud nearby hikers and bikers came running looking for a bear! When I got to him blood was coming out of his eye and mouth and I believe he was out cold for a few seconds. I really thought we were going to need a helicopter (another biker was taken out by helicopter that afternoon). I had him lie still for a while and make sure he had feelings in all his fingers and toes. Fortunately someone came by who seemed to have medical training and they checked him over. The "eye" blood turned out to be a cut just below his eye from his glasses and the bloody mouth was from biting his lip. He sat down for about a half hour while a good Samaritan biker bent his front wheel into a reasonably round shape and then spent 20 minutes playing with the spokes to make it rideable. We decided to proceed down to Incline village via the Tunnel Creek Trail since we were at about the mid point of the trail and we had no ride from where we were dropped off. Since his front wheel was too bent, Dennis finished the entire ride without front brakes. At the intersection of the Flume and Tunnel Creek trails he received medical attention from a bike patrol and he declined a truck ride down to Incline Village. We then proceed down the Flume Trail towards Spooner Lake.

At more than 1,600 feet directly above Lake Tahoe, the Flume Trail has to be the most beautiful trail in the world. Except for the altitude and about 2-3 short bike portages over rocks, the trail is nearly flat and practically for beginners. However, it's a four mile uphill climb from Spooner Lake. Since Dennis was still quite dazed and he had no front brakes, we went at a pretty slow pace. The traffic on the trail was busy but tolerable. On a weekday or off season I bet you could really fly along on it. Once we reached the fire road back down to Spooner Lake, it was too steep for Dennis to maintain control with just his back brake. He put on the front brake but it quickly shredded his tire and blew his tube. He made a temporary patch using business cards but that only lasted about a mile before the replacement tube blew. With 2-3 miles left he started walking. Since there was no way I could walk downhill with my knees for 2-3 miles I flew down to the ranger station looking for someone to go back up and get him. Unfortunately, it was about 5:02 pm and the ranger (the only one authorized to drive up that road) had just left. I biked back up to give Dennis the bad news but in the meantime another good Samaritan biker (Edwin Scherb) had repaired the tire with duct tape sufficiently enough for Dennis to ride down.

Dennis was still in a daze even by 9 pm that night but hopefully he'll do this ride again very soon so he can see how great it really is. He should be proud of the fact that he finished it following such a bad fall, and without front brakes! Not surprisingly he has quite a different take on the ride, you can read it here.

The bullet camera fogged up quite a bit on the Flume Trail, I suspect because we stopped for so long at the aid station. I included some slightly fogged scenes in the video because that's all I had. I now have an excuse to go right back and do the trail again! Here is the route map. Here is the official State Park Map (does not include the upper Rim Trial).

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