Mountain Biking in Tahoe and Kirkwood

Ever since boarding in Whistler I’ve been enamoured by the idea of going to a ski resort in the summer. Last weekend we finally got our act together and went to Tahoe with our bikes (and all our camping gear). After arriving late on Friday night at Emerald Bay State Park camp site, we set out on Saturday to find a gentle introduction. After visiting a bike shop we headed out to the Tahoe Rim Trail. Not really the gentle introduction we were after but there’s nothing like starting in the deep end! Our only problem, my rear brake leaked and there’s not many places on a mountain to get a top up of hydraulic fluid! Fortunately we’d already started heading back by the time it had completely given up.

On Saturday, we got a very early start (leaving the camp site at 8am, the horror) and drove down to Kirkwood where we’d heard they have lifts open during the summer. For $32 we got unlimited use of the two lifts open, leading to ~10 different runs, ranging from Green to Black Double Diamond. We started with a pretty straight-forward green run, which was basically a very rough access road.


(Mountain Concierge Service)	(Lisa the Downhill Demon)	(Lisa flying past)

We then tried our chances at a blue, which went pretty well. So we moved on to a Black Double Diamond, which was long and painful but we both survived with no accidents. We’d quickly learnt our limits for the day however, so we continued playing around on the Blues, before heading home in the afternoon.


(A well earned rest)	(Enjoying the View)	(What a View!)

Our only ‘injury’; my eyes didn’t particularly appreciate all the sweat, sun tan lotion and dust!

Too Much Sun Tan Lotion, Sweat and Sand! at 599 Third Street

(Oops)