This past weekend, several of us from work (me, Beau, Steve, Alex, KC, Tony Allen and others) went to a bachelor’s party for another guy at work (Pete Frank). On Sat., we rode Tahoe’s famous Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.
It was a blast, but very challenging. We started at 7265’, and climbed for almost 4 miles to 8977’. The altitude and technical quality of the climb (lots of large rocks) gave us plenty of reason to stop and catch our breath. Once at the top, the real fun began.
The descent, to 6410’, was a technical rock-fest. Almost the entire route seemed to be laden with everything from loose, small rocks to granite steps to small boulders. Sometimes very narrow, the trail was treacherous…and lots of fun.
Steve did well until about 3/4 the way down. Then he got a little too confident and crashed in the most spectacular way. He should have been hurt a lot worse, but is just bumped and bruised. Tony spread his falls more consistently over the mountain, but also ended up just scraped and sore. I think all of us were off the bike at some point, but no one else really took a major header.
Our final stats were 1755’ of climbing, 2610’ of descending over a 10.4 mile ride. It took on the order of 4.5 hours.