Ashland Mountain Adventures Blog

I got an e mail from E.C. about a month ago inviting me to a ride/camping trip off the Kern river the little town of Kernville. My first thought was, another weekend trip I can’t make due to the fact that I’ve started a primarily weekend business! I told E.C. (Eric Carter) that I would check back the week of and let him know if I could sneak away. Low and behold… we were slow on the books for that weekend and last min. I contackted him and I was on my way!
A 5 hour drive from my home in Salinas Ca. had me over the top of the Sierra Alta ridge above Woodford and the Kern river and Lake Isabella, what a sight! Following the directions E.C. posted I was at our camp sight by 9:30am in time to catch up with all the sleepy heads that got in at mid night on thursday. A little water in the face a cup of joe and we walked 100′ from camp to the Kern River for some fishing, good thing I brought food!
By noon the bikes were preped and the early crew of myself, E.C. John C., Kevin, Waylin S. Luis and John ? were ready to get on a trail. We started with Sierra Alta. This is west of kernville off the 155 at the top of the ridge at a ski park, 6,200′ and descends back down to about 1,500′. It’s starts out in the pines with a ripping fast swoopy single track that just seemed to keep going on and on! Corner after corner chasing E.C., Kevin and waylin, seeing there different style and lines was like being in the video game Downhill Total Domination! A few off line excursions had us swaping up positions but a super clean E.C. awlays managed to remain up front. When the trail finaly turned up it was a steep twisty climb out to a fire road that was a fairly easy climb to the next junction. At this point there was a rough fire road to the left or a single track to the right, but becouse E.C. wasn’t sure how to navigate our way back on the single track and none of us wan’ted to be lion bait we oppted to Mega Avalanch it down this fire road! It had us all swapped out with tank slappers in most every corner fighting for the front or just to put a wheel into the guy next to ya!
Unfortunatly at one point Kevin hit a loose patch of sand and washed the front wheel into a big rock and went down hard, cutting his right palm open with what looked like a silver doller sized flapper! He was bleeding all over the dirt from his hand, knee and side. After some creative bandaging, jersy sleeve wraped tight with intertube and electical tape, we remounted and started down. We were super carfull at the begining and by the last couple of miles Kevin was lighting off every hit in the road and sliding around every corner! A trip to the E.R. earned him some stiches and a day off the bike however.

Day 2: The Cannal Trail

This starts with a long windy ride up in the shuttle van from Mountain and River Adventures. The owner John, got us all checked in and ready to go with maps and a full cup of stoke to go! The sights on the way up we amazing! The mighty kern River and it many tributaries, Lake Isabella and The Sierra Mountains we jist awesome!  On the top your at 9,100′ and in the pine forest. The ride starts with a wide pine single track that is O.H.V. so it’s wooped out in places making for some killer doubles and pump sections. It descended and climed between 9,000′ and 8,000′ for the better part of and hour. For every awesome descent there was and equaly tricky ascent. Then a long fire road with some climbing, not bad to the Meadow trail. This starts out super rocky and technical and ends up on a fire road where in about a 1/4 mile there’s a cabin out in the middle of a huge Meadow. We had lunch there and then continued on the Meadow trail wich was up and down fast flowy single track, another short fire road traverce to the Plunge!

 The Plunge: This is where the trail looses 4,000′ of ele in just 8 miles! At this point we are out of the pines and in Chapperel forest, stay on your bike or be ripped to shreads from the harsh suroundings of yuca bush, manzanitta, and rough shale rock. What a blast mixing it up in all the diverce conditions of trails with these incredible riders. Doug “hat trick” from S.C. bicycles and Creig as everone else on theis trip were a hoot to ride with and realy good company around a camp fire.

Day 3: Fogal… where’s Fogal… hey, there’s Sammie no shoes, but where the hell is Fogal? We woke up at 6:30 to make our 8am shuttle just to have  this slacker Fogal be late to the shuttle. A repeat of Sierra Alta Trail was on tap but this time it included the single track that we were unsure of the first time. A ripping run down the pine single track had us all woken up after a late camp fire the night before! when we got to the single track we had not riden yet it was advized that we stay on our bikes or pay the price that the knarly surroundings would dish out! This was a fairly new trail and swooped in and out of reviens with realy good flow if you could manage the tec sections inbetween. We all managed to remain in tact to a short hike a bike up to 10 story… this was a long steep rutted, loose and super fast descent to the fire road below. I road ahead to get photos of the group coming down, what a sight! Everyone managed to clean it and Kevin strieght sent it when he pedaled into it, flew down the steep and launched the ditch gap to road at the bottom! A huge roar from the waiting riders finished this ride perfectly.

 Many thanks to Eric for organizing this and including me in this traip with these realy great guys. I look forward to visiting this place and riding with these guys again soon!