Bear Valley Loop Trail (Sierra Trek pre-run) Saturday July 27th

Jeff_R said

Jase and Stace said

Yes Brian was the only one that made it up winch hill 2 despite his antique Toyota.

That's because he was the only one who tried to go up winch hill 2. If you look at photos in the gallery, you will also see that Brian couldn't make it up ball pein hill with me pushing him. Photo's don't lie!

You’re correct, it’s a good thing you were there so we didn’t have to winch him out. Photo evidence!

Funniest comment of the day award goes to Stace. After working on Brian's 4-ruuner, Brian and Jace hop in and drive it several times around the parking lot at the OHV/snow park area where we were working on it. Stace says "They look like a couple of rednecks in that thing". After a very brief pause she continue "But Jace looks like a redneck in any vehicle".😂

Sadly I had a kid in tow so I couldn’t stay to play mechanic in a parking lot. I also got to use her as an excuse to avoid participating in the valve stem issues while airing down. Started from the road at about 10:15am and ran the loop starting at 19/20. Only hung about half of the numbers up to 34 as the existing numbers were clearly visible. Found evidence of the adopt a trail club doing decent clearing this year in the 20-30 range. Only a couple of very short areas with some overgrowth basically single bushes. At noon I was at 1/34 and by 12:30 I was rolling up to ballpeen (9) to meet the rest of the group for lunch. Finished lunch around 1:15 and we were back to air up by 2:30. The trail is now very clearly marked and I have all the markers in OnX for those that want it.

For Trek with our 9am departure time from the parking lot I think we could lead a run of the entire trail if we break the attendees into sufficiently small groups and have spotters stationed on ballpeen, WH2, and maybe the rock garden. The starting points that seem easiest to use would be 19, 28, and 3. Maybe we send the guys that want to spend the most time on the rocks (ballpeen/WH2) straight to 3 and people who want to run the whole loop to 19. The group that starts at 28 would be anyone planning to bypass the obstacles and thus hopefully not create a traffic issue even if they caught up to the group starting at 3.

The only places I am worried about people missing turns are at 2, 3, 8, 15, 28, and 31 with 2 and 3 being the only real risks where our signs don’t stand out enough and 8 and 15 where people may default to straight despite signs.