Bikepacking - SnF reverse day 1


bikepacking

I’ve been itching to go on a longer bikepacking trip this summer, but the timing just hasn’t worked out. Before you know it it’s going to be winter so I figured I had to get creative if I was going to make something happen. We had a camping trip to Warm Lake planned with my parents so I started researching route options around there. Heidi was willing to drive home without me so I was focusing on ways to get home from Warm Lake. Initially I was thinking about spending a single night out and taking a direct route that went by Deadwood Reservoir and then Placerville. But as I thought more about it, doing the reverse Smoke-n-Fire route and spending a few more days was something I was more interested in.

Day 1: Warm Lake to Stanley

After a great couple days camping with my parents I strapped my gear on the Fargo and took off for Stanley. I shed my jacket quickly as I started the climb up to Warm Lake Summit. The weather was clear and cool, the car traffic was nonexistent. The climb was hard, but perfect. And the descent was even better. I hung a right near the bottom and made my way towards Deadwood Reservoir on Landmark Stanley Road.

The first part of the Landmark Stanley Road was very scenic with lots of waterways and creek crossings. I met a few motorcycles who looked like they were doing the Idaho BDR. I climbed up past Deadwood Reservoir Summit and then descended that as the road got a bit sketchier. About seven miles before the actual reservoir I turned east and continued on the Landmark Stanley Road. (It would have been nice to go and check out the reservoir, but a 14 mile roundtrip was just too much.) This was a gradual climb that got up into a really burned out area that was pretty exposed. The road continued to be pretty shitty (i.e., lots of washboard).

I stopped at Deer Flat Campground and ate a little “lunch.” The road continued to deteriorate into more and more washboard. It was a bit frustrating, as much as riding your bike in an amazing part of the world can be, because it seemed like either I was climbing (slowly), descending on a sketchy road surface (slowly), or riding on a flat part of the road, but going slowly due to the washboard. I was also getting pretty beat up.

But it was a pretty amazing area. Lots of waterways and riparian zones. Once I got to the Bruce Meadows rest area the road got a lot better. But only because they were actively working on it and there were a ton of gravel trucks on the road. I mean, a ton. At one point there was a flagger where the guy had traffic stopped, which was really just me and a bunch of these trucks. One of the drivers was out so I was talking to him. I thought maybe they were just running over the road to tamp down the fresh gravel (because there were so many and they seemed to be turning around at the rest area), but he said, no, they were actually dumping fresh gravel ahead of where we were stopped. But the only place they could turn around was at the rest area, which was miles down the road. So it was like a parade of trucks.

After that I climbed up to Cape Horn Summit, which was were the road work stopped. I descended that and crossed Highway 21 onto a pretty narrow and rough doubletrack. It was, of course, better than the highway, but it was slow going.

I criss-crossed the highway a couple times and made my way towards Stanley. I stopped and filtered some water at Marsh Creek, which was about 10 miles from my target, which was Sheep Trail Campground. I got there around 17:00 and was pretty smoked. There was no one in the campground and while it had a table, a bathroom, a dumpster, and water, it wasn’t great (was pretty burned out from a forest fire). But, I was tired and hungry so I decided to stay. I ate, cleaned up a bit using water from the well/pump, and tried to go to bed early.

It was a pretty awesome day, but was a little harder than I thought it would be. I think the elevation gain and the rough, washboard roads beat me up a lot. Still, an amazing day on the bike.

  • Distance: 69.4 miles
  • Climbing: 5315 feet
  • Highest point: 7300 feet

bikepacking_snf_rev_101 Rig for this trip (near Warm Lake Summit)

bikepacking_snf_rev_102 Johnson Creek

bikepacking_snf_rev_103 Deadwood Summit

bikepacking_snf_rev_104 Fifty-one to Stanley

bikepacking_snf_rev_105 Burnout

bikepacking_snf_rev_106 Elk Creek

bikepacking_snf_rev_107 Cape Horn Summit (and gravel truck, one of many)

bikepacking_snf_rev_108 Marsh Creek

bikepacking_snf_rev_109 Sawtooths in the distance

bikepacking_snf_rev_110 More burnout

bikepacking_snf_rev_111 Sheep Trail Campground