As of this writing, this shuttle, operated by the Flume Trail Bikes shop, runs from July to November regularly between 2:00 to 5:00 on the hour, and can be reserved for other times by prior arrangement. An alternative could be to park at Spooner Lake and start the ride there, only to pick the shuttle at the end of your ride to return to your car. The safer bet would be to park at the Tunnel Creek Shuttle Station near the bottom of Tunnel Creek Road, and to take the shuttle from there to start the ride from Spooner Lake. The connection between the end of the ride and the beginning would be by a shuttle. The most common (and shortest) route for riding Flume Trail would start as the reverse of this ride by setting out from the Spooner Lake parking lot, climbing the fire road up North Canyon to Marlette Lake, skirting along the western shore of that lake to Marlette Dam where you can pick up Flume Trail, following the trail to its northern end and taking Tunnel Creek Road down to Route 28. If you're reading this page only with an interest in riding Flume Trail itself, you should know that this route is not the most typical way of riding that trail. This one is a one-way shuttle ride that incorporates Flume Trail as part of a longer ride that's mostly a descent. This is mostly due to its dramatic setting (much of it is carved into a very steep hillside) and the spectacular views of Lake Tahoe that it affords, but it's easy to see that a big part of this popularity is due to the low difficulty level of the trail, allowing many more people than just avid mountain bikers to enjoy it. I think the bike rental shop is moving from Spooner to the end of the trail in July 2012.It's probably safe to say that Flume Trail is the best known biking trail in the Lake Tahoe area. If you plan to do turn-around option get an early start in order to avoid the crowds on the trail. If I did it again I would start at Spooner Lake and at end of the flume part of trail turn around and ride back to trail head. The only scary part for me was the 40 foot walk through the landslide area. You would fall a looong way if you fell off the trail but the chances are slim (the shuttle driver says he doesn't know of anyone that has taken this route but said injuries do occur going down the sandy road at the end). The flume trail hugs side of mountain (it is an old flume bed once used as water source for Virginia City) but pretty buff and not very steep or difficult. The scenery on the whole trip is good, on flume part of trail the views of the lake are awesome. I'm 50 year old intermediate biker (couple of 2 hour rides a week and the gym) and made it up the climb fine with a few stops. A dirt road climbs for 4 miles and goes around small lake, a trail descends the 'flume' for ~5 miles then a very sandy steep roadbed goes down to the shuttle pickup. This is the perfect vacation bike ride, it's easy to rent bikes at trail head with nice people at Spooner lake, ride the trail then take their shuttle back to shop (google 'flume bike trail' for rental info). Bottom line: If you attempt for the first time, understand that it will take more effort than you probably expect! I can say with confidence that if we had better understood the challenge it would be, we definitely would have passed on this ride. Overall, our biggest disappointment was that we felt misinformed about the degree of difficulty. The shuttle service back to the trail head is a must unless you want to spend another three hours +/- getting back. However, the rental shop at Spooner Lake was great and the equipment was also nice. No doubt the views are divine but after all the toil it takes to get to them (+/- 8 miles) we were in less of an admiring mood. Unfortunately, we spent a good deal of time walking our bikes secondary to the steep climbs, sandy terrain, and occasional technical turns. We are both quite fit (cross-training exercise 3-4x/week minimum) and casually road bike fairly frequently. Our ride quickly went from enjoying to surviving as this trail was much more demanding than expected of described. The Flume Trail was highly recommended and so we gave it a shot. My wife and I wanted to moutain bike during the first part of our Honeymoon when staying in North Lake Tahoe.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |