June 15, 2010 – Truckee CA

Ride Donner Pass

Well this was our last day to ride on this California trip. We cleaned up the house, watched a little World Cup and then drove to Donner Memorial State Park where we staged our ride for today. We rode out through Truckee and then turned up RT 89 before turning back through soem neighborhoods to climb for about 6 miles. We eneded up on Ski Slope Way which was a great road for riding and it was really steep. Here are a couple of pictures from the top of that road.

From here we descened back into Truckee and headed back towards Donner State Park where we'd head out towards the main course of Donner Pass.

As we rode along Donner Pass Road, aparently Paul and Tom didn't stop at a stop sign long enough as we got pulled over on our bikes by Truckee's local finest. Paulk and Tom got verbal warnings and soon enough we were on our way towards the pass. The picture on the left is a view from Donner Pass Road along Donner Lake. Seems to be a common name .. might have something to do with the group in teh 1800's that became stranded here travelling west and they ended up resorting to cannabalism to survive.

The road to the pass was quite spectacular as were the views once we got to the top. Here are some shots form the trip up and from the top.

Unlike most of the passes we climbed, there were no signs that we could find at Donner Pass. As a result, we descended a bot to a scenic overlook and took a couple pictures. Here are Tom and I at the overlook. if you look closely at the shot below, you'll see Paul who was cold and concerned about the strong winds so he didn't stick around for pictures.

We rode back to the car along the opposite shore of Donner Lake and even though we had to take a bike trail, we arrived with no further issues. With that, the great biking trip of 2010 came to an end. No flats, no crashes and no injuries.