Smith Valley Ride Report

The Smith Valley ride was beautiful. We had 14 riders this year and Derek secured a perfect campsite right on the river. We all owe Derek a beverage for the campsite he picked. The three-day weekend brought out a quite a few people this year and Derek snagged the best spot in the valley. One of the nice things about these campsites is that you are camping on grass, not dirt. This makes for low dust in camp.

We were on the north side of the river this year. This meant that we could ride right out of camp to play around on the jumps, trails and hills. Scott K. should get some serious credit for making the hill climb near our camp. Doug and Joe tried many times, but never got close. Scott made some impressive tries (with even a good loop out) and made it at least three times.

Day 1 started out a bit rough. We tried to make a hill climb at the end of a great sand wash, however it denied the group access to the trail and the top of the ridge. We backtracked around and found some great trails that lead to a ghost town. We even found ourselves actually riding on a grassy trail. No ferns though, but it was real grass!

Day two split the group into two riding groups. One group took advantage of license plates and made a big loop towards Yerington and another ghost town. The other group headed for the “hog back” (D. Wixon’s description of a ridge trail?) trails on the other side of the highway. We had to cross-country a bit, but found some awesome single track and great down hills and up hills.

This area is very under rated for all that is has to offer. There is a lot of serious single track and hills climbs plus great two track trails leading all over the place. There is something for everyone, bikes and quads included. And kids can ride right near camp and have a great time too.

Hopefully we can make this a club ride more that once a year. So mark your calendars for the next Smith Valley trip.

Joseph

Below are displayed thumbnails of the pictures Joseph sent to me. Clikc on the thumbnail to see a full sized 640x480 image.