I did my first multi-day bikepacking trip last week. Drove from Phoenix to Reno last weekend and started my ride on Monday. The first couple of days were a little tough for me. I started North of the Mt. Rose campground. I had read online that the Flume trail was open so I didn’t take the reroute and ended up finding out that it was not fully open and I had to turn around at Marlette Dam. I stayed at the Marlette Peak campground that night and started the reroute in the morning. I ran into a really nice guy who showed me a faster way to get to Spooner Lake via Snow Valley Peak road, which was brutal but saved me from going all the way to Carson City and around. I ended up getting a hotel room in Kingsbury that night as I was absolutely exhausted. I only did 10 miles the following day to Star Lake where I camped for the night. At this point, I was worried I wasn’t making enough progress and it would take me longer than I intended. The following day I rode to Emerald Bay and stayed at the D.L. Bliss campground, which was a little disappointing as it was nowhere near the water but a family camping near me invited me to eat with them and it made my night. The following day I planned to make it at least to Truckee and probably finish up the following day. I ended up making it to Truckee by noon and decided to ride all the way back to Reno via the Tahoe-Pyramid Trail. I had seen someone on bikepacking.com post a “vacation edition” of the route in the comments of the route page that included this trail instead of taking the singletrack north and around. It ended up being a very interesting and fun part of the ride. This was probably the most amazing week of my life and I’m so grateful to have been able to do it. I fall in love with bikepacking more and more every time I do it, despite the absolutely brutal times where I wonder why I do this to myself. Can’t wait for my next trip!
by mysteryShmeat