Sunday on the Flume

A couple weeks ago Brent and I did the
Flume Trail for the first time this
season. We usually try to do this trail at least 4 or 5 times per summer but since we got the road bikes we have not been mountain biking nearly as much.

This is Max Jones in the background talking with Brent. Brent and Max play soccer together on a masters team (over 40) on Friday nights. As you can see here, they are in deep conversation about bikes. From what I understand, Max built the Flume trail and initially it was an illegal trail but thanks to his advocacy, it is now a legal and very widely known multi-use trail. It is open to hikers, horses, and mountain bikes in the summer and in the winter it is used for cross country skiing and snowshoeing.

There are also cabins available to rent. Brent and I actually stayed in the Wildcat Cabin one year for our anniversary. This was before I was such a biker and we had to pack our gear in on our backs. Lets just say I was crying when we arrived to the cabin and too tired to even make it to Marlette to see the lake! Times have sure changed...thank god.

We started from the parking area at Spooner Lake and headed up to Marlette Lake then took the trail clockwise around Marlette to the Flume then up a crazy amount of switchbacks and back down into Marlette for the decent back to the car. In total it was about 22 miles of goodness.

This is the other side of Marlette Lake once you are on the Flume. The trail is right at lake level here.





Here is the view of Sand Harbor from the Flume. This section of the trail is one of the most photographed of the entire route. It is a single track section that is way up in the mountain with a large drop off on one side. Our dog once chased a squirrel and fell down this section and Brent had to rescue him.

There is one section of the trail that has to be walked because it is too dangerous to ride. It was here where some dumb college kids tried to run me over because I was walking and they were not. I had to tell them that they were supposed to walk this section and they looked at me like I was retarded. Then they walked the section and realized why. It was these same college kids that I passed that were walking up the steepest section of the climb from Spooner.

Here I am climbing yet another hill. This is one of the more challenging rides that we do fitness wise, it will definitely max out your heart rate.

Here I am at the crossroads near the end of the most awesome section of downhill single track that is on the Tahoe Rim Trail. This is the reason we climbed the crazy amount of switchbacks so that we could come down this section rather than climb it.






This is a vista where you can see both Marlette Lake and Lake Tahoe. We took this picture using the delay setting on the camera, got the horizon a bit crooked which reminds me of a Todd Snider song...It's a Crooked Piece of Time that We're Livin In...

The wildflowers are still in bloom in sections of the trail. This is the last little climb out from Marlette Lake to the downhill that takes you to Spooner.

The hardest part of this trail is the climbing but there are several ways to do the loop and there is even a shuttle if you only want to do part of it. This recreation area makes me thankful I live where I do. It is only 20 minutes from our house and absolutely gorgeous.