One of the area’s most beloved mountain bike trails is getting some much-needed love this summer from trail volunteers.
Hole in the Ground, a piece of popular singletrack on Donner Summit, was built approximately 15 years ago as a high-altitude mountain biking alternative to the Pacific Crest Trail, which prohibits mountain biking. But during the past six to eight years, the trail has received a lot of use and almost no maintenance, said Kevin Starr, stewardship coordinator for the Truckee Donner Land Trust and trail volunteer organizer for the Truckee Trails Foundation.
That changed this summer as the Truckee Trails Foundation and the U.S. Forest Service joined forces to puts on two days of trail work that drew dozens of volunteers to Hole in the Ground. As volunteers worked to re-route a steep turn on the climb up to Andesite Ridge, another crew of professional trail workers were rehabbing the back end of the trail near Lola Montez Lake.
Starr said eventually the work will help update the trail to cater to the style and speed of today’s mountain biker.
This summer’s renewed focus on the Hole in the Ground trail may be the beginning of big improvements for the trail. Starr said that the Forest Service has plans to re-route the trail into a “lollipop loop” that would allow mountain bikers to avoid the road riding or car shuttle that is needed to complete the ride today. The trail currently connects into dirt roads and a rugged and notorious stair section before edging close to private property on the exit to the Soda Springs fire station. From Soda Springs, mountain bikers typically ride paved and dirt roads back to the trailhead near Boreal. If re-routed, Hole in the Ground would be longer and would feature more singletrack.
The work on Hole in the Ground signals great things for Truckee and Donner Summit mountain biking in the future. Endurance mountain bikers are salivating at the trail connections that will emerge as the Truckee Donner Land Trust completes the Donner Rim Trail and begins planning potential trails for the Royal Gorge property. Along with Hole in the Ground, those two trails could create an almost endless interconnected network of trails wrapping from Tahoe Donner up to Donner Summit and down to Donner Lake.
That network of trails would require a lot of trail work. But Starr said the budding relationship between the Forest Service, the Truckee Trails Foundation, and the Truckee Donner Land Trust are growing into a partnership that could maintain and continually improve a network like that.
“Bit by bit we are working on this marriage between the two of us, and I see good things happening with it,” said Starr.
~ Comment on this story below.
