Cannel Plunge

As long as I can remember, I have a profound respect for the wilderness and the pitfalls surrounding those unprepared. Well, we fell right into the unprepared category and it will not happen again...

Jenn and I participated in a recent group ride which entailed riding the Cannel Trail above Kernville. My brother Sean, Wife Debbie, friend John, and three others from the Valencia area joined Jenn and I in Kernville. Jenn and I work at 4 am last Saturday to make the drive to Kernville and arrived just over three hours and fifteen minutes. We all stashed food, water, and everything we could into the camel backs preparing for at least a half day ride.

We all boarded a shuttle and headed further north into the Sierra Nevada mountains and hit our starting location just below Sherman Peak. As we all unloaded, it dawned on me just how far north we were since I could see Olancha Peak directly east with Mt. Whitney and the western divide within easy view north of us. Smokes, we were up there.

Pre-shuttle ride in Kernville.

The ride started just north and almost immediately turned into a hike. Within the first mile and 1/2, we ditched the bikes in the trees and continued the jaunt to Sherman Peak to see the views. The mountain peak was spectacular at 10,200 feet above sea level and offered a strong view point of the largest mountain peaks in the continuous continental United States.

From Shermin peak, it was double back the trail to the starting spot and head south on the Cannel Trail. The trail consisted of very loose late season decomposed granite and pumis and was not much different than trying to ride beach sand up hill...! The first 6 miles was lots of walking and riding through meadows. The next 12 miles was a mix of meadow riding and very technical rocky downhill sections until we reached our half way destination at Big Meadow. After this lunch, this was where the real adventure began...

Big Meadow in the distance. The ladies were real troopers...

Following lunch, we jumped on our bikes and began to cross the meadow. Since our path was in sight of several very large and looming bulls in the meadow, we took a different line and re-converged on the other side of the meadow only to believe we were on the correct trail. Little did we know we took the wrong trail and spent the next 1 hour plus searching the foothill for the correct trail head. We ended up doing the worst thing possible, trying to navigate a short cut and ended up having to go back to the start of the meadow to begin it all again. Only this time, we lost valuable time. Although we were not in panic mode, I had a strong suspicion that our time for the dark zone would be close or within an hour of our completed ride. From here on it, any camera time was always with the comment "let's go, we are burning daylight."We still had 18 plus miles of riding to go...

Opposite end of Big Meadow. Let's keep it rollin girls!

Under normal circumstances, 18 miles could easily be ridden under two hours. On the Cannel, one would be lucky to maintain simply five miles per hour and it was 3:52pm when we left the meadow... Do the math, it was going to be tight and it was constantly on my mind and my wife and sister in law have my pushiness ingrained in their heads...

From the meadow, it was a continuous grind of hiking bikes up very difficult mountain trails and not descending much faster. Also, did I mention we ALL went critically low on water!!!

We all kept our cool and maintained a reasonable progression and even took a few minutes to photo log different parts of the trail. Although we were a little strained with concern of time, we knew we were getting out before nightfall so we took occasional moments to witness just a small glimpse of Gods glory in the mountain landscape.

Crazy unique landscape...

We reached Cannel Peak and looked below at the 8 mile highly technical descent consisting of 8 inches of loosely packed sandy decomposed granite with bouldered adjacent structures. This descent took just under two hours and placed us just a mile north of the town of Kernville and we were simply stoked to be done and safe from the crazy mountain adventure.

The ladies heading into the final 8 mile plunge.

We rode straight for town, bathed in the Kern River, and went to a local pizza place to scarf as much calories as possible. Cold glasses of water never tasted so sweet since I had not had much more than 1 litre of water since 2pm and it was 7 pm when we finished!

After a good meal of pizza and real hydration, Jenn and I drove home. It was beautiful full moon drive and was a silent trip home. Not in the bad sense of the silent time, just obvious reflection of the risk we just took. God was faithful in keeping us safe and moving us through the woods with just a few minutes to spare.

Details: 9 hours, 4300 calories, approximately 40 miles, 4,500 foot ascent, approximately 7,000 foot descent, and hovered at 8,000-9,000 foot for most of the ride. The final 8 miles dropped 5,500 feet!

High Points of the trip:

Time with the wife and very special family
Personal challenge and teamwork
Seeing Gods handiwork
Talking about bear territory only to have a bear run up the hill in front of us
Excellent riding by the ladies - they were amazing!
Seeing Whitney from the backside
Understanding what it is like to be very thirsty
Nobody hurt
Praying continuously
Watching my brother care for his bruised wife

Low Points:

Not being fully prepared
Stress on the ride
Heavy thirst
Watching Debbie crash at least a half dozen times and continue forward

All in all a great experience. Just don't want to experience it again anytime soon.