We parked at French Gulch trail head. To get there you have to drive across the dam, and it is the first parking lot on your right. We started out by riding across the dam and picking the trail up on the north west corner of the lake.
The very first section of the trail is called "Da-Ku-Be-Te-De." I feel that it is the hardest part of the entire ride. The trail surface is large loose rock and the drop off to the lake is steep which makes this sections of the trail sketchy. But we cruised through it no problem despite the fact that I had forgotten to unlock my shocks.
There were some freshly fallin tree's and logs covering the trail, but they were easy to hope over. We made good time and we were back out on the road before we new it. The lake was really busy, but we encountered very few people actually on the trail. Most were just fishing off of the banks.
Once we were on the south east side of the lake we really started to pick up the pace because we were nervous about not having enough day light. But, we flew along and were back at the car before dark.
We started at 6:30 pm. The ride took us 1:50 but our ride time was less then 1:40, so we were back to the car before dark. The route we took was 17.5 miles and had 1950 feet of elevation gain. It was a good trip and a fun ride. My only disappointment was that Frank didn't crash!
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