Into the Sierras Part One: Million Dollar Road

Shaver Lake / Million Dollar Road:: 48.35 miles, 6,499 feet of elevation

(This is Part One of a Series of Three Riding in the Sierra National Forest)

We’re fortunate that the San Gabriel Mountains serves Los Angeles as a mini-Sierra Nevadas, but sometimes you need the real thing.

Surprisingly, my exposure to this vast and variable range has been far more limited than you’d imagine and my racing success is even worse.

Still, I know there’s a lot of magic to be had, but even with the internet providing a good amount of information you don’t really know what you’re getting into until you’re there.

Two years ago, I did a little detour along the foothills which was nice, but was missing the majesty I was hoping for.

I always wanted to go deeper, but was worried about the logistics of winding water or riding on dangerous roads.

This summer, my friend Brian was heading to Europe for another six month long plus vacation and going for a weekend trip felt like the proper send off.

With my constant looking at Strava heat maps, I was convinced a return was needed, but at a bit higher elevation.

Shaver and Huntington Lakes sat a few thousand feet above my previous excursion and the promise of more trees and rock outcroppings sealed the deal.

I planned the routes which included two days of riding with a total of 14k feet of climbing and if a third day happened too, then so be it.

Here’s Day One of our trip that included a four hour drive before unraveling our legs down to Million Dollar Road:

The Central Valley is filled with uneventfulness. I’ve passed Bravo Farms a couple of times previously enough to have a look inside hoping it to me a mini-Wall Drug. Meh…I guess…

This was our little cabin we AirBNB’d. We each had our own bedroom and was pretty reasonably priced for a June rental. I may be back…

Starting off our clockwise loop, we headed down Highway 168 which is great for doing downhill, but climbing up would be a bit of a problem with the amount of traffic and the narrow width.

We made right turn onto Auberry Road, the only redundancy from my previous trip. It starts with a great view of the Sierras before eight miles of long term handlebar gripping on the descent.

We were going so fast, we almost missed the turn onto Jose Basin Road. Thank god I remembered this sign from the last trip…

Parts of the road crossed paths along an earlier rail line that served the lumber industry at the turn of the century.

Homes were scarce along this stretch, but had character…

We were only climbing at a slight rate, but started to get views down below. At that time, we had to head down below on the narrow and slightly rutty Italian Bar Road to continue our loop.