After a morning of skiing at Squaw Valley today, I had a chance to play on some of the Tahoe-Pyramid trail. If you have driven on Rt. 80 from Truckee to Reno, you have seen sections of this trail from the highway visable between the highway and the Truckee River. Last fall I had tried to find the one trailhead in Verdi with no luck so I decided to start where I knew there was trail access right from Rt. 80 in that large parking are just west of the Nevada border.
I parked the Alltrack and decided to go west and found THIS trail access quite easy, as with finding the west access simple and well marked from this lot too. Heading west starts off on some double track which parts were originally paved at some point but quickly turns into single track. The single track is vey mature and very well mantained, so well that I saw more gravel bikes with the higher than expected traffic, than I saw mountain bikes. The gravel bike riders were on a large loop ride that started in Verdi and went up Dog Valley Road, through Hirschdale then down the Tahoe-Pyramid Trail...all I can say is "good for them".
Back to my ride, I did a 6 mile out and back and I can see wanting to do some more. For the time being I will eat this elephant one bite at a time and check out different sections. There are sections that are more challenging than others but none of what I have found so far has been overly technical and according to the map, they bill it as "green' section and gradual climbs because you are going against the flow of the river but as you get to Floriston is when the trail will start climbing, that section I will save for a later date.
