One word, Lavezzola.
The Lavezzola Creek trail is a seldomly used, much more remote part of the many trails that can be accessed from the Packer Saddle area and ultimately lead back to Downieville. Tom had ridden the trail many years ago on his mtn bike and once or twice on his moto since…I had never been. So, in the spirit of spending a long day out in more remote parts of this section of the Sierras, we set off yesterday to do the “big ride.” We drove from the cabin to Downieville, parked a car and took a Yuba shuttle up to the saddle…what followed were about 7 hours of spectacular scenery, endless ups and downs, lakes, wildflowers, Jeepers, creeks, etc. The topo maps and GPS came in handy a few times but unfortunately I forgot to bring a proper camera…the one of the phone yielded the only photos from the trip…
The riding to the proper singletrack involved about 13 miles of fire roads followed by 1.5 miles of steep, rocky descent, a creek crossing and then several miles of buffed out (by motos) singletrack swooping through forest. The last few miles are on the Lavezzola fire road, the First Divide trail and then you’re back to town. 28+ miles later we were tired, dusty, out of water and nearly out of food. Anyone looking to break away from the traffic on the other popular Downieville trails should definitely try this alternative…
