Robbs Peak Northern Loop Notes

Copyright © 1999 by Jeff Robinson . You are free to use and reproduce this description for personal, not-for-profit, and not-for-business use. Any reproduction other than for personal use, including businesses, organizations, and any other profit making activities require written permission from the author ( jeffs_trails@bigfoot.com , http://www.bigfoot.com/~jeffs_trails ).

Standard Disclaimer: Use this trail description at your own risk . Please see the above web page for safety and other tips.

Introduction

This ride is one of many available off of Ice House Road (off highway 50 in the Sierra). This ride starts out with several miles uphill on dirt roads until it tops out at the old fire lookout on top of Robbs Peak. From here, you have a great 360 degree view of the area around you. The rest of the loop back to where you started is mostly downhill or flat, again on dirt roads.

I would generally describe this ride as advanced beginner. This is true both in terms of how strenuous the uphill is, and in terms of technical difficulty because at least one major section of road has been abandon and has quite a few obstacles and rocks strewn across it.

Trail Description Info

This is a set of notes on the "Robbs Peak Northern Loop," p. 33 of Mountain Biking in the Northern Sierra: Volume One, The Crystal Basin by Bob Ward 1 . They were taken on 8/3/96 when Lynda and I took this ride. Note that linear mileages are recorded from my bike trip computer. The coordinates come from a hand-held GPS, and accuracy should be considered to around ±400 ft. The elevations are taken from a topo map. The "~" symbol means approximately.

Trail Type

This ride is mostly dirt/fire road, with about 1.5 miles of paved road. No single track. It has some excellent views, and Robbs peak is well equipped (out house, picnic table & grill, and the fire station to look from). This is a very easy route to follow, as all junctions are clear, so there can't be much confusion.

Length/Time

This is about a 9 mile loop. We rode it in about 2.5 hours elapsed time, and a little more time for sight seeing would have been nice. Due to the hills and rocks, average trip computer speed was only 5.2 MPH, and the actual (trip computer) riding time was just over 1 hour 40 minutes.

Difficulty

Most riders who are in ok shape and aren't raw beginners should be able to handle this ride. The first 3 miles (the ride to Robbs Peak) is steady granny gear uphill. No killer hills, just steady, low-gear riding. This is all dirt road, and is a little rocky in places but not bad.

After leaving Robbs Peak, the next couple of miles is mostly downhill, but rockier and with some loose branches on the trail. This is the most technical part of the trail, and those below intermediate ability may walk some places. There are also some dirt mounds you will need to walk over.

There are a couple more miles of good dirt road to ride, mostly downhill, with a few short but easy uphills. This is followed by 1.5 miles of riding mostly uphill on paved Ice House Road back to the road you started on, but generally not steep enough to be granny gear riding.

Traffic/Crowds

The road to Robbs Peak is drivable by most cars, and we probably passed 10 vehicles coming down this road when we rode up it (mostly forest service vehicles, but a few personal vehicles, including two cars with mountain bikes on the roof). We didn't see any other bikes, but that is probably because we rode late in the day.

Past Robbs Peak, we saw two people at the turnoff to Robbs Spring, and from there saw no people or vehicles until we got back to Ice House Road. Of course Ice House Road you do have to share with cars moving at a fairly good speed (although traffic is fairly light), and most of Ice House Road doesn't have a lot of shoulder.

Trailhead

As the book says, about 22 miles on Ice House Road from Highway 50, you come to Robbs Valley Resort. Soon after (< 0.5 miles), there is a road on your left with a sign indicating "Robb's Hut" ( ~ N 38° 55' 34.5", W 120° 23' 13.0", waypoint 010 ) . Very quickly you come to a green gate that could close this road, but looks like it hasn't been closed in a long time. Park anywhere along this good dirt/gravel road.

We parked quite near Ice House Road where it was barely wide enough to get the car off the road. However, there are many places a little farther up that are much wider for parking, and I'd recommend starting from one of those places. You could, however, drive at least another 2 miles in if you wanted to, and the day we were there, the gate was open so you could drive all the way to Robbs Peak (about 3 miles). (I don't know if you can normally drive all the way to Robbs Peak or not.)

Route Map

Figure 1 shows the track log and waypoints for this ride. As with all the GPS data in this document, the points are fairly accurate, but there are times (especially when the GPS temporarily lost lock on the satellites) when jogs and such appear in the track log that weren't actually on the route.

Figure 1 : Tracklog and Waypoints

Route Description

The description below (including linear mileages) is based on where we parked quite close to Ice House Road (about 0.15 miles). I'd recommend going a little farther than I did and finding a good parking spot where you can get fully off the road.

1. Biking in the Northern Sierra: Volume 1, The Crystal Basin Recreation Area Of The El Dorado National Forest by Bob Ward, © 1987, Second Edition 1990. Published by Bobo Productions, Sacramento, California.