Lake Tahoe is experiencing a golden age of trail building with the biggest project of all on the horizon. But it wasn’t always this way. Here’s the story of how a group of people in Tahoe rose up to the task of making big ideas become reality.
Chris McNamara has ideas—big ones. A professional climber and writer based in South Lake Tahoe, California, he also has experience acting on them. Like in 1999, when he needed more beta on big wall climbs, he founded the forum SuperTopo and proceeded to write 10 guidebooks on the subject. The idea he’s working on now is a mountain bike trail that would allow cyclists to ride entirely on dirt all the way around Lake Tahoe. He calls it the Lake Trail.
The genesis of the Lake Trail was a conversation with a friend—the officiant at his wedding—who hiked the 500-mile Camino de Santiago in his 70s. The miles were doable because of the support and lodging along the trail. “It just totally opened my eyes to the potential of long trails that are more accessible,” says McNamara. A trail of this scope also fell in line with his vision (which he shares with photographer Corey Rich) to turn South Lake Tahoe into the “Outdoor Capital of the World.”
Currently, the 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail circles its namesake lake, but it’s primarily a path for hikers, and while sections are open to mountain bikers on even days, there is no legal way to ride a bike around Tahoe without pedaling for long sections on pavement.
So McNamara got to work. He pulled up current trail maps and compared them to historic U.S. Geological Survey maps and Strava heat maps. He took his bike into the woods and got lost. And eventually, he stitched together a 130-mile route.
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From REI Bike
REI’s Co-op Journal is dedicated to covering the outdoors: the people who inspire you, the issues and events impacting our community, the skills and gear you need for your next adventure, and the places you want to go. Through a mix of explanatory stories, long-form features and diverse perspectives, we aim to inspire, educate, entertain and enable the co-op community for a lifetime of adventure.
