Even though I’ve been up in Lake Tahoe for a little over a week now, I’ve unfortunately had to bring work up with me and, as you can guess, I’ve been stuck doing as much almost everyday since getting here. Need I say, this run up the Deer Valley Trail was the first one we’ve been able to squeeze into our crazy busy schedule and man, am I ever glad we did.
Only 45 minutes from South Lake Tahoe, the Deer Valley Trail (Route 9N83) is a short, 6.6 mile route that starts near the Lower Blue Lakes Dam, cuts through an open corridor in the Mokelumne Wilderness and then ends up over at the Hermit Valley Campground located on HWY 4. Along the way, you will see a spectacular waterfall, will be required to ford two creeks (the first of which is Blue Creek and can be quite deep) and traverse an assortment of rock gardens technical enough to give this trail a “Difficult” rating. Now, while there are bypasses to many of the hardest obsticals, there are a few that cannot be avoided and can be quite difficult to do in a stock JK. I should also point out that Blue Creek must be crossed and even though I went through it slowly in my 3″ lifted JK sitting on top of 35″ tires, we still managed to take on some water. Certainly, the closer to spring you run this trail, the higher the water can be so you may want to take that into consideration before heading out to this trail. Of course, if you’re rig is locked, lifted, armored up and you’re looking for a real challenge, all you need to do is this trail in reverse as it would for the most part be all up hill, on soft dirt and on loose unstable boulders.
For me, I’d have to say that the best time to run the Deer Valley Trail is early summer as it is essentially spring time here, the weather is nice and cool and the wild flowers abundant. However, it is also mosquito season during this time and unless you make sure to douse yourself in DEET, you will get eaten alive.
If you would like to see pics from our Deer Valley Trail run, simply click on the banner above or on the link below:
Deer Valley Trail Run Pics
Eddie
Just Added >> If you haven’t already see it, we’ve finished our video of this trail run and it can be see in our gallery here: Deer Valley Trail Run Video
Or, you can watch it on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKZDQfn67S8
Looks like fun Eddie. Thanks for sharing. What type of winch line is that? That’s new isn’t it?
It’s a Viking synth winch line with safety thimble and I’ve actually had it for a few months now. In fact, the first time I really got to test it out was on the Holcomb Creek run where we helped recover the 4Runner that rolled into the gulch.
Eddie
Deer Valley is considered a mild trail by those of us that live here.
You should have looked me up and I could have taken you on some hard trails.
LOL!! I’m sure those of you who live here would 🙂
As for your offer to take me out on some hard trails go, well, I might have looked you up if I knew to who to look up.
Eddie