California Sierra Passes

tomatocity

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For any rider planning to ride the California Sierra Passes... the not so good news is Sonora (CA-108) and Ebbetts (CA-4) will not be open for the Memorial Day weekend http://thepinetree.net/new/?p=39683 . It is not uncommon to ride these passes in a loop and I have been Jonesin' to do this but will have to wait.

Monitor Pass has been open a couple weeks and I need to plan a trip to enjoy my favorite Sierra Pass.

I am going to try and ride all the Sierra Passes this year. Sherman Pass is high on my list.

What California Sierra Passes have you ridden or plan to ride?
 

EricV

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I've ridden all the paved Sierra passes many times. It gets a little tedious if you do them all the same day, (it was a 24 hour rally). Watch for deer!

Best done as a relaxing loop, not trying to do too many in a single day ride, just enjoying the roads and scenery with plenty of camera stops and a nice lunch break. Great way to have fun over a series of weekend rides.
 

WJBertrand

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Done them all from either direction at least once or twice, some of them more. Note that I have my national parks geezer pass, I can ride Tioga for free.
 
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NewAdvRider

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Wow, I hadnt realized I was so close to a complete-ish set although I guess I have been doing this for 30 years. Maybe I need to run them again in a concentrated effort / time span.

DONE:
1. Hwy 4, Monitor pass, both directions a few times, friends have a cabin half way up from sacramento.
2. Hwy 88, Do they call it Carson Pass, both directions a few times over the past 25 years.
3. Hwy 108, Sonora Pass once each direction.
4. Hwy 120 to Mono Lake and back home to bay area in 1 day twice, always mid-summer.
5. Hwy 70 Oroville to Reno and back 3 days I think, camped and detoured north on 395 to see a buddys cousin near Honey Lake.
6. and 7. Hwy 50 and 80 don't count, do they? Many, always love it though.

NEED:
A. B. I need Hwy 36 and 44 up north. I'm thinking that will finish off the main sierra passes assuming that Lassen marks the northern extend of the Sierras (I'm not sure if it does although wikipedia defines the northern most sierras stopping at the Susan River which is largely south-ish of 36).
C. Always wanted to look at M50 - Mountain Hwy 99 - Forest Rte 22505 - Sherman Pass Rd North of Kernville. Very twisty, Is a lot of it RESIDENTIAL? It might be more suited to Tenere speeds that the old vfr speeds. I dont know that I'd call it a sierra pass though (actually now that I'm looking at wikipedia, they list southern boundary of sierras at Tehachapi pass so I guess it is and I still need:
D. hwy 178 and
E. hwy 58/14 which looks like a fun 175ish mile loop which might be ok in the winter as it mostly looks like it runs through the deserts a lot.

NOW THAT I HAVE A TENERE:
Are there dirt road / forest service road passes I should start looking into? I'll bet there are... I only know of Rubicon off the top of my head though, I'd guess that it's a good time but loaded with posers in jeeps...
 

Don in Lodi

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Wow, I hadnt realized I was so close to a complete-ish set although I guess I have been doing this for 30 years. Maybe I need to run them again in a concentrated effort / time span.

DONE:
1. Hwy 4, Monitor pass, both directions a few times, friends have a cabin half way up from sacramento.
2. Hwy 88, Do they call it Carson Pass, both directions a few times over the past 25 years.
3. Hwy 108, Sonora Pass once each direction.
4. Hwy 120 to Mono Lake and back home to bay area in 1 day twice, always mid-summer.
5. Hwy 70 Oroville to Reno and back 3 days I think, camped and detoured north on 395 to see a buddys cousin near Honey Lake.
6. and 7. Hwy 50 and 80 don't count, do they? Many, always love it though.

NEED:
A. B. I need Hwy 36 and 44 up north. I'm thinking that will finish off the main sierra passes assuming that Lassen marks the northern extend of the Sierras (I'm not sure if it does although wikipedia defines the northern most sierras stopping at the Susan River which is largely south-ish of 36).
C. Always wanted to look at M50 - Mountain Hwy 99 - Forest Rte 22505 - Sherman Pass Rd North of Kernville. Very twisty, Is a lot of it RESIDENTIAL? It might be more suited to Tenere speeds that the old vfr speeds. I dont know that I'd call it a sierra pass though (actually now that I'm looking at wikipedia, they list southern boundary of sierras at Tehachapi pass so I guess it is and I still need:
D. hwy 178 and
E. hwy 58/14 which looks like a fun 175ish mile loop which might be ok in the winter as it mostly looks like it runs through the deserts a lot.

NOW THAT I HAVE A TENERE:
Are there dirt road / forest service road passes I should start looking into? I'll bet there are... I only know of Rubicon off the top of my head though, I'd guess that it's a good time but loaded with posers in jeeps...
Henness Pass out of Verdi is one I need to get. Some of it is dirt. Johnson Pass is a tiny run from 50 to 50 just before/after Echo Summit. Last time I tried that one snow still had it closed. Wiki doesn't list them.
 
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NewAdvRider

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Getting on to where the passes might be opening soon. Still a decent amount of snow on 108 and 4. Anyone up for putting something together this summer?
 
B

ballisticexchris

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Sherman Pass is a great one!! I go up to Kennedy Meadows almost every Year (to ride single track) . I have never ridden it on a bike though. I plan on doing it on my Tenere in August and hitting a lot of the forestry roads.
 
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B

ballisticexchris

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I've ridden all the paved Sierra passes many times. It gets a little tedious if you do them all the same day, (it was a 24 hour rally). Watch for deer!

Best done as a relaxing loop, not trying to do too many in a single day ride, just enjoying the roads and scenery with plenty of camera stops and a nice lunch break. Great way to have fun over a series of weekend rides.
I would like to see that. I don't see how you could ride every paved road in the Sierra passes in a 24hour period. That would be wild.

I'm not sure what I have ridden other than through Yosemite on my Ninja 650R.
 

EricV

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I would like to see that. I don't see how you could ride every paved road in the Sierra passes in a 24hour period. That would be wild.
It's a brutal ride and I did not ride the complete roads in both directions from the passes, but rather reached all the summits. Started in Gerlach, NV and ended in Ridgecrest, CA. Mostly staying on the East side of the Sierras due to the format and required checkpoint. Some construction traffic and normal slower traffic added additional challenges. I never went particularly fast, (except crossing DV from NV), keeping it to only around 5-10 over when anything over was possible to avoid LEO encounters.
 
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