Sierra Nevada Adventures Single Day Rides

BIG TREES ADVENTURE RIDE

Big Trees Adventure ride EXPLORES an amazing combination of twisty canyon roads including an exciting OFF-ROAD route to visit a historical site and the northernmost Giant Sequoia grove in the middle of nowhere in the Sierra Nevada range, where you will have the opportunity to walk amongst the giants on this amazing ADVENTURE! 

Whether you're a seasoned rider or fairly new at adventure riding, the Big Trees Adventure ride offers an amazing combination of back roads, dirt roads, and scenic canyon views with the opportunity to explore a unique historical site and the northernmost grove of Giant Sequoias within the Sierra Nevada range. This amazing motorcycle adventure ride is all about the BIG adventure!

Your adventure begins in the gold rush mining town of Folsom where you will travel back roads to the discovery site that sparked the California Gold Rush. On January 24, 1848, during his regular morning inspection, James Marshall made the discovery that would change the course of California and even American history. He spotted a gleam in the bottom of the tailrace, scooped up a handful of gravel, examined it closely, and concluded that he had found “gold”.

James Marshall’s discovery of gold in 1848 on the South Fork of the American River in the valley the Nisenan Indians knew as Cullumah (beautiful valley). This event led to the greatest mass movement of people in the Western Hemisphere and was the spark that ignited the spectacular growth of the West during the ensuing decades. The gold discovery site, located in the still visible tailrace of Sutter's sawmill in present-day Coloma, California, is one of the most significant historic sites in the nation.

Beyond the historic gold discovery site, your adventure travels a twisty curvy road along the American River Canyon to a remote dirt road that was once traveled by pioneers in search of the precious mineral known as gold. You will also pass by the historic site of the once-bustling Pino Grande lumber mill. Pino Grande was the lumber milling area for the Michigan-California Lumber Company. Besides the mill, there were dozens of workers' cabins, a hospital, a school, a cooking building, machine shops, and sheds. The camp was, in itself, a small company town. The narrow-gauge railway the lumber company built served the area for decades. The mill, camp, railroad, tracks, trestles, engines, rolling stock, etc., are now long gone. The area where Pino Grande once stood is now a dense forest within the El Dorado National Forest.

Your adventure continues off-road through pine forest eventually connecting to a scenic mountain road where you will descend into the deep canyon of the Rubicon River. Continuing on you will reach the crystal blue water of Hell Hole Lake. With a name like Hell Hole, you might imagine a dismal God-forsaken place but not in this case. Hell Hole located in El Dorado National Forest is a scenic crescent-shaped lake in a remote canyon downstream from the world-famous Rubicon 4x4 trail. Hell Hole acquired its unique name from an unidentified miner seeking riches during the Squaw Valley mining excitement of 1862. After an adventurous prospecting voyage in the Rubicon Canyon, the miner replied, it was "a hell of a hole to get out of," and the name stuck like many other colorful names that came about during the California Gold Rush. 

Beyond Hell Hole, your adventure explores a series of narrow curvy forest roads eventually reaching a remote grove of Giant Sequoia trees where you will have the opportunity to walk amongst the giants. This remote grove of Big Trees is most notable for how much of an outlier it is. The northernmost grove of giant sequoias, it’s also the most distant from any other grove. And it’s the smallest grove, with only six living sequoias: a group of four small trees, plus two larger, isolated trees. Two more large trees fell in 1861. The grove is very much off the beaten track, on a high ridge surrounded by deep, gorge-like valleys, carved by mighty rivers on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada.

Your adventure ride continues on a combination of exciting curvy twisty canyon roads and fun dirt roads where you will eventually make your way back to Folsom which is possibly best known for Johnny Cash’s famous song Folsom Prison Blues.