Enter the "camping cabins" at Barrett Cove campground.
Barrett Cove is a campground on the edge of Lake McClure, in the foothills just east of Yosemite that appears to mostly serve boaters. However, it also adjoins the most excellent Exchequer Mountain Bike Park, a newly-created mountain-bike-only trail system created on Merced Irrigation District land. Given that this is only a couple of hours from home, it seemed like a good thing to check out over a long weekend.
The entrance to the trails is along a singletrack that leads directly from the campground across to a little hill,
where a relatively short (but noticeable!) doubletrack climb takes you up to the top. Nim had no trouble with it.
Once at the top, one could admire the view of the storm coming in,
and then make one's choice of singletrack routes down. I decided that something called "Gnarnia" might be too evil for me... We did a couple of laps to check out the other options.
After exploring various trails, it started to sprinkle. We made it back to the camping hut just before the storm really let loose. Thank goodness for the roof over our heads!
The next day was a repeat, without the rainstorm, but with the addition of much mud on the ground. The kiddo was somewhat bothered by this, but we still all had fun.
On the third day, we had some extra time due to tired legs, so detoured over to check out Railtown 1897 State Historic Park. (What else does one do after noticing such an oddity nearby in the road atlas?) This is the site of the historic roundhouse and trail maintenance yard for the Sierra Railway, and pretty much any historic steam train used by Hollywood in Western movies and TV comes from here. We happened to show up just as a volunteer-led tour was starting. Our tour leader was a charming old character with many stories to tell,
and much fun was had exploring the trains, roundhouse, and train maintenance areas. A most entertaining unplanned diversion!
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