Final Trail for This Year's Tevis Cup Confirmed

July 19 2017
by Chuck Stalley, Ride Director

Tuesday evening the Board of Governors of the Western States Trail Ride made the decision on the trail for this year’s ride. We feel we have enough good information to publicly announce the following:

The ride will start at Soda Springs and travel to Lyon Ridge. Riders will use the Red Star Ridge trail to drop into Duncan Canyon, and ride the Duncan Canyon trail to Robinson Flat.

Robinson Flat is the 36-mile point of the ride and from Robinson Flat the trail will follow the traditional route to the finish in Auburn. We will not use Bald Mt., but rather stay on Road 43 to Miller’s Defeat.

The River: High water levels at Poverty Bar (3 miles west of Francisco’s and where riders cross the Middle fork of the American River) prevented us from examining the morphology of the river. We wanted to get in the river and verify that the bottom was solid and no troughs or dangers had been carved out from raging waters last winter. We were able to complete that evaluation last Sunday. In addition, we learned that Placer county water agency is now confident that they can hold back river flows on the night of our ride to enable riders to cross with close to normal Tevis ride water depth. 

We emphasize that the river is NOT CROSSABLE until August 5 as current flows are quite high, rapid, and dangerous. The first six miles of the trail known as the Royal Gorge Ski area are closed as well. We have been granted permission to use the trails for the event and are guests of this area for ONLY THE FEW DAYS LEADING UP TO AND INCLUDING THE RIDE. 



Duncan Canyon and the trail below Devil’s Thumb are also CLOSED due to major trail obstacles. Some of the high country trails are still wet, and some are on the USFS schedule awaiting yearly maintenance which will be completed in time for the ride. 



Please follow these trail guidelines, stay safe and happy training. Please plan to bring your own shade to the base camp as we are in gravel parking lots with little or no natural shade. In addition, we may have “big, high country bugs and pests” so bring repellant for you and your horses. 



Please check the Tevis social media pages as well as our website for trail condition updates as we get closer to the ride. 



Rider Packets will be emailed to the ride list this weekend. If you don’t receive a packet by Sunday night, please email pstalley@yahoo.com to provide an active email address for us to send your packet. Please print the pages you find useful or necessary.

Vehicle passes will be mailed to all riders on Monday, July 24. If you plan to be enroute and not able to receive this mailing at your home address, please contact Jean in the Tevis office ( 530-823-7282) and ask to be put on the “hold” list for vehicle passes. Your envelop will be waiting for you at the Tevis office so you may pick it up when you arrive in Auburn. All foreign rider passes will be held automatically.

We wish you safe training, happy horses and good luck. We'll see you at Soda Springs where Tevis magic will happen.