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Completed in October 2016, the new Kingsbury Stinger trail offers nearly five miles of new singletrack connecting from the Tahoe Rim Trail near Castle Rock down to the neighborhoods of Stateline, Nevada. Watch this video for the story behind the trail and partnerships.

Stinger: A new trail for everyone from First Tracks Productions on Vimeo.

Project Background: Downhill mountain bike trails have been illegally built by riders for more than 15 years in the area off the top of Kingsbury Grade on the Nevada side of South Lake Tahoe. Twice there was a massive effort by the U.S. Forest Service to tear down these trails, once in 2004 and again in 2009. This was time and money wasted by paid Forest Service trail crews to destroy illegal trails rather than build legal ones. Getting trails rebuilt in this area was one of the forces that helped TAMBA start up again in 2010. Since then, TAMBA has been working with the Forest Service to design, permit, and build a trail in this area that will serve as another downhill connector trail.

Trail Details: The alignment will officially be a re-route of the existing multi-use Kingsbury Stinger Trail (aka Chinese Downhill) and will be open to dirt bikes and mountain bikes. The trail will continue to intersect with the Tahoe Rim Trail at the top (7,960 ft) via Andria Drive in the upper Kingsbury area and will finish near Echo Drive (approx. 6,600 ft) above Highway 50 in Stateline. The objectives of this re-route proposal include significant improvements in sustainability and erosion control, maintenance of the current 50” width for accessibility to motorcycle riders, and increased length (from the current 2.6 miles to over 4.5 miles).

The proposed route goes through several large sections with natural rocks ideal for building an interesting and textured trail features, and the views of Lake Tahoe will increase. For advanced riders, there will be a number of technical rock features, coupled with sustainable ride-around routes for other riders, including motorcyclists travelling uphill. Since the proposed route avoids the uphill sections encountered on the existing descent, the new Stinger Trail is expected to provide downhill mountain bikers with an alternative to the Corral/Connector shuttle trails while preserving access and interest for motorcycle riders and other users. Another goal is to add to the existing new trails that have been built at the top of Kingsbury Grade to connect to the Bench and Genoa trails.

Current Progress: The alignment has been finalized and is going through final NEPA approvals right now. Over $150,000 in grants from Nevada RTP and SNPLMA funds have been secured by the U.S. Forest Service. Full-time crews will start building in June 2015 from the bottom up. This is another model project instigated by TAMBA and constructed by the U.S. Forest Service. We will hold volunteer trail days to help build the trail – see our events calendar for dates. Construction of the 4.5-mile trail will take at least two years to complete with a lot of tough construction through boulder fields. It has been over 10 years since Jackie Chan’s was first shut down, and we are excited to not waste another decade of inaction to rebuild. IMG_1671

Walking new alignments for the trail that will include rock features.   100B9161A The old and the ugly 10 years ago. Named after Kung Fu greats Jackie Chan and Jet Li, some of the jankily-built features on these illegal trails could whoop your ass like a Shanghai Knight.