This section of the flume see far less traffic than the rest. You will start out from El Monte Park as described above but instead of turning west onto the flume trail you will turn east onto the Flume trail and ride it until end of the county maintained section fo the trail. It is about 15miles long and surprisingly a couple thousand feet of elevation gain. So this route is all about I seeing pretty much all of the trail above this side of the El Monte Valley in one shot. The descent back down is zippy but in drier months it could be tricky keeping things under control with loose dirt over hardpack. There is a park bench alongside the trail near the top where you can enjoy the view you earned, eat a tasty snack and maybe call emergency medical services if you about to die. It is pretty brutal with 850 feet of climbing just over a mile. I highly recommend it if you like what you have seen so far on this ride.ī) If you really enjoyed the initial climb to here from El Monte Park at the beginning of the route, you can really treat yourself with plenty more of that style of climbing by taking the upper portion of the El Monte Park up to Creek Hills Road. This is also nice section of trail but a bit more challenging in a few spots. When you get back to the Cape Horn Tunnel and the switchbacks to rejoin the El Monte Park trail you have two additional options:Ī) At the saddle you can continue east on the flume trail for another mile to the legally accessable end of the trail. This is a good spot to turn around and enjoy the flume in the other direction. At just under five miles you will reach the El Monte Tunnel and a split in the trail that will either take you either up to Lake Jennings or take you down to the Helix water district facility. There are also a few unmarked spurs typically that shoot up the hill to the homes at the top of the ridgeline. The trail overall is currently rated as green/easy, but these spots could push it into the blue/intermediate range. There are about five or six spots where a little hike-a-bike maybe in order for some to most riders. The trail in those areas dips down into those areas so you will have numerous spots of undulation as you work your way towards the west end of the flume trail.

The flume had numerous trestles in this area. I found the delta between the flume grade and the valley floor grade to slightly mess with my visual senses as the valley floor rises to the east at a higher rate than the flume corridor giving the illusion that you are going slightly uphill when going west. The flume was built with a grade of four feet five inches per mile. There is a kiosk nearby that should draw your attention. When you reach the flume trail take note of the Cape Horn tunnel at the bottom of the switchback. Due to the topology you will actually climb above the level of the flume and then decend a little down to the flume. The El Monte Park trail offers no warm up as you are straight into steep switchbacks that go from the valley floor up to the flume trail. This route has you picking up the El Monte Park trail in the southwest corner of the park. Recommended Route: (El Monte Park Out and Back) While this trail may not be an epic ride, there is certainly epic history here and somedays you might even find a healthy serving of Chicken Noodle Soup for the MTB Soul. It is a nice little gem of a trail that is exceptional pretty particularly in the winter months. A roughly six- mile portion of that flume corridor has been preserved for the public and you can ride your bike on it.

The construction of the El Captain Dam in 1933 made the flume pretty much obsolete and in 1935 the wooden flume was replaced with an underground pipeline The nine million board feet of redwood lumber used to construct the flume has long been reclaimed for other uses but the corridor still remains through El Monte and Blossom Valley near the town of Lakeside. The flume utilized 315 trestles and five tunnels to tame the grade as it transversed 37 miles of mountains, valleys, ravines and other manner of rugged terrain. It was completed in 1889 and provided much needed water to support the growth of the San Diego region. San Diego County had a pretty amazing flume that went from Lake Cuyamaca to the La Mesa area.

Tahoe flume trail history