40 Years of Marlette Flume Trail | Max Jones | E19

In Summer 1983, Max Jones jumped on a strange new contraption called a #mountainbike and went looking for trails to ride around #laketahoe. There wasn’t really any singletrack until he discovered an abandoned flume line running high above the east shore of the lake. After a few failed attempts, Max finally uncovered the overgrown track, taking five hours to “ride” only four miles, fighting through brush and hundreds of downed trees. For the rest that summer, Max cleared the trail with nothing more than hand tools and dogged determination. 40 years later, thanks to Max’s efforts, the Marlette Flume Trail has become the most scenic trail in the world and a gem of recreation in Lake Tahoe. Max and his wife Patti have built a life and career around the Flume Trail, promoting the Great Flume Race for more than a decade, starting Flume Trail Bikes to shuttle visitors and opening Tunnel Creek Café to feed them at the end of the adventure. This is the story of Max Jones, a Mountain Bike Hall of Fame inductee, the resurrector of the Flume Trail and an early pioneer of ecotourism in Lake Tahoe.

1:40 – PowBot gets a new vanity license plate – MRDRPOW – on his murdered out Crosstrek.

3:45 – Experiencing technical difficulties with our podcast player while interviewing Max Jones.

5:20 – Celebrating the 40th anniversary of Max Jones reopening the Marlette Flume Trail.

10:00 – The first “winter storm” on September 1; a Pacific Low coming off the ocean!

11:30 – Rose to Toads TAMBA ride is going to get snow Labor Day weekend.

13:20 – SENDY Send of the Week – 11 year anniversary of Joyce Beckering’s passing – Tom’s mom. Incline Burger taking donations for victims of the Maui fire in Lahaina.

17:00 – Max Jones interview at Tunnel Creek Café.

20:00 – The history of Max Jones’ family, a fourth generation Nevadan. His family was into ranching. The Settlemeyer family came from Minden, Germany to what became Minden, Nevada.

23:00 – Max’s history as a rock climber and ski racer and the first generation of his family to be a recreationist.

26:30 – The Germans came into the Carson Valley after the Mormons left. The Germans weren’t miners, they were ranchers, so they raised cattle and fed the miners.

29:30 – Max transitions from rock climbing to mountain biking, and picks up Ritchey as a sponsor and started racing.

35:00 – How Max originally discovered the Flume Trail.

41:00 – Helicoptering all the old aluminum flume pipe off the trail.

45:30 – The Great Flume Race put the Flume Trail on the map for visitors.

47:25 – The spiritual power of Herlan Peak – a leyline from Lake Tahoe to Pyramid Lake.

50:30 – Working with the Nevada State Park Ranger Mark Kimbrough in reopening the trail.

53:30 – The original purpose of the Flume Trail – created for water in Virginia City during the Comstock Lode silver rush.

58:30 – Max’s first summer working on the trail, carrying a chainsaw and falling off the trail.

1:03:00 – Max joins the Tahoe Rim Trail Association board representing mountain bikers.

1:08:50 – Max started shuttling people in 1999 with Flume Trail Bikes.

1:10:30 – Flume Trail Bikes moves to the old Ponderosa Ranch site at Tunnel Creek and opened the cafe.

1:12:40 – Max innovated a form of ecotourism that’s been sustainable for Lake Tahoe, shuttling 5,000 to 6,000 people per year, keeping extra cars off local roads.

1:15:00 – Flume Trail Bikes might start running a shuttle for Cap to Tahoe trail, and building a new singletrack to Tunnel Creek from Flume Trail.

1:19:00 – Building a life and a career around the Flume Trail.

1:21:00 – What does Mind the Track mean to you?