A paradise for runners, mountain bikers and hikers, right in Reno's backyard

By John Trent, aka The Mountain Mutt *
July 18, 2007

I can still remember the first time I ever ran up Keystone Canyon. It was late. A friend of mine and I met after our summer jobs were over for the evening. It was the summer of 1980, and we were headed into our senior year of high school.

That night, magic happened. Not immediately. But I had never really run on trails at night before. And as Frank and I began picking our way up the sometimes tight, sometimes expansive canyon, I began to feel Keystone Canyon’s special hold on me.

Keystone Canyon rises only about 400 feet during the first two miles or so; but it is during this first section that the senses come alive. It’s practically jeep trail for the first half-mile, but quickly tightens to demanding single track as you hop over a few rocky stream beds, the ragged, jagged walls of the canyon feeling like they’re a miniature taste of the great wonder, the great Grand Canyon of Arizona.

I will always remember how it took almost everything I had to get to the radio towers that rise high into the night at just under two miles, and how Frank sweetened the accelerator a bit more and made me scramble for more oxygen capacity as we climbed on the jeep road above Keystone Canyon, the road up Peavine Mountain looming to our left. Darkness enveloped us. It took a good amount of balance to keep up the six-minute-miles were now putting down, still climbing, the soundtrack of our run consisting only of our quick footfalls and our labored breaths. I often think how today’s ultimate running accoutrement, the iPod, would have fit in our run, and somehow, knowing that there was no piped-in music other than the gurgling of a frog in a stream bed and a few crickets dancing lightly, reassuringly, in the night, the memory still feels right to me.

On a hill above the radio towers, still climbing, we turned and looked down. The red lights of the radio towers seemed as remote and distant as the city lights of Reno far off to the south. Hands on knees, sucking the air in greedy gulps, trying to recover, we looked down to catch traces of the ribbon of tricky trail that we had followed on our journey up.

Then, without a word, like two downhill racers barreling out a start gate, we were off back down the hill, down where we thought the single track was, racing where we thought our shadows should be. Depending on the terrain -- and that is one of Keystone Canyon’s greatest attributes, its wonderful variety of dirt and rocks and hairpin turns and wide, expansive stretches -- Frank would surge into the lead before I would swoop by, scrambling over rocks, grabbing the lead from him. Then, without a word, like a curly-haired ghost in the night, Frank would swoop right back past me.

For the final half mile, for one of the few times in my life, I was running as fast as I could -- my body was filled with a strange pang, that I could hold the pace forever. With my friend at my side, matching strides the way strings in a symphony create a melody, we ran as one, we were reveling in the night air and the wildness of Keystone Canyon.

Many years have passed since that night we ran together through that canyon. Keystone Canyon has actually improved since then. The trail is remarkably well-groomed, thanks to the efforts of local citizens, particularly the mountain bike community as well as friends of nearby Rancho San Rafael.

The trailhead, located off Victory Lane near N. McCarran Boulevard, is paved and seems always to be full of cars, practically every summer night. Families come here with their dogs. Mountain bikers in their sleek outfits and streamlined sunglasses move in efficient lines up the road. Trail runners with their sloshing water bottles patiently head off in lines of two or three, visiting about their day.

People seem to enjoy a good romp through Keystone Canyon after work, the same way Frank and I did more than 25 years ago. Keystone Canyon is easy to get to, it’s the prime artery to get onto the web of trails that dot Peavine’s flanks and upper reaches, and it’s one of the area’s best introductions to trails for beginners, as well as the jumping-off point for the more adventurous in our midst.

But more than anything else, Keystone Canyon is the place where echoes of the past really do matter. It’s the place where after 15 minutes of premium effort on foot or on a mountain bike, you can turn, look toward the lights of downtown Reno, and realize that really, everything that matters in the world isn’t always contained in those lights that seem to dominate our existence. No, what really matters is out here, far away from things, in the challenge and thrill of an incredibly underrated local trail.

* John Trent has been partaking in the trails of the Sierra since he was 11 years old, when he got lost on the road leading from southwest Reno to Hunter Lake near the Mountain Rose Wilderness (yes, eventually he did find his way home, but not after getting really sunburned and running out of water). Since then, he’s run the Western States 100-mile Endurance Run from Squaw Valley, Calif., to Auburn, Calif., eight times – seven of them in under 24 hours. He’s a former Outdoor/Recreation editor for the Reno Gazette-Journal who still regularly writes and reports on outdoor recreation. He lives in Reno with his wife and two daughters.