There I was at a 4-way intersection of dirt tracks. None marked with a trail sign and none of them showing on my map – at least as far as I could tell. What are the odds of choosing the wrong one? 1 in 4 you think? If you are with me, the odds are 99 to 1 you will choose the wrong one and off you go on another “venture!”

Lesson one. You know that Northern California Back Country Adventures book you bought? Don’t leave home without it.

Lesson two. Your computer with Google Earth and Microsoft Streets and Trips and the associated GPS. Don’t leave home without it.

Lesson three. Show your wife the route in the book so when you call via cell for directions she has some reasonable idea what you are talking about.

The route we ended up with took us from the Summit Ranger Station at Pinecrest, SW to Columbia. Some of the roads were good. Some weren’t roads at all. Had we been there 10 days earlier we wouldn’t have made it because of mud. From the start to the finish some 7 hours of driving, we (Presley was of course with me.) saw no one. Which was good because much of the road was not even wide enough for the Sprinter.

Just past the official time for cocktails we followed a track off the main route to a camp site. We initially drove past the camp site and then had to back-up about 300 feet as there was no place to turn around. We did have a fire permit but I decided not to build a fire. Watched “Grease” for the 99,000th time and unsuccessfully tried to take pictures of the stars above our camp. We were in a recovering forest area, very pretty with good views. Presley loved it!

Leaving camp the road, trail, track what-ever, got worse fast. Many times the brush on the sides made the route too narrow for the Sprinter but worse were the over hanging branches that I worried would damage the spoiler on my solar. The solar came through fine however with the only event up top being my A’s antenna ball getting scraped off but no drama – I recovered it!

One thing I found strange was coming down a steep rocky one lane road was to find a nice, modern two-car bridge followed up on the other side by more one lane terrible road. The Sprinter did an extraordinary job. Only once did I get a side-to-side sway and that was my fault for taking a bump too fast. I stayed in 1st gear 90% of the time and it would have been real go0d on the down slopes to have a gear lower than 1st. Like “crawl gear” or “climb over rocks gear.” I most likely put about 6 months wear on the brakes in a few hours.

Where I made the wrong turn was west of Mt. Knight on 4N04. I turned left onto 3N03 instead of right. That put us on the long road to Columbia. We followed 3N03 to Italian Bar Road which eventually ended at Columbia. Presley growled at the cows we saw, some with-in 5 feet of his window and watched a squirrel run away from us up the road because it was going much faster than we were, even stopping occasionally to let us catch-up a little.

Here are the directions, etc. We plan to meet at the Ranger Station, #1 Pinecrest Lake Road
Pinecrest, CA 95364. We will depart the Ranger Station at 2pm and should be camped somewhere by about 4pm. At the Ranger Station we can make the last check on roads. I spoke to several people today and although there is still lots of snow higher up, the route we will be on should be fine.

Approximate:
Driving distance: 270.0 miles; Driving time: 5 hours, 44 minutes

We started to Clear Lake and the Mendocino National Forest, travelling south on Hwy 101 and veering off to the Hyw 1 so as to visit California’s Ft. Bragg. Warning, the 101 will go from divided freeway to a 35mph speed limit on a 2 lane street almost without warning. At least once I thought I took an exit by accident or was beamed up by aliens. Going over to Ft. Bragg meant another up and down, Indiana Jones ride but we took that in stride.

We didn’t spend a lot of time in Ft. Bragg and I am sure we missed some great places a block over from the main road. I was getting tired, my back (leg) heart and I was starting to see too much traffic.

It took a couple of tries to find the right road to the forest (It was “Main Street” – of course.). The Mendocino National Forest, hmmm, in a word, don’t go. . . or at least don’t visit the Upper Lakes District as this area is ruled by Road Warriors on dirt bikes, dune buggies, ATV’s and anything else on which you can put a noisy, smokey, polluting motor and rev it up incessantly, I guess to confirm it is actually still working.

The only advantage to these pesky adolescent brained idiots is that they drive all the bears away so no worrying about bear precautions. Oh, and Debbie adds they leave behind nice walking paths. Ok, I’ll chill a little . . . most likely, underneath that Darth Vader helment, is someone’s good neighbor.

Seriously, there are a lot of people having a lot of fun in this area so it may be better to check out other areas besides Middle Lakes Campground.

Before our heroes ride off into the sunset, here is a secret message for the grandkids – for the grandkids . . .

Calling all SMB vans and SMB Sprinters + any “B” Class Sprinter. Can’t get away for a long trip? How about a short week-end?

June 12 and 13 is the weekend run to Crandall Peak trail. The turn off is 2 miles north of Strawberry. We will most likely wait in Stawberry until 1:30 pm for fellow week-end warriors. The trail is 36 miles of unpaved road, Class 3 rating.

Most of the trail is a 2 with the 3 rating coming along Strawberry Ridge and the descent to the Stanislaus River.

Of course, turning around is always an option.We are planning to leave here around 11am and return on Sunday around 5pm.

We will camp along the route in time for cocktails, possible at the Sand Bar Flat campground.

If you can make it, please post here.

Trail Ratings

1. The trail is graded dirt suitable for a normal passenger vehicle.
2. High-clearance vehicles are preferred but not necessary. The trail is dirt with possible rocks, grades, water crossings or ruts that make clearance a concern in a normal passenger vehicle.
3. High-clearance 4wd preferred but any high-clearance vehicle is acceptable. Expect a rough road, loose surface, rocks up to 6” in diameter. Roads will be wide enough for passing or have pull-offs.
4. High-clearance 4wds are recommended although most stock SUVs are acceptable.

Ratings extracted from BackCountry Adventures Northern California, Peter Massey and Jeanne Wilson. To order: Backcountry Adventures Northern California: The Ultimate Guide to the Backcountry for Anyone with a Sport Utility Vehicle

Sunshine today (May 28) and lots of up and down through the mountains of the Trinity National Forest. We ran into “Bigfoot” in Willow Creek and passed some beautiful views.

Working our way down to Eureka we ran into more curves than Dallas Braden has in his bag and we finally found some real “happy cows” – the one’s near SF are in feed lots and are not happy!

We dropped into Eureka right at lunch time and found a open parking space directly in front of the Lost Coast Brewery. It was fate . . . or something. We had a great lunch, bought some shirts, etc. and added this to our “do it again” list.

Check out their website if you are feeling a little dry. I think that they have a good time here on most nights. If we can get this parking space again we may have to stay longer!

Appetites taken care of we headed south towards Humboldt Redwoods State Park. At least one of the major campgrounds here has been closed thanks to Arnold and the California legislature and more are threatened.

We stayed in the Albee Creek Campground which is a little hard to find . . . the sign pointing to it was under the shadow of a bridge on the 101. If you see a sign that points to Honeydo head that way. The redwoods are always inspiring, contemplative – even Presley was a bit reserved.

The camping was a little muddy from the rains but we (unlike many others) had dry wood and a pleasant cocktail hour! Plus here were coin operated showers and we were a couple of days over due. The major problem for me in all this was a sacroiliac that was limiting my walking to about 20 steps at a time.

This was the first major trip of the season so naturally I forgot things. No extension cord so no American flag lights for Memorial Day. No fire starter – thank goodness the wood bought at Safeways the year before was dry! No olives for Martinis – how gauche. And I had to buy ice as I didn’t pre make it with my little ice cube thingies.

A great place for camping and when (much!) warmer, playing in the water. It is right there on the “too far to go” for just a week-end but like a friend says, “If it was closer then everyone would go there.” It is a five hour drive so have some good music, road snacks, and don’t pass up a couple of rest sites for a stretch and the dog.

We hit rain (we knew it was coming) so views were a bit shortened but it also apparently kept some folks at home. We were the only one in our camp at  Hayward Flat. It was very green with tables, fire rings, etc. covered with what must have been the winter’s growth of moss.

We had stopped at the ranger station in Weaverville to pick up a California Campfire Permit (necessary when dispersed camping with no fire ring) and a good map of the area. All these little towns along the route look worth spending time in . . . maybe someday when fully retired!

There are at least 10 NFS or BLM campsites in the Big Bar area and numerous places for dispersed camping. We wanted to go to to Hobo Gulch but due to the time and the weather camped at Hayden Flat instead. Parts of the campground were closed and in the open part, we were the only ones there! It was raining when we arrived and that continued into the night. It is very green here and there is beach access to the Trinity River when things warm up!

Lots of “what’s up with that?” on this trip as in being the only ones in a beautiful campground – “What’s up with that?” Or finding a legal dump on the Trinity River – “What’s up with that?”

Yes, a legal dump with direction signs from Hwy 299, located at the Trinity River’s edge, what looked like a dumpster filled with stuff and a bunch of old refrigerators. What IS up with that?

By the way, the awning worked great keeping the door-way area out of the rain so our wood and chairs didn’t get wet. In the first real-world test of the new Espar D2 heater it worked perfectly. It was on low all night long. You could never do that with the Suburban propane heater as the fan would have one, woke you up everytime it cycled on and two, most likely drained the AGM battery to critical levels.

There was no connectivity here so basically it was a perfect camping site!