day # 7

  Today i rode back inland to Willow Creek and Hwy. 96, and on through Happy Camp along the Klamath River. The road surface was good, but the route was so twisty and filled with blind curves that i had to ride at a very slow pace, sometimes as slow as 10-15MPH. Yet another brow-beating of incredible scenery and roads, but this time the river was less than perfect. The Klamath has been invaded by a variety of blue-green algae that has transformed its waters into frothy pools and its banks into murky stinkholes. 

an article on this situation can be found here

each time i pulled over to have a splash in the water i found the same polluted shores and stinky pools. This persisted along its entire length from Willow Creek all the way back to the I-5 corridor near Ashland. 

check out the tiny frogs jumping around at my feet...

i had ridden the bike all the way down to the shore without thinking about getting back up the steep rocky trail, so i took off some of my bags and my gear in case i had to pick the bike up if i fell over. it was also really hot so i was sweating like crazy. perfect time for a video in case i screwed it up...

  i was finally getting into the rugged interior of the Jefferson State; fewer roads and towns, the road surface was getting broken and unmaintained, and the road signs were all perforated with bullet holes...every one of them. most were unreadable. i dont remember seeing another person for dozens of miles. really long day. the best was still to come, however, because that evening i finally encountered the crazy local dude that i always do at some point. this time it was hippie john, a real-life Tommy Chong burnout. this guy was such a career wastoid he was nearly unintelligible. he was hanging out at the Rainbow Resort, a random outpost in the middle of nowhere with a general store and a couple rental cabins. along with a handful of nearby farms this place made up the town of Hamburg, CA. i rolled up to get some beer and ended up sitting outside with the store clerk (herself a 50-60 something old hippie lady) and john for maybe a half-hour, just quietly talking and watching cars go by while the sun was setting. i was so comfortable and had such a good feeling about the place that i decided to go big and rent the cabin for the night. i think i must have been the first customer she'd had in a really long time because she wasnt even sure how to deal with the situation. once i was settled in and changed out of my riding gear, i went back out onto their little lawn and just sat there, feet up on a log, drinking Bud with the two of them til the store closed. it was definitely the highlight of the whole trip. 

looking west from my cabin door at the store and its little patch of lawn:

a kid from the area showed up after a while, probably 18 or so, and sat with us under the umbrella. this gave john somebody familiar to bullshit with so i got to just sit back and take it all in and try not to laugh my ass off at this dude. the kid, Troy, seemed pretty sharp and reminded me of what i imagine my brother Tate might have been like at his age; soft-spoken, sandy blonde hair, stocky build, very polite, and quietly confident. after a while i was getting more interested in having a lucid conversation with him about all the Humbolt County lore than just sitting there listening to the town drunk ramble on and on about whatever. nonetheless, john continued to lecture both of us about physics, women, and how to best prepare fresh vegetables. after at least 45 minutes of this, it dawned on me that i should be recording it somehow, since there was no way i was ever going to be able to faithfully re-enact it once i got home, so i ran over to my room and grabbed my camera. i didnt think that directly filming him would have been good for a couple reasons, mainly because i wanted pure candidness, but i also thought that it might freak the old coot out and trigger some kind of paranoid delusion and ruin the whole thing. so i chose to start the recording and just set the camera down (in my lap at first, then on top of the table), pointed at nothing, and let the scene play out as if nothing was different. i missed out on getting any image(s), but i did get spontaneity. the worst part is that i actually ran out of memory after only 13 minutes, but i did end up with a few gems...priceless, really...enjoy!

hippie john's ramblings

john and troy eventually took off once the sun fell behind the ridge and i had the place to myself for the rest of the night. except for the dogs, i guess. normally i dont like them, but country dogs are different. it was nice having two temporary best friends for the night...

it was very quiet and still without anyone else around, so i thought i'd see how many cans of Bud i could drink then went to bed...a good day.

day # 6

  Today was unquestionably the best riding of the trip, maybe ever. from Weaverville to Arcata's city limits is 92 miles. Thats ninety-two miles of continuous banking, turning, climbing, descending, accelerating, and braking. All along one of the most scenic corridors Ive ever seen. The sparkling river, the swarms of butterflies, the steep canyon walls, a perfect road surface, clear blue skies, crisp air...i was pretty much riding along agape and struggling to pilot the bike and take in the scenery at the same time. Mile after mile, around every turn was another mind-boggling vista. Ive ridden other places as beautiful but never for such a sustained distance...nearly 100 miles of it! If you have Google Earth, try playing a tour of this route, it will make you dizzy...

  heres the three legs of the days riding, starting with Hwy. 3 back from camp to Old Town Weaverville, then west on 299 through Willow Creek and finally Arcata:

  This area was also the site of several major wildfires over the summer, and their aftermath was clearly visible from the road. In many areas, the fire had burned right up to and across it. Some stretches of 299 were flanked on either side by white ash and black sticks where there was once green brush and cedars, and some spots still smoldered. 

  I learned from locals that 299 had only just been reopened a day or two earlier. Here's an excerpt from an area news bulletin: 

Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for 80 homes northwest of Junction City tonight as the Eagle Fire jumped Highway 299.

The Trinity County residents who live in Coopers Bar Estates were told about 10:45 p.m. to leave their homes, Shasta-Trinity National Forest spokesman Mike Odle said. An evacuation of the south and west sides of the the subdivision is in progress, Odle said. The fire was about a half-mile away from homes at 11 p.m.

In addition, the Trinity Canyon Lodge and some campers have been evacuated due to the fire threat.

About 31 miles of Highway 299 were shut down around 11 p.m. The closure is in effect from Weaverville to Big Bar and from the Bigfoot Campground to Big Flat, a California Highway Patrol dispatcher said. The stretch covers 23 miles west of Weaverville to eight miles east of Weaverville, Odle said.

  Smoke continued the entire Trinity River Valley through most of September. I was told that only a day or two earlier there was still so much smoke in the skies over Weaverville that it obscured the sun. 

  The major group of fires in the Shasta-Trinity Wilderness was part of the Iron Complex, a series of fires that had burned nearly 90,000 acres of the forest. On the day I first arrived in Weaverville the memorial service had just been held for 11 firefighters that had lost their lives in a helicopter crash about 15 miles northwest of Junction City. 

a few links:

OregonLive.com

USFS official statement

L.A. Times 8/10/8

  Once to the coast and into Eureka, i decided to treat myself to a motel, so i got a room downtown next to the new New Seasons-like store and took the rest of the day off. My room was on the upper level, at the very end, and west-facing. I spent the rest of the afternoon with my feet up on the balcony, sipping Lagunitas and writing in the setting sun. nice.

Trinity River Wilderness devastated by Gold Rush...

  Something that really struck me as i rode back along the Trinity River and the northernmost part of Trinity Lake was the level of devastation done to the river, its banks, and all the surrounding streams by the giant machinery used to mine for gold. First dredges, then monitors (massive high-pressure water cannons) were used to literally blast away entire hillsides. A brief history of this highly destructive form of gold mining can be found here, and an excellent website with lots more old photos of the era here

  Trinity Lake and River were permanently scarred by the aggressive dredging and hydraulic mining that was at its peak in the early 20th century and continued as late as 1959, a period of nearly 110 years of mining. where the river meets the lake had been so heavily dredged that its width was stretched out to the very edge of the mountainside and is now filled with the discarded rock waste called tailings; the entire area is made up of massive piles of rocks and boulders covering so much area that you can see them in a satellite view:

  I took this picture from East Side road facing west: 

  Throughout the region as far north as Galice, OR i continued to see tailings and scarred creek beds. In nearly every case they appeared virtually unchanged from the time they were created, preventing any re vegetation. what a mess...

day # 5

  Today into Weaverville and north into the Trinity Lake Wilderness area. Old town Weaverville is like a 19th century gold-rush time capsule. The museum downtown is packed with artifacts from this era and without an admission and a mere $2 suggested donation a real bargain. i felt bad that i had no small bills while i was there, so after getting some change a the coffee shop down the street i returned to put $5 in the jar. Any visit to the area should include a stop there, its really something. a corner of the upper level had a huge exhibit of period hunting rifles:

  The museum also had two preserved jail cells in the basement that had been in use as late as the 1940s. Each cell still had their original pencil-graffiti drawn by the inmates:

  I left town and headed north towards Trinity Center, then across the bridge and through the woods on a very primitive road to Jackass Spring, where i thought i was going to camp for the night. Once i finally got there i was so spooked out by the remoteness of it and the stinkeye from the hunters there that i was compelled to leave and retrace my path back to the highway...

  Once back on the paved highway, i continued north to Trinity River campground and Eagle Creek, but they were both full. What i didn't know was that it was the first day of hunting season, and every campground was overflowing with camo-clad rednecks. while stopped at Trinity River campground, the host approached me and offered a spot to camp just outside the 'grounds, alongside the river, for free. i immediately accepted and marched down the trail to it, a secluded area 20 yards or so from the nearest site. The ground was all sand, a few feet from the river, and totally isolated from the rest of the park. i would have gladly paid for it had it been offered, but instead it was a freebie, and more private and safe than any pay-site...

  Later that night i wandered over to the nearby campsite to share their fire and met Eddie and his band of hunters. There were nearly ten in their group, four of them were young boys. Two dads, one grandfather, four sons, and two or three family friends. everyone had a full camo wardrobe, their own ATV/quad, and they had an enormous trailer/RV with a full kitchen, bathroom, entertainment system, carpet, etc. Hanging alongside the trailer were the carcasses of the deer they had hunted, covered by a kind of sheet. As i approached them all sitting around their campfire, no one looked up or said hello, but they all just kept talking to each other. I said hello, and for a couple seconds there wasn't any response from anyone, and i thought that i may have made a big mistake invading their turf. Then a woman who was sitting there right next to me chirped "hi" and the camp host started introducing me to everyone around the fire. I was still a little uneasy so i just kept quiet and smiled at their jokes and gave simple answers. As the host got around to the woman next to me, he said, "and that sweet little thing over there is Lois". She turned to me and said "i'm crashing their party, too. i'm not with them, i'm camping over there," she explained, gesturing at the other side of the campground. At first, she was the only person there that talked to me, partly because i was kneeling right next to her. Eventually the rest of the group loosened up little by little, and soon i was a welcome guest, sharing their beer and my smokes. Lois, who looked to me (in the flickering campfire light) like an average 30-something eco-jock, was very friendly and polite towards me. I imagined her driving a Subaru and having a rock gym membership. it was kind of a relief considering the standoffishness of the rest of them. 

  Then Eddie, the owner of the trailer (and who appeared to be their fearless leader), served up the nights meal: freshly hunted venison, spaghetti, and salad. I've never had deer before, and i thought it would be rude to turn down his offers, so that night i ate part of the back of an animal that had been prancing around the woods only a couple hours before. It wasn't bad, actually. It was a lot like steak. But different. 

  After dinner is when things started to get a little...strange. Lois, who had been getting more and more friendly with Eddy, followed me out of the trailer where we had been eating and back to the fire where i was going to have a smoke (i was the only smoker). she asked to bum one from me, and when i held it out for her to take, she kind of took part of my hand with it. not a grab, just a touch, then coyly waited to be lit with it resting on her lips... [WTF?] i handed her my lighter, then sat down on the bench. a moment later, Eddy came out and they sat next to each other, being very chatty and calling each other "honey". Lois started giving him a back rub, and most of the others started going off to bed. first the host, then grandpa, and so on until it was down to me, Lois, and the two 40-something dads. By this time Lois and Eddy were getting very cozy with each other, but he was also kind of bossing her around..."get me a beer", or "take that pot off the grill". She went around cleaning up after everyone, taking dishes, empties, fetching beers, and even offering to clean up the whole trailer like it was her life's ambition. 

  Who was this person? traveling and camping alone, inserting herself into a crowd of strangers in the site next to hers and just slutting around with them? It was like she had known them all for years, but she had said they had just met...whatever it was, it weirded me out, and when my can was empty i escaped back to my sandy beach and crawled into bed. The campground host's introduction kept running through my mind, "...that sweet little thing over there..." The next morning, with a less-drunk mindset i decided i was probably jumping to conclusions, but nonetheless it was an experience that left a strange taste in my mouth.

  I wish i had taken just a couple pictures. I left it back at my tent and didn't think it would have gone over too well for some dude to wander over to their camp and start taking pictures. Yet another situation perfect for my spy-camera fantasy. 100% candidness. the only problem with a button-camera is you cant frame your shot, just point your chest and find out later what you got..

i rose very early again to try my hand at more moonlight pics...

  At about 6AM Eddy's crew tore out of the camp headed for the mountains and the days kill. A caravan of ATVs rumbled past me and up into the forest. As i drank my tea and packed up i could here their thumpers all around me in the distance. Once it was light enough to see without lamps, the gunshots started. Within 30 minutes i could hear a quad speeding towards camp on the highway: first kill of the day. I was mounting my bags and suiting up in my gear when he rolled in. It was one of the kids, with his first buck strapped to the front of his ATV, bleeding all over the place, a huge proud grin on his face. As i pulled my helmet on and got ready to get on the bike i heard an F350 Diesel monster truck coming around behind me. It was Eddy, on his way into town, and he pulled over to wish me a safe journey and gave me a big handshake; the kind where the outstretched hand is opened up like a fan and coming down from above around yours and grasped like you would the haft of an axe...the bro 'shake. 

day # 4

  

  The road from Alturas to Oak Bottom Park was my first real taste of the Jefferson State. Wooded, hilly, and rugged compared to the desolate border region of the past couple days. 

  Just outside Alturas i pulled over into a small parking lot to check my map and within 30 seconds i saw a middle-aged woman approaching me with a pursed lips and a stern gait. "can i help you?" she asked as i looked up from my tank bag, still seated on the bike. i lifted my hand to wave hello, and returned to my map, folded up inside the transparent map-pocket atop my tank bag, tracing the days route with my gloved hand. "sir...sir, you cant stop here, this is a school...excuse me..." she squealed. i looked up, a little stunned, then thumbed the starter and just chugged away from her and out the driveway, onto the shoulder just beyond it, and hit the killswitch, just 20 feet from where i was, and resumed my map searching. "allrightythen" i said as i rolled past her, interrupting her charge. "Oh I'm sorry, am i scaring the children? or just you?",  i wanted to snap. "BOO!" What a shitty place.

  This was also my first sight of the wildfire damage to the countryside. many fires burned throughout the summer and continued to burn into the fall and during my tour. some of the worst ones were in the Shasta-Trinity Wilderness, including the fire that claimed the lives of 11 area firemen. Some smoke could still be seen, and i started to see small areas of burnt earth and ash. 

  On an impulse i stopped at Oak Bottom, and it turned out to be one of the best nights i had camping. Its on the shores of Whiskeytown Lake, highly developed, and frickin' huge. 

Being Friday night, it was starting to fill up, but everyone was staying close to the water, so i was able to get a site at the top of the hill above everyone else that was very private. 

  As i rolled in to choose a site, i saw a small black bear cross the road ahead of me, and for the rest of the evening i could hear, every few minutes, some terrified tourist shrieking away, "OMG! Its a fucking BEAR! its a fucking BEAR! kids, get in the tent NOW! OMG!" From where my site was, i could hear these fits breaking out all around me; first there, the over there, then back there. pretty funny. he never came to my site, probably because i didnt have piles of steak and cotton candy and soiled diapers just laying around. what was really shitty was i could here the park rangers telling people that they were going to have to shoot it since it wasnt responding to their efforts to chase it out of the park. poor little bastard was just a baby, a victim of a shrinking habitat spoiled by human overpopulation and tourism. 

  since my site was at the edge of the hillside, i had a panoramic view of most of the park. a few yards from my site was the steep hillside that led down to the swimming beach and tennis courts. looking back to the west at my site:

turning to the east, i could see the beach and part of the lake...

  every site had a huge concrete firepit and a metal bear-proof food locker. i went on an errand run to Shasta to get two bundles of firewood and some man-cans...

Markhill stove did good...its a tidy little fucker...

  in the morning i woke up at 5 and decided to get up early. the sky was totally clear and it was still only a couple days after the full moon, so i was bathed in moonlight. i played around with my cameras settings to try and capture it, but without a proper tripod and remote its hard to get a crisp image...

sunrise...

day # 3

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big day today. point-to-point is only 170mi., but i was held to a pretty slow pace on the alternate route from Paisley to Lakeview, so i was in the saddle all day, right up to sunset. thats why this was my first motel night. 

  My first crisis/scary moment happened just outside of Paisly, OR on my way to Lakeview on the scenic alternate route of Rd. 33. As i rounded a blind right hand curve about 5 miles from Paisley i came face-to-face with a speeding truck, fully loaded with timber on his way down the mountain cutting the corner into my lane. the road at this point was a single-lane paved route with turn-outs, and this rig had crossed the centerline and was going about 60 verses my 45MPH. in the space of about half a second, or around 250 feet i managed to counter-steer the shit out of the bike and lurch onto the shoulder in time for him to blast by me and i cleared the left side of his rig with only inches to spare. i actually jabbed at the 'bar 3 times until i got the bike to change direction that severely. if i had been any further into the left side of the lane or had hesitated at all i would have surely collided with the grill of his rig. it was probably the closest i've ever come to a head-on collision. it took several seconds for the rush of adrenaline to hit and i was overcome with a wave of cold sweat and a pouding heart. after that, the road was deserted and i made it to Lakeview, but the anxiety of the whole thing left me very tense. 

  Once into Alturas, i wasted at least two or three hours searching for a handful of campgrounds that were either missing or closed in the hills around Alturas and Canby. i guess this was the first time i got a little lost, searching for Cottonwood Flats campground, but i was really lost so much as the road ended up taking much longer than i thought it would. the actual mileage for that day was more like 280 or so. i was exhausted, so i just paid the $55 for a room and walked down to the store for some beer and water. on my way there, as i passed a trailer park down the street from my motel, some crackhead d-bag started shouting out at me, "hey! hey, dickweed! hey! you! i'm talkin' to you! hey faggot!" i couldnt believe i was actually being called a "dickweed". i dont think i've heard anyone use that as a serious taunt or insult since 1989. down the street at the corner gas station a posse of local boy-ranchers had corralled their pickups like covered wagons and sat there, leering at me between hee-haws and racial slurs as i passed. in the store the clerks mad-dogged me all the way from the front door to the beer cooler, then avoided eye contact as they took my money at the register. on the way back to my room the crackhead was gone, replaced by a pair of blood-thirsty rottweilers barely leashed to their trailer. back at the motel, the vacant rooms next to me had been filled by a crew of local cowboys passing through on their way between rodeos with all their horses and shit. they were sitting outside on their benches chewin' and spittin' and drawlin' all night about horses, trucks, and Mexicans. it was like i had been transported to the redneck olympics where every competitor was Slim Pickens from Blazing Saddles. totally bizarre. in the morning i cleared out by 8AM and made my way west, towards Redding...

day # 2

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Today i did some geologic sight-seeing and hit my first dirt roads. going east from LaPine on Finley Butte Rd. takes you to the South Ice Caves. this first section was really difficult because crews had just renewed all the gravel on this road and it was like riding in sand or really dry, deep snow. i had both feet out trailing along with my toes buried in the gravel like pontoons, teetering along at 15MPH as far from the center as possible. i was almost riding in the brush just to find some hard ground. it was incredibly tense for the first 10 miles or so, i had to stop and catch my breath a few times. i remember thinking that it was much harder than i remembered it being (riding off-pavement), and that maybe my tire choice was just totally wrong, but in hindsight, i dont think any DOT-approved tire would have made any difference. after a while the road firmed up and changed to more of the typical high-desert dirt/rock and was much easier. at the Ice Caves there are two volcanic tubes facing eachother inside the sinkhole, and the temperatures down inside were cold enough to see my breath. 

the closer i got to the openings the colder it got. considering it was in the upper 80s on the surface, it was pretty spooky.

further south on NFD 18 is Fort Rock, a volcanic formation called a tuff-ring. from Wikipedia:

Fort Rock is a volcanic landmark called a tuff ring, located on an Ice age lake bed in north Lake County, Oregon, United States.^[2] The ring is about 1,360 meters (4,460 ft) in diameter and stands about 60 meters (200 ft) high above the surrounding plain.^[3] Its tall, straight sides resemble the palisades of a fort, thus giving the rock its name. The region of Fort Rock Basin contains about 40 such tuff rings and maars and is located in the Brothers Fault Zone of central Oregon's Great Basin. On June 20, 1925, the Bend Bulletin wrote that Fort Rock was named by William Sullivan, an early resident.

  

i wish i had had time to hike inside, but i was running out of daylight soon and the skies were gathering clouds. it was clearly raining all around me so i figured it was best to keep moving...

  

as soon as i returned to pavement in the town of Fort Rock (a little south of the monument) and headed south on Hwy. 31 the weather turned to shit. there appeared to be two different rainstorms on either side of me, like a figure-eight with me bisecting it through the middle. somehow i missed both of them and only got a few small drops on me, blown over by the winds. as i crested a hill and saw down into the small valley ahead i could see what looked like a dust storm about a quarter-mile ahead. i couldnt figure out if it was dust or smoke, because it was both brownish and very thick...almost opaque. i ruled out smoke the closer i got because it was staying so close to the ground and i couldnt see any clear source, but but it was also so humid that a huge dust-bowl didnt seem likely either. about 3-4 seconds before i hit it i realized it was actually a very dense wall of water, wind, and dust swirling around like a frickin' tornado. i had just enough time to utter some profanity and throw my weight forward and down behind the screen to stabilize the front end before i slammed into it at 65MPH. it was like i had jumped into a swimming pool and a wind tunnel all at once. big peanut-sized rain drops, wind gusts from all sides, deafening noise; if the bulk of the wind blast had not (by luck) come from the front of me and instead from the side i would have surely been knocked off the bike, it was that violent. i slowed to 45, a controllable speed, hid behind the screen, and wobbled my way down the highway until it calmed. luckily it only lasted about a mile, then the skies actually cleared and were mostly blue. the road was soaked and foamy with wheeltracks full of stormwater, but the rain was gone and the winds light. it was so weird i wasnt sure what to make of it. later that night the couple camping next to me on the lake said that they had been hit by it too with their camper-topped truck towing their little boat, and had as hard a time keeping it pointed straight. i recognized their truck as the one i had waved past as i was wobbling along at the shoulder. i thought about calling home to see if anyone could find any reports of a tornado near Silver Lake, but i forgot about it once the Hamms kicked in...