I’m Off On a Trip, Headed Towards Northern Eastern Nevada

Tuesday September 19, 2023 Plumas National Forest CA.

 

I’m off

Yesterday, Monday, I packed up the final stuff in my van and was off on my trip. I’m headed for the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in North eastern Nevada. But first I have to get there which means I have to cross over the busiest part of California to get to the North Eastern part of that.

Once I get past Yuba city and Maryville, I can relax as things quiet down a lot and there are no  more big cities.

My goal was to get to the Bullard’s Bar Reservoir where I had a camp spot.

However, when I got there, I decided to go check out another possibility for a camp spot a couple more hours up highway 49 by Sierra City. There’s a road that goes up into the butts there that I wanted to check out. If it was a bust, I still had an hour of daylight to go to my next camp spot further up the road a bit.

Before I left, I checked out this trailhead by my first camp spot. The road was closed down to it so I just had a look from the overlook.

 

Sierra Butts, no go

The Sierra Butts was a bust as the road up there was real bad and it was too late in the day to mess with it, so I continued on up 49 headed to the next place, if I could find it.

I wasn’t exactly sure where the next camp spot was and it started to rain just past Downieville.

Next camp spot

I rode out this road looking for the camp spot, but I ran into this gate so turned around and when I did, I saw the camp spot just in back of me.

 

The camp spot is under the  rainbow.

 

Camped

There’s a nice little meadow there with a spring so I parked and was camped for the night.

 

That night I studied the maps to figure out where and which way I wanted to go tomorrow and decided on a possible route.

Tuesday

I headed out this road to get back to the  main road that headed north. I planned to head to the beaver pond camp spot up the road an hour or so.

 

I was traveling up the main road when I saw a road that turned off to the right with a sign that said Black Mountain Lookout, so I turned up that a few miles, until I saw it was taking me to highway 395, closer than I wanted to go, so I turned around and started to back track when I missed a turn and got a bit lost.

 

I stopped to reprogram my map and  headed up this road which seemed like it would go by the beaver pond camp spot, which it did but I missed it and went on by the road, but ended up on a road that I knew so now I headed for camp, just up this road.

 

Beaver pond

I could see the beaver pond before I got to it.

 

I stopped here and got out to check out the best way to park so I’d be mostly level.

 

This looked like a good place to park, right over the beaver pond.

 

There were some cows in the field to my right.

 

Nice fat ones. They look like they are eating good this year with all the rain we had.

 

Camped

I settled into my camp routine and took it easy for the rest of the day.

 

Plans

I spent a good part of the day planning where I wanted to go on the next part of the trip. I need to head mostly east. I could go up highway 395, but that wouldn’t be as fun as the long way across the desert on Smoke Creek Road. But I wasn’t sure Smoke Creek road would make it through to the next road headed eastward. If it doesn’t I’ll just have to backtrack and take another route.

A ranch

There’s a ranch on the smoke creek road that I may go to. Marty and I met the guy out on the trail last spring and he invited us to his ranch when we came by again, so I  may take him up on that. He could tell me if the rest of the road I needed to travel was good or bad. I already know the road we met him on is pretty bad so I don’t want to take that one again.

When I leave tomorrow, I’ll be heading north to Janesville CA. to gas up and find the library for some internet access, I hope.

I doubt I’ll have any cell service for a few days after that, unless the guy at the ranch has some, but I doubt that as the ranch is really out there in the middle of nowhere.

Nice day.