Exploring Smoke Creek Ranch Road

Thursday October 6, 2022 Smoke Creek Ranch Road, Nevada

Horse Spring camp

We woke here this morning to a real nice day.camp1

 

These donkeys came by to get a drink of water at the spring.donkeys15

 

We hit the Smoke Creek Ranch Road going north around 10:00 and were on the way for today’s adventure. The road was still pretty rocky but getting a bit better.road2

 

Hunters

It wasn’t long before we were on the intersection of Smoke Creek Ranch Road reading maps when these two guys showed up and wanted to talk about the road we just came down as they wanted to go up it to hunt deer. We told them what we knew and thought they could get up the road a ways fairly easy to camp. They took off on their road and we took off up our road. Nice guys.guys3

 

Good road

Our road headed up through here. The road was in pretty good shape with only a little bit of wash boarding so we make good time, much better than that other road we took yesterday.road4

 

Old cabins

We spotted those trees out there and there was a road over to it, so we took it to check the place out as it looked like there were some old cabins there.pond5

 

We stopped at one of the cabins for a lunch break and to check our maps.cabin6

 

Nice pond

It had a real nice pond from a spring source.pond7

 

We left there and continued up the road going through here.road8

 

We were going across that valley on that road.valley10

 

These deer were in some kind of no hunting zone and didn’t seem to mind us on the road much. They had lots of good feed to feed on.bucks11

 

Big cave

We spotted this big cave. Lots of smoke on the ceiling from long ago camp fires.cave12

 

Up ahead we spotted these donkeys keeping a watchful eye on us.donkeys

 

Tonight’s camp spot

It was after 3 and we wanted to make camp for the night so we were looking for a nice spot and saw a road into these trees. The place seems to be a water hole and overnight camp spot for the old timers traveling west on this road as there was no sign of any cabins or ranch type stuff when I explored the area.camp13

 

Smoke Creek

Here’s the Smoke Creek at this spot. The beavers did that, dammed up the water.creek14

 

We are having a great time exploring these roads and will continue North tomorrow.

Nice day.

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Crossing the Old Humboldt Rd., Four Wheel Drive Required

Wednesday October 5, 2022 Old Humboldt Rd. Northern CA.

Moving out

We left our camp on the Last Chance Creek and continued up the road just before noon today. The road went along the creek so we continued to explore along it.

Map check

We stopped on this bridge crossing Last Chance Creek. All that water is there because the beaver dammed it up.creek1

 

Wash boarded

We were headed out of the forest towards Highway 395, but weren’t real sure what roads to take to accomplish that so we checked the maps often. This was the main road out that we followed. A bit wash boarded, but otherwise a pretty good road.road2

 

Burned

Some of it wasn’t quite as good, but all passible. A big forest fire went through here about a year ago.road3

 

Pavement

We finally came out on a paved road. We checked our maps and had to determine which way to go to get out of the forest and continued on.pavement4

 

The paved road was good and we made good time and we picked the right road to get out.road5

 

Where’s gas

Just before we got to the end of this road where it met highway 395, I saw a guy in his yard and stopped to ask where gas was up this way. We lucked out as there was a gas station at the end of this road where it hits 395

We had lots of gas but wanted to top up before going out into the desert in Nevada, so we stopped and took care of that. Happiness for exploring is a full tank of gas.

Headed East

We crossed over 395 and went out this road headed east. Mostly farm land.road6

 

Old Humboldt Rd.

We were looking for a road that went over the hills we needed to take to connect to the road we wanted to take north into Nevada and had to stop for a map check a couple of times but we found it. This was a road the old timers used when they first moved into this area from the east in the 1800s.

It wasn’t too bad at the start but it got much better shortly. road7

 

Four wheel time

Marty says it’s time to turn in the hubs for four wheel drive and we needed it. The road got very rocky. We had to poke along in our lowest gears for a long ways. The road climbed the hill going over a pass.road8

 

With a lot of crash banging we made it to the top of the hill.hilltop9

 

Hard gate

We had to go through this gate. It was wired too tight and I could barely open it and I had to go back and help Marty close it.gate10

 

The road was still rocky as we started down the other side of the pass.road11

 

Moving along down the road I see Marty stop in back of me.vans12

 

Band aids

Marty radioed he had to stop to get a band aid on some cuts on his arm his steering wheel gave him when he hit a rock that spun it out of his hands. He stopped to take care of that.van13

 

Looking for camp

It was after 4 so we started looking for a camp to spend the night. We spotted a wild game watering tank and pulled in there to camp for the night.

Marty is setting his game camera there to see if we can get any pictures during the night.tank14

 

After that we settled into this camp for the night. We sat around in our chairs until it started to get dark.camp15

 

We’ll continue down that road tomorrow and continue heading North through the desert roads.

Nice day.

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