It’s our last public bike camping trip of the summer! The details: Park in
the gravel parking lot at the Plumas County Fairgrounds in East Quincy
(drive into the fairgrounds from highway 70 and you’ll see the lot on the
right) and ride to the start at @yubaexpeditions on Highway 70. We’ll have a
quick rider’s meeting there, roll out at 9am sharp, then crack open the
usual magic portal to a beautiful dirty stinky world where time and
capitalism no longer exist.
This will be a killer time of year to ride gravel roads through Plumas
National Forest, totaling 42 miles and +3978 feet of climbing over Saturday
and Sunday.
This is self-supported dispersed camping at Silver Lake (great swimming!)
following LNT principles, so bring: food, sleep system, a water filter, and
a way to bury your own poop (trowel). As always, this is a casual
open-invite trip. No sag, and no registration or money required, but we’ll
try to make sure nobody is left behind or stranded. We all wear helmets and
ask that you do as well.
These rides are at a conversational pace, and we stick together. If you want
to KOM your Strava or impress people by being first up the climb, don’t
bother coming, as the best of the party is at the back of the pack. When we
get back to the fairgrounds on Sunday, we can high-five the
Mountains-To-Meadows folks at the food trucks!
The route link is in my bio. Be sure to download it in one form or another
for offline navigation before the trip, as cell service can be nonexistent
in this area, and if something unforeseen happens, we want you to be able to
navigate back to your vehicle safely. Jump into my DM’s for questions or
advice, and we hope to see you there!
*If you’re driving to Quincy via Highway 70 through Feather River Canyon,
give yourself an extra 15 minutes drive time for
single-lane-timed-lights-construction hijinx.
The route:
It's a long drive to Quincy, from Oakland, four hours minimum. I left around
4:30PM Friday, and was sleeping in my van at the Plumas County Fairgrounds by
10. This weekend of the 12th & 13th was the same weekend as
Grinduro, AKA Mountains to Meadows. It was copacetic that we were there, too. I saw my friend Isabella in the
parking lot, getting ready to photograph day one of Grinduro. She struck a
Captain Morgan pose.
Captain Isabella
As I got ready, more people arrived.
my bike & van
Travis' bike and new-to-him truck
We all rolled through the fairgrounds, then rode the 3 miles to Yuba
Expeditions, where we found more riders. We had a rider's meeting, then rolled
out. I counted 26 people.
A round bird house?
Mad Max Miata
Yuba Expeditions in Quincy
WELCOME TO PLUMAS COUNTY'S GANSNER ✈ AIRFIELD
I hadn't paid a lot of attention to the route. Busy work week. I knew we
climbed to a lake, then descended back down. Once we got off the pavement, we
were on dirt, and we did climb. We took a wrong turn, figured it out, continued.
We climbed through green forest, regrouped, then climbed through burned forest,
regrouped again. Some late arrivers added two our number.
Johan, Chantelle, Manny and Laura - I hope I got their names right.
I think this was Snake Lake. It's choked with some sort of invasive grass.
Trevor and Travis
Ted's pantry; home-made cookies, Trader Joe's burritos and gleaned apples
Each regroup was really a hang-out. People laid on the ground, took pictures,
snacked, talked, did headstands, compared bikes. Because there was so much
climbing, and it was a very varied group, we did have a lot of people
to reconsolidate at each stop. If there were more swimming opportunities, we
would have been in the water. I thought about my friends Adam, Romany and
Doug. I knew they were doing a very hard bikepacking trip, full of long days,
covering lots of miles, climbing big mountains in the desert ranges of
southeastern California, an abbreviated variation of the
Caldera 500 route. I
thought about how all this hanging-out practice might ruin me for those trips,
as I lay dozing on the side of the road.
Travis, pointing at things
Lassen
"OK, now flip me off."
The hike-a-bike
We climbed to a third regroup, this time with magnificent views. We could
see Lassen, and the ghostly fur of the dead, burned forests over the mountains.
The wind picked up, it was blowing hard! Most of us hadn't paid a lot of
attention to the wind part of the weather forecast. I was concerned about dead
trees falling on us. Once we'd all arrived at the regroup, we set off again,
this time right into the tough hike-a-bike. It required some effort, it was
long, but it was also over relatively quickly. Then we rolled along at about
6000' before arriving at Silver Lake.
There's a funny thing that happens when we get to these camping spots;
everyone, myself included, goes into find-and-set-camp mode. The designated
camp sites near the water were occupied. It was really windy. I followed a
rock wall - there to keep the lake from spilling over into some lower land, I
think - with about five feet of sheltered, leeward protection. Near its
terminus, which it turns out was near the dam creating the lake, I found a
flat spot. Removing sticks and pine cones, I made a space big enough for my
tent. I'd brought the tent because it looked like it would be low 40s. In
hindsight, I would have been fine with a bivvy, or just cowboy camping - no
shelter. I set up my tent, then went back to the put-in area, where we all
swam, cleaned up, filtered water. It was still really windy, kind of killing
the social element. I made dinner, a delicious cheeseburger casserole from Luxefly, had the chelada tallboy I'd carried up the
4000' climb, and was in bed by 8PM. I read some of Joaquin Miller's
Life Amongst the Modocs, which was written about places not far from where we were, people who are gone from the earth.
Relaxing at Silver Lake
Sabor!
Worth it
I did sleep well, but on my first wake-up, around 10:30 PM, I heard an
animal walking around, near the corner where my head was. It sounded squirrel-,
or maybe raccoon-sized. It kept walking, periodically in this one spot. I
finally put my headlamp on, turned it on and reached out to the tent wall to
give it a push. It was the tree, next to the tent. The wind was rustling the
tent's rain shell against the trunk, and it sounded just like a little critter.
I put earplugs in and slept well until 7AM, when my alarm went off. The wind had
stopped. I was packed by 7:30, had breakfast in a sunny spot by the water, near the put-in, read some more of my
book and had good conversation with Meghan about books and bike routes. Meghan recommended Kim Stanley Robinson's The High Sierra: A Love Story. My friend Patrick had also recommended it to me. I'll read it. I recommended Robinson's The Ministry for the Future to her, and also I Cheerfully Refuse, by Leif Enger. I read those both, back to back, and they've stuck with me.
My spot
It got that cold.
All packed, about 30 minutes from wake-up, not in a hurry.
Morning view, put-in is directly ahead, about where the vanishing point of the perspective leads your eye
I need to replace the glass cover on my phone camera, it's cracked and makes these weird flares. Beautiful spot.
morning swimmers
Travis has a loose style. When I told him how many people there were, he teased me, "Why do you have to put numbers on everything, man?" Where I try to learn everyone's name, he's sort of tethered, but also distinct from the group dynamics. friendly, but also keeping us on a timeline. When it was obviously time, he called us to join him, gave a few words about motor vehicles coming up the roads we'd be descending, to stay right, and then we were off.
"This girl had to lay her bike down, and she ended up under the bumper of the truck. The driver was livid."
Sierra was so kind and nice to us.
We took a different way down than the one we'd come up. About six miles down, we stopped. A woman named Sierra had put a road-side table together, with cups, snacks, hot coffee, all for us! Dan introduced us to her, and we all thanked her, had bites, hot coffee, chatted, then we were off again! It was a fun, dirt road descent, with some pedaling as we got closer to town.
The horse on the left was running across the field, I think we gave it the idea.
Anthony, of Mad Monkey Designs and... Brandon? That burrito gave me a food baby, lunch and dinner.
Travis works at Paul Components, which was a sponsor of Grinduro, and also maintains an aid station. He and the Grinduro organizers knew each other, and he told us there'd be food trucks at the fairgrounds. As we rolled back in, under the Grinduro arch, the announcer called out on the microphone, "And here comes California Travis and his bikepacking crew." I think the event had already wrapped, and so we had the place to ourselves. I left some money with the vendors and was well fed. We socialized for a bit more, then I said my goodbyes. I had to visit a friend in Quincy.
My favorite bike is my Falconer. When I had it built in 2016, Cam and I called it a "monster cross" frame, but it's aged well into what we now call a gravel bike. In fact, it's a perfect gravel bike. I love it. I recently noticed it had some ugly rust on the head tube, at the top, near the headset. Cam said he wanted to see it, before he could bless it for paint. I had it media blasted at West Coast Powder Coating in South San Francisco. There was some pitting in the metal, under the rust. A few days later, the rust was blooming again, where it had been. Cam looked at it, declared it safe to ride and repaint, and told me he'd deal with the rust, and have his local powder coater paint it. I gladly accepted. We also talked about his new line of work, coincidentally with people I knew, so we compared notes. Travis was also there to visit. We checked out Cam's new old truck, talked about an October adventure, gave hugs and goodbyes, and I was on the road. I got home in time to have snacks and catch up with my wife Lauren, and thus ends a good weekend.
Cam, evaluating the frame
Travis, evaluating the truck
Not much to say about gear; one new pin-hole in a 36oz water bottle meant I discarded it when I got home. Didn't need the tent, but brought it and it worked well. I'd cleaned and regreased the dropouts on the Hudski, banishing a creaking sound. I should have brought the two nalgenes, because I did nearly run out of water on the climb, and they travel better than bike bottles on the sides of the rear Mica rack. I really want to get the new King nalgene-sized cages when they're available. I forgot my pee bottle. I brought my Mountain Hardwear Ghost Whisperer down pants and jacket, both slightly different shades of olive green. They are dorky. They are cozy! They got lots of remarks. I was warm. (They are expensive. I got one on sale and one used.) Everything else worked well, and I wore, ate, drank or used nearly everything I brought. I brought less food this trip, and it was plenty. I am getting comfortable carrying, and eating less on bikepacking trips. I was able to help a few people with small mechanical problems.
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