3 Hours to get to a Wedding or 3 days? A 5 day Northern Nevada and California Adventure

[Sierra Valley]

So my knuckle head young cousin decided to get married on memorial weekend and at first I wasn't all to pleased about his choice of dates for getting hitched as we usually do an annual camping trip off of the Black Rock Playa in northern Nevada. However after much thought of if I should just stay in Reno for the weekend and make the 3 hour drive up to Northern California for the wedding or do I make the best of it leave work early Thursday and take 3 days to get to the wedding with two to get back to Reno. After some planning with a friend who was headed up North we could travel to Gerlach and the Iveson Ranch together and split ways Friday morning.

Thursday afternoon finally came around and my buddy was driving an old CJ8 Scrambler on 37s and with a trailer so he left about 40 mins before me and we would meet out at a hot spring in northern nevada to continue on our drive.

Headed over sand pass in into the Smoke Creek Playa. Storms were in the area.

Finally met up with my travel partner at an undisclosed area.

 

[Sierra Valley]

After a short soak and cold beer and exchanging pleasantries we were back on the road headed to Gerlach.

The closer we got to Gerlach the darker the skys got and being that it was Memorial weekend I had to fly old glory

Before heading out to the ranch we had to stop at Brunos for a Pecan and some food as this is a must do if ever in the Black Rock and Gerlach area. Bruno passed not to long ago so I took his parking place.

 

[Sierra Valley]

After stopping and making friends we were off to the ranch but one of my travel buddys HAM friend was up on the hill transmitting for an event for the playa that weekend so we went and met him and was treated with a specatacular view of both the smoke creek desert and black rock playa.

Old glory was on her last legs before the trip and she was done after today. Lots of high winds and thunderstorms.

We finally made it to the ranch and were greeted with a fresh keg on tap as he passed us with it on the high way. We sat out on the porch till two in the morning watching the lighting and listening to the thunder crack over the black rock playa it was one of the nicest light shows I have seen.

That night i was fortunate to get my own camper since they have 20-30 they rent out for burning man and this one was freshly cleaned that day.

 

[Sierra Valley]

Day 2

Friday morning I awoke feeling a bit fuzzy from the fun night before but was excited for the day ahead. Packed up my gear went around said good byes to my friends at the ranch and to my friend from Reno and headed out on the county road 34 north which would eventually take me to Surprise Valley in Northern California. There were a few things I was look forward to seeing on this route and one of those which is the Lund Petrified Forest.

Beautiful morning out on the dirt road after the heavy rains.

After an hour or so of dirt road and canyons I came across the Lund Petriefied Forest. Its unfortunate that today we must chain up such beautiful places due to the lack of respect for our nature and the beauty it comes with. What a sight it would have been to see monster trees in the desert how ever long ago it was.

 

[Sierra Valley]

From the petrified forest the fast desert roads were slowly turning into muck and I was a long ways from civilization either way. On the heals of a morning thunderstorm for the past hour I finally caught up to it and the roads went from 50 mph to 10-20 and there was nobody else out there but me. 4wd became mandatory and my hour or so drive turned into 2.5 hours and became rather stressfull making it up some of the passes.

Water on the sides of the roads and the storm out front with a Nevada road block

Finally out of the high desert I got into some canyon country and the views changed dramatically.

After a long tense morning spent in 4 wheel drive I had made it to my first main destination for the day Surprise Valley where I would be chasing some new to me hot springs the rest of the day and soaking in the rain. Being from Norther California this is one area I had never made it to and it is remarkably beautiful especially on this day. Water falls were beaming off the Warner Mtn Range everywhere. I picked a perfect day to come explore this part of the world.

About this time I had gotten phone service and my phone had blow up!! I forgot that hunting tags had been allocated this day and everyone was excited sharing their results and I was no exception! Elk tag yeah baby!

I sat here a bit longer enjoying the view and taking advantage of cell service and also planning out the rest of the days mission as I had planned more dirt roads but with the rain continuing it wasnt looking good for those.

 

[Sierra Valley]

Finally i got moving after phone calls and texts and planning the rest of day out. Next on my agenda was to cross Surprise Valley and go find a hot spring Ive wanted to visit for the past few years. There is a lot of geo thermal activity out in the area and finding the hot spring was not as easy as I thought.

The first place I thought the hot spring was and I almost left as it looked like it had been dismantled.

Luckily I did not give up and decided to drive a bit further and I was rewarded with a soak in the rain!!!

 

[Sierra Valley]

So after a nice soak in the rain I wasnt about to try another couple hours of dirt roads to go see my folks and there friends in Likely CA so up and over the pass from Cedarville to Alturis then south to Likely. Upon arrival I ran into momma Terri from work who said she would never ever ever ever let me in her camper so I had to grab a pic of me in her camper for proof LOL

 

[Sierra Valley]

Day 3 Wedding Day in Nor Cal - Modoc County

Day 3 was pretty uneventful no new back roads or anything special on that front however it was wedding day for my cousin and we had family coming.

Wedding out on the farm

Pics of me and my family.

My cousin and I.

In true farm fashion the bride arrived in the back of a dodge. We had to plow the wedding field several times to get all the mud gone.

I crashed at the farm that night not sure of what i was going to do the rest of the trip.

 

[Sierra Valley]

Day 4

Woke up early out at the Ranch not really knowing where I was wanting to go had another hot spring to take down later in the day but didnt want to take the hwys back to Alturas CA. So said my goodbyes pulled out on the county road started driving and passed another county road that head in the general direction I wanted. As luck would have it I had cell service and google maps showed me the dirt road connected back to Canby and took me along the beautiful Pit River.

As I continued in on the trail I found that I was on the old Lassen Applegate trail that I had done earlier this year in the Nevada desert.

There was a stark contrast from the high desert I had been on to Norther California with all the recent rains! Everything was green and lush and the roads were sloppy here and I had to use 4x4 the entire trip along this section.

The Pit River was swollen with all recent rains and made for a beautiful drive.

Northern California traffic jam

After an hour of 4wd I made it to civilization and got this pic of where the river narrowed into a canyon.

 

[Sierra Valley]

Rest of day four tomorrow!

 

[Sierra Valley]

So after my morning adventure I tried to make it back to golf with my folks and their friends over in Likely CA but my morning adventure along the Pit River had set me back and I had missed them by about 15 mins. So with that I got some food in my belly and took a nice shower and knew that I had one more destination in fact the holy grail of my trip. So with that I told my parents friends who were at camp that I was headed back out into the back country to go find another hot spring in Nor Cal that has been on my hit list for a few years. With a pin dropped I headed out on the road to go located this treasure. As I reached dirt road I had hit a different type of clay mud that was really bad from again more rain. Put it in 4 wheel drive and took off. Couldn't get pics as it was white knuckle entire way in. At one point I started fish tailing and I pulled off the road into a side road near an old tractor. From here I knew I had a 2 mile hike in and grabbed my hiking boots, my 9mm and some water and snacks and hit the road. Wasn't long before I had a feeling I wasn't alone and turned around to see somebody across the canyon walking past my truck heading my way. Figured he was heading to wear I was and ran out of luck driving in.

Once I got out of the canyon and into the meadow I was surprised with a beautiful view of a deer meandering through the meadow.

Turned the corner and found what I was looking for.

Water was perfect nice and relaxing.

 

[Sierra Valley]

Monday was time to head home and I was ready to take the pavement all the way home until I was just outside of Susanville CA when I decided to take a route into the back way of Pyramid. Road was smooth dirt and I finally got over to the cut off to Flannigan only to find a train blocking the road cost me a good 40 min detour. From there it was smooth sailing back to Reno. Gearing up for another big trip this week hopefully have it posted in the next few months. LOL

View of Mt. Lassen covered in snow.

Train Block

 

[CMARJEEP]

Nice report. I’ll be heading to that area this weekend. Always love seeing that CJ8 around too.

 

[Sierra Valley]

Howd your trip go? Yeah Mark and I love to get out and about.

 

[Sierra Valley]

Any idea why all of my pics are gone? They were on Facebook. Has Expedition Portal changed their stuff again? Getting hard to stay an active member here anymore.