Into the Sierras

Got the itch to head out for a short little run into the Sierras, this was my first run of the year into the Sierras and I was scared that there would still be too much snow out there to really get anywhere nice. My new 3wt fishing rod had just arrived and it had to start getting a workout so a trip was in order.
I drove straight up HWY 50 to Ice House Road and then turned on Peavine Ridge. I’m not giving any more direction from their as I kind of want to keep this place to myself, call it what you will – if you find you will know why!
The route to get there was not difficult but as you will see from some of the video there is a LOT of overgrown brush in the area so you will get some very nice pin stripes if you go too far off road here, the abundance of snow has caused the manzanita to grow like I have never seen before. If it makes some of you feel better it is really just the first round of pin stripes that hurt….after that the only thing that bothers you is the sound of the Manzanita scratching against your paint (similar to nails on a chalk board). It seems like a lot of the trails that I have been on recently are overgrown….maybe it is just a year for some solid pin stripes!



View 6/17 - Into the Sierras in a larger map

Entering the trail -

Of course once I got there i had to put on the waders and try out the waters!

Ended catching a total of 5 and three got off the hook, not bad for 2 hours!

A fire caused a lot of damage to this area many years ago - this tree (and others) were planted to help re-forest the area.

Everything is in bloom!

Good thing about silver is you can't see the pinstripes from afar :-)

Leaving -

The next morning I was going to try to make my way to HWY 88 via Silver Fork Road, but much to my dismay the road still had a fair amount of snow on it (Starting at 6100 feet). Now…the snow was passable I have made it through worse with the FJ but I had to play it conservative for a few reason: 1) I was alone, 2)I had never tried snow cross with the trailer and didn’t want to find out exactly how much drag it would cause and 3) I still had another 1000 feet to climb before I would start going downhill again…the snow was only going to get worse.

Kings River From kern

On Saturday 5/24/2011 we continued our journey to bring the trailer back home.  We broke camp (at Kern River - See prior post) around 9:30am and started our journey, while we were supposed to be going north and through hwy 195 to Springville....that road was closed.

Our stupid GPS (Never buy Delorme GPS for your PC...worst tool ever) decided that it wouldn't recognize Hot Springs Road, hence we had to backtrack and go the route you see below...but at least it was scenic!


View Kern to Kings in a larger map

Regardless we finally Got out of Kern and headed up north to the trail that would take us from hwy 180 to the Kings River. Overall the trail was not to terrible. It was fairly rutted out, but all in all I would rate it a 3 (out of 10) and only due to the fact that we had to get into 4WD because some of the ruts were still very wet and I had to back up once.  Map of trail:


View Kern to Kings in a larger map

Video:



Snapshots along the way:

And the campsite:

Kern River

Made the trip from Upland, Ca to Kern River after picking up the trailer. The drive was very scenic once we got onto 395. I use Delorme Topo for navigation and every once in a while it takes us through an interesting set of roads...in this case it led us down a dirt road that connected two freeways on the way to Kernville and Kern river. Was quite a kick. In any case there was really no real of road driving, but the camping was at least primitive and somewhat isolated. There are a ton of campgrounds along the Kern River and while I really wanted to go to Monache Meadows we had already made the drive from Sacto so we had already been driving for a good 7
hours before we got to Upland and began this leg of the Journey.



View Upland/Kern in a larger map

Leaving Upland with the new Socal Teardrop 

Passing By Lake Isabella (Our Primary Route with The lake to our left was  closed

Further Down the road to Kernville.

Scene on the road to Kernville

Campsite @ Kern River

From Campsite

From Campsite

From Campsite

Setting up the bed in the teardrop