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!
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.
This Memorial Day with all of the snow that we received we wanted to make sure that we went where there would be little chance of snow. Additionally we wanted to keep it relatively close to home, so we ended up going to Mendocino national forest.
Day 1:
We left late on Friday the 27th and drove up I5 to the Maxwell exit and then headed west until we got to Goat Mountain Road. Goat Mountain Road is a fairly easy road that takes you by Stoney Creek and into the Mendocino National forest, the last stop for gas is just before East Park Reservoir.
The road is in pretty good shape, a Honda Civic could easily make it :-). Below is a brief section of the drive (I apologize in advance for the music and noise...didn't get a chance to edit the sound):
Our first campsite was just off of Goat Mountain Road, we found a little camp site at the confluence of Little Stoney Creek and Trout Creek. I did try some fishing but had no luck, I did spot some though. It was tough to cast a fly in such cramped quarters.
Camp on Night 1
Little Stoney Creek (Next to Camp)
Short Path to Camp - Major was fond of this spot
Another view of the Creek
Katie the next morning
Esty the next morning
Day 2
Had a great breakfast in the morning - Katie is getting quite skilled cooking out of the small galley! Didn't get too cold at night but we did realize...a little late....that the trailer was not exactly level...which meant that I got squished all night :-). We packed up camp and the sun that was out earlier quickly got covered by some clouds, we didn't get a ton of rain but enough to where we spent a few hours of the afternoon at the second campsite just taking a nap in the trailer waiting for the rain to clear.
The road again was in fairly good shape, 16N44 got a little bumpier then Goat Mountain but overall it wasn't bad....possible in a Civic - but probably a better fit for a Subaru. I should note that the spur down to Wyley Glade has a lot of overgrown brush and you will get some nice pinstripes if you head down it. I of course went down it! Some video:
The campsite was great overall - there was some glass around the campfire ring but we were able to clean up most it. Here are some pics of the trail and of the camp site:
Right before the spur down.
The full setup - shower and all!
The rain broke around 4:00pm, Major and I went for a hike all the way down the trail. It would be possible to get a vehicle down there(and there is a really nice camp site) but the road is very overgrown and much more rutted maybe a 3 or a 4 on a scale of 10.
Day 3
We got an early start on Day three, packed up camp early and hit the road down to Bartlett springs and also to figure out where the heck we wanted to go next! I knew of a few additional camp sites but really just wanted to explore. I was very glad to have the 20 gallons of extra fuel with us, I had to put a jerry can into the FJ for Day 3.
We drove a lot on Day 3, or at least it felt like a lot (red line below).
We had a few great stops! The first one was just as we got to the crossing of the north fork of Cache Creek, the water cross was pretty shallow maybe 18 inches, the water flow was not too fast at the crossing. I saw a Tacoma prerunner do it so i'm sure its possible in 2wd. Here are some pics from that area:
The crossing - deeper then it actually looks.
Downstream from the crossing
Upstream from the crossing - I think this was the cast that broke my rod :-(
From there we headed on our way to Bartlett Springs, an old stage coach stop. It was apperently a very nice place but closed after a fire in the early 1900s, since then apperently someone thougt it was fun to burn it down to nothing. All that is left now is some cement structures and the spring.
The spring still flows
Structures like this are all that is left
We had lunch here and then headed out to Bear Creek - here are some more pictures of the road along the way and the camp site.
Always wierd how you see cars left out in the middle of nowhere
Creek by Campsite #3
Sun starting to set at campsite #3
Day 4
On Day 4 we got an early start as we wanted to get home at a reasonable hour. Still had some time to take some pictures on the road home though :-). These are from hwy 20 and hwy 16.
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.
So tomorrow at 3:00am the wife and I are headed down to Upland, California and the official office of SoCal teardrops to pick up our Krawler 459. The plan is to make a big U turn in upland and head up by the Kern River and find a site to camp for the night. If there is still daylight out I want to try and get some flyfishing in around little Kern River and see if I can’t tackle one fish off of the Heritage Fishing Challenge List (Little Kern Gold Trout), if all goes well I will get the Kern Rainbow the following morning but I’m a little worried about the flows being too fast. After that we are heading to the Kings River and finally home:
So enough about fish…what about the trailer?
The decision about the trailer came after much deliberation, I think I can say that no stone went unturned when I was doing the research on what was the best fit for me. Here are some my key factors that went into choosing a manufacturer:
1. Quality of Workmanship/History of Quality
2. Simplicity of Design
3. Off road capability (should be capable of a 6/10 rated trail…no Rubicon! :-))
4. Level of comfort
I knew I wanted something small and capable that would provide an enclosed environment to sleep in. I looked at a variety of manufactures including:
SoCal Teardrops
Adventure Trailers
Moby 1
Little Guy
XpoTrail
Plus a few others
While I liked the Vision of XpoTrail, it really appeared to me that it would be a few years before they would have a solid production model that had worked out all of the kinks in the design and fabrications process.
Moby1 Looked pretty interesting but I just didn’t see the attention to detail that I would have liked and I’m not sure they really had a History of Quality. Although they had a very tempting pricepoint which did give me a second…third..and fourth look.
LittleGuy trailers looked like a viable option, but I got a feeling that they were somewhat more mass produced and honestly I hated the guy who they had selling their products on the youtube videos…too much of a sleezeball and not enough adventurer.
So that left me with two viable options that really fit well into my overall criteria – the Adventure Trailer Teardrop and the Socal Krawler 459. As I researched this I could not help but note the similarities, and after asking and researching there is a relationship between SoCal Teardrops (SCT) and Adventure Trailers (AT). Essentially SCT provides AT with the teardrop which AT then drops onto their chassis. I’m not sure who does the additional modifications as the both offer similar modifications to the actual teardrop itself, more stuff comes standard on the AT version, but it also has a higher starting price. Being the excel jockey that I am, I started running the numbers and it turns out after you crunch the numbers and compare everything the AT one is a little more pricy then a similarly equipped SCT.
Why is the AT more expensive? My guess would be their advanced suspension. It is some fancy stuff, but that ultimately ended up being what drove me away from Adventure Trailers….the suspension is much more fancy then anything I need (I’m probably one of the few who has not upgraded to Icons ). Really though it was about simplicity…the FJ is a complicated machine as it is, the least the trailer can do is be simple!
So I ended up getting the SCT Krawler, of course I upgraded a few things. Here are some of the options that I went for:
• LED light Package
• 4 Jerry Can Holders
• Tongue Box
• Interior Vent Fan
• Interior tie Down System (for gear lol!)
• Group 31 battery tray
• Kitchen Upgrade
And probably a handful of other things.
I decided to bring my own battery (Sears Platinum Deep Cycle) and wheel and tires (33 inch so they can swapped into the FJ if needed).
