4/20 Lassen NF and Shasta

April 25, 2026

From here, I'm headed back north and I'm really enjoying being back in the lower elevation forest. The MTB trails are much more forgiving, and I'm finding the singletrack non-motorized trails again- it feels great.

My route took me thru Carson City and Reno where I could avoid the $9.19 !!! Fuel of Lee Vining and pay a paltry $5.99 in Nevada. I found some fantastic camping and trails to ride near Beckwourth, Portola and Quincy before steering towards McCloud then I5 north return to Portland

Riding the forest roads near Beckwourth, I was happy to be back in the forest. I came across a group of riders that suggested I take the single track, and showed me where. It was fantastic, until….. As I began descending the route, the back started to feel wrong- drat! A flat. I spent an hour before giving up fixing it, and hiked back the 2.5 miles to the van. Feeling grumpy to miss the fast part of the ride, feeling happy to not have to push the bike uphill for 2.5 miles. In the morning I returned to finish what I missed out on :).

The Beckwourth peak trail- I found this in the Trailforks App- and is a really nice trail out of Portola. I didn't have the stamina for the entire route (or maybe that was the will to…), but it was a fun climb and descend back to town. The snake that I hopped over was gone when I came back downhill, so evidently hopping was enough to prevent serious injury.

Quincy has some MTB areas on Trailforks that look just amazing, and I was all set to explore and check out the trails, but the weather rolled in, and I shelved that idea for another time. I had selected an adequate trailhead parking area to camp in, but when I returned for the evening, the parking lot was crowded. What??? As I walked the trail, a stream of kids from 10 to 20 came filing out of the forest with their Quincy MTB shirts on- like 50 of them! The noise and energy was amazing to watch as they circled the parking lot, had a post ride hoo ha then vanished in in their cars to parts unknown- wild!

McCloud River.

Doug suggested that I take the route thru McCloud, and that's where I found my last camp- on the McCloud river. What a wonderful place! The beautiful clear stream, riparian zone and a well maintained hiking trail along the banks. I found some excellent abstract images from the river before it started to rain for real. Those will likely take some time to prepare, But I'm excited about that,

4/17-18 Tom's Place Rock Creek

April 25, 2026

Not far from Bishop is Tom's place. It is also a great place to make incursions to the higher elevations of the Sierras. I was thinking of the Hilton Lakes area, but learned from the previous days snow limitations, that lower is better. So I had a wonderful hike up the Rock creek trail to Rock Creek Lake. This riverside trail winds up past two campgrounds (closed for the season), and a resort of sorts, with mini cabins and other buildings, all deserted for the winter, even though it was fantastically warm in the sun. Kind of "shorts and a fleece" kind of weather.

I noticed that nearly everything in this location is called "Rock creek", multiple trails, roads, area designation, even the lake…. Rock creek lake- that's a funny name. With giant trout hanging out at the exit part of the lake. I'll bet they're "rock creek trout"!

4/15-16. Buttermilk Boulders and Sabrina Lake

April 25, 2026

In 2024 we had a wonderful hike from the Sabrina Lake trailhead up into the higher elevations of the Sierras. This time, I was blocked by a gate 2 miles early, and by snow drifts once I hiked up to the trailhead. The lake itself was low due to maintenance on the dam spillway. That's all part of the adventure.

Lake Sabrina was drawn down for dam repairs and the trails were still snow covered.

Buttermilk boulders is an area that's "world renowned" for not rock climbing, but bouldering. It's slightly hilarious to see folks hiking out to the boulder field with enormous cube backpacks on (sorry, no photos of this). These are their fall mats, like gym mats. They will free climb the boulders with the existing cracks and divots as handholds, but if they fall, it's good to not crush themselves at the base of the rock. I'm sure their parents approve. The rock is amazingly grippy, like granite, so that part is excellent for climbing, but if you pick at it a little, it just crumbles into coarse sand (not so good for anchoring!)

I enjoyed hiking among the formations and watching the people bouldering.

Dramatic Sunset over the Buttermilk boulders

The Mountain biking was both really good, and really challenging. Only 4WD roads were available, and they were very sandy and rocky, so each section had me wishing for the other. Wildflowers were wonderful!