Gimme the Good Earth III

Intrinsic · Post by **Intrinsic** » Fri Apr 12, 2019 3:52 pm

Seashell fossils, would have missed these if I wasn't crawling on my hand and knees exploring (as one does when following a bear trail). Brushed away the dead leaves and voila! All this volcanic rock and then seabed sediment rock. Trippy.

View from lying around in camp. Last of the blue blue skies.

Woke up to this:

Very smoky skies, blotting out the sun. There is a fire somewhere, I know not where at this time. So much smoke I fear it is in Deer canyon. Shit! Time to move on.

The last mile of the deer creek trail as I head out of the of wilderness to the dirt road, I Haven't seen anybody for 5 days now. At least there are no fire crews rushing in or helicopters, that's a good thing I suppose.

The Deer Creek bridge crossing and then a couple thousand feet of hot dry climbing on a dirt road, packing all my water with me

: DeerCr 15.JPG (193.35 KiB) Viewed 1522 times

Intrinsic · Post by **Intrinsic** » Wed Apr 17, 2019 5:06 pm

While i was coming out of Deer Creek I meet this yahoo backpacking down to spend 4 nights to escape the heat and smoke. First person in 5 days.

For being obviously out of shape he had been all around the Ishi and Mill creek area before. Turned out to be a cool and interesting dude, a Great source of info.
Learned the fire is a Huge one in the Reading-Shasta area still 100% uncontained. Looks like smoke for me for at least a week.

Up to the main logging road and private land for next two days.

With a few places briefly on National Forest land and still virgin.

The rest logged with less shade and thus hotter. Its still pushing 100F temps in the afternoon even tho I'm up to 4000 feet.

Smokey views.

Looking across deer Creek canyon cannot even see the other side.

Intrinsic · Post by **Intrinsic** » Wed Apr 17, 2019 5:09 pm

Two very cool dudes motoring on the closed road. Most often meeting motorcyclist in the backcountry never goes well. But they were real cool and were there for the same reason as me.

Crossed highway 32 and followed Big Chico Creek for a mile. Sweet as Sin after being on the dry ridge for the last two days.

: LoggingRoad 12.JPG (177.29 KiB) Viewed 1500 times

Then it was climbing up on an old dirt road, which turned out long abandoned and overgrown, which quickly turned into yet another unplanned cross country. Doesn't look like I'll make Butte Meadows this mourning after all.

12 days since last supply, I'm a little lost, foods gone … and loving it!

Post by **Jesús Malverde** » Thu Apr 18, 2019 10:38 am

What a stoic, I'd be freaking out.

bentech · Post by **bentech** » Thu Apr 18, 2019 11:20 am

you can get this sweet sense of peace when all in

practice helps...

that towers amazing!
surprised ive never seen a picture of it before
how far from parking is it?

looks well worth the survey
did you walk up to it?
gotta be some old bolts on something like that

have a name?
err or, whats it near???

Intrinsic · Post by **Intrinsic** » Mon Apr 22, 2019 4:35 pm

No I didn't check it out any farther, I saw it within the first mile up the road from the Deer creek and was moving with limited water/time.
Where: about 30 miles from Chico, Ca. follow the blue line to where Red X marks the spot.

Detailed 7.5' topo

Unknown how far the public can drive in, or if restriction only applies during the salmon runs or specific times. There were locked gates at every junction on the private lands, although at my junction there was no visible gate down the road to Chico. But the yahoo was hiking in, not driving. At least the Forest Service, Fish and Game and the timber companies have vehicle access.

The road in the other way from Black Rock and Lassen trail, is Public but a long rough unmaintained jeep road with mad driving skillz needed.

Be warned it may look close, but a ¼ mile in this country could take an hour. That view could only be seen in one brief place from the road, I went backward to get the pic. I likely only saw it cause I was walking. There are many many spires in the whole area.
There were no obvious turnouts or parking on the road within a mile either way
Would not expect to see climbing bolts on this one. I would expect it to be virgin.

It is impressive.

Intrinsic · Post by **Intrinsic** » Mon Apr 22, 2019 4:37 pm

Damn! I forget to bring the pics for next installment ... I remembered the maps but not the main event.

next time eh.

bentech · Post by **bentech** » Mon Apr 22, 2019 7:10 pm

damn impressive!
surprised ive never seen it before

ah well,
catch em on the flip side

Intrinsic · Post by **Intrinsic** » Wed Apr 24, 2019 3:18 pm

Not that stoic. The thing is I get WTF lost so rare these days it's kinda fun now, yanno orienteering. Yeah there were a few holy-shits and what-the-fucks when the terrain was suppose to bench out, instead a deep canyon appeared.
Had to drop down into the canyon to find out, the map gave me a couple of scenarios of what I did wrong, where I am, after all not many canyons nearby, but which one?

Came across this unmarked trial on this side of the creek, Vibram boot prints, a duck (small rock cairn), all screamed Boy Scouts!

Yup, when I the trail ended at a pond, knew I was in Lassen BSA camp and just a couple of road miles from Butte Meadows.
The manager there, Ren, was jes too cool. All I asked was the way out to main road (since I was trespassing) and he ended up letting me use the phone to check in with my bro (no court date yet, sent off a kindle). Then he got me a doughnut, a hot shower and a hot lunch. Ren explained there are only bars in Butte and maybe one might sell me some dry supplies, maybe; then he just up and gave me 2 pounds of cheese and granola bars to help with my resupplies.
Yeah Ren and the whole crew there made my day!

An hour later and Butte Meadows indeed did have only had 3 bars, also 2 cemeteries. The first bar, an outside tavern advertising dollar drafts beers. So had couple. They did have a few supplies and mean a few. Got potato chips (weren't any bread), a lone mac-and-cheese dinner, graham crackers and the crown jewel: a big bag of fresh broccoli florets the bartender sold me from her personal stash. Not much variety for the next four days but with the broccoli it turned into some dang good eating! Missing fresh food big time now.

Then onto the Bambi Inn, with two silhouetting sniper rifles framing a idyllic Disney picture of the fawn Bambi and the Inn's logo underneath: 'We Don't Dial 911'. Topped off with an enormous American flag flying over the bar.
I went in anyway.

: ButteMeadows 04.JPG (129.03 KiB) Viewed 1462 times

The owner fired up a grill in the back just to cook me a burger; washing it all down with more cold beer, women flirting with me, Yay Baby! I was very comfortable at The Bambi Inn! Good people in Butte.

Learned the Reading (or Carr) fire still is uncontained and spreading, The chief of police's house in Reading city burnt down. Too bad it wasn't the federal courthouse there.
Next day the Hike out was on a paved road with still lots of more smoky air.

Intrinsic · Post by **Intrinsic** » Wed Apr 24, 2019 3:32 pm

Passed through lots of new logging, Not pretty and smoky as hell to boot.

: ButteMeadows 06.JPG (188.59 KiB) Viewed 1462 times

Scars on the land and rocks.

I kept gaining elevation, the road turn to dirt but still well used from the big logging trucks.

: ButteMeadows 08.JPG (383.92 KiB) Viewed 1462 times

Then to an old jeep trial, Not used much anymore.

Eventually the jeep trail climbed steeply up to 7000 feet and to blue skies.

I was just at the edge of the smoke ceiling.

Looking east toward Nevada away from the fire and still full of smoke. Not quite out of it, but there's blue skies above, been a few days since blue. Solar panel is happy too.

The Firs were really going off. Notice the cones point upward on firs and all other conifers they hang down.
Red Fir, Abies Magnifica (thanks Oldjoints).