Midsummer Magic Rally, Weaverville ...

[SFMCjohn]

This picture makes me want to load up my XR and go find this place. It looks awesome. If you get too hot, take a dip in the river. Nice ride report John!

Hey Tom,

Yes, this is only the second time I've camped at
Buck Island (my 1am cannon-shooting friends had
this campsite last time),
and this time was unplanned, but a dip in the
creek did help swing me down that way ...
I sat around listening to the water flow
until 11 am the next morning ... bliss!

The campsite in the pic above is the very first button-hook right
as soon as you get down to creek level ...
there's more creekside camping all the way at
the end, on a stony beach ...

... thanks for reading!

 

[SFMCjohn]

Bully Choop!

So, I slept late, got up at 9am, and figured I'd try to
catch up with some BARFers at Hyampom, so I looked
at my AAA map and saw some black lines to the east
of Hwy 3 that would take me to Hwy 36 and then
I could find my way on
to Hyampom in the afternoon ...

I usually count on my AAA maps to keep me out of trouble ...
they will leave really rough roads off the map in
places like Death Valley or Baja ...

I'd probably have dropped the bike once or twice on
the Bully Choop switchbacks if it had been loaded for camping ...
anyway, Google maps is smarter than AAA in this case, because
there's no way I'm getting up to the watchtower in my
Honda Accord ...

I was forced to make two map links because google
gaps Indian Creek Road and Bully Choop Roads,
presumably so a GPS won't try to through-route
my sedan over Bully Choop:

Bully Choop Mountain Road map link here.

The rest of the dual-sport route here.

 

[SFMCjohn]

Went past the Bully Choop gold mine on Indian Creek Road ...
active continuously from 1890 to 1930 ...

Indian Creek kept going up ...

... and up ... I was like "dang, where am I going?"

Whew, made it!
On my way up I imagined there was a ranger in the watchtower
looking at me struggle, saying "see that fool putting
his feet down in the middle of the switchback," but of
course, once I got there, I had the place to myself ...

The views were extraordinary, because it's a 6800' mountain
that basically rises up right from Red Bluff and Reading ...
I sat and had a couple of cups of coffee ... arty

 

[SFMCjohn]

Mt Shasta to the north ...

Mt Lassen in the distance ...

 

[SFMCjohn]

Soon enough, it was time to head on through, and
try to find my way down to Platina on Hwy 36 ...

(Say "Bully Shoop," don't sound like you are
from New Jersey ... )

 

[Lunch Box]

John, this is fantastic stuff. Thank you!!!

 

[SD Hornet]

John, you must delete all references and pics of B. Choop. Shhhhh! Ya know, the first rule of fight club and all!

Looks like a funnnnn time!

 

[SFMCjohn]

John, this is fantastic stuff. Thank you!!!

Hey Aaron, thanks,
it was a fantastic
BARF rally, wasn't it? arty
Hope to see you
before Hawthorne ...

 

[SFMCjohn]

John, you must delete all references and pics of B. Choop. Shhhhh! Ya know, the first rule of fight club and all!

Looks like a funnnnn time!

arty

 

[Saltwater]

Thanks for sharing your ride John. Ill be at Lake Pilsbury in 2 weeks so I think I head over to Hull Mountain, Ive never been.

 

[SFMCjohn]

Heading home on Sunday ... this is the
work-around for the huge washout of FR 35
that happened in the late '90s ...

 

[SFMCjohn]

Thanks for sharing your ride John. Ill be at Lake Pilsbury in 2 weeks so I think I head over to Hull Mountain, Ive never been.

Hey Mark,

Cool, I love Mt Hull, especially if I'm
camping at Lake Pillsbury, where the top
of Mt Hull is only 14 miles away ... I like to
leave an hour before sunrise and watch
it from Mt Hull ...

Mt Sanhedrin is fun, too ...

Thanks for reading!

 

[SFMCjohn]

Checked out the watchtower on Toms Head, at
the end of another surprisingly steep climb ...

 

[SFMCjohn]

The view north from Toms Head ... Bully Choop is the sharp
peak on the left, gives one an idea of how steep it is ...

SD Hornet tells me he's been on Bully Choop
and found the gate locked about 3/4 of a mile from
the top, so I may have been lucky to have been
able to ride all the way up ... Rachel, the gal staffing
Toms Head tells me Bully Choop isn't used regularly
any more, so maybe they try to keep the gate locked
to prevent vandalism ...?

 

[SFMCjohn]

Rachael's shift up in Toms Head is five days, four nights,
and she sleeps in the cab, which had a nice, home-y feel ...
she helped me with my flat-lander pronunciations of
Bully Choop and Yolly Bolly ... arty

... there were a ton of hummingbirds at Rachael's
feeders ...

 

[SFMCjohn]

... soon enough, it was time to roll on ... dropped down to the
Starbucks in Red Bluff for some cell service, the first in
five days, as my phone didn't get the weak ATT signal in
Weaverville ...

... this is the water crossing at the bottom of
Raglin Ridge ...

 

[SFMCjohn]

Camped for the night at Black Butte,
just above Mendocino Pass and just
off FH-7, which was super-silty ...

Sunrise from Black Butte ...

 

[SFMCjohn]

I actually camped at Black Butte because I ran out of daylight ...
I'd been trying to get to Sheetiron Mountain, but as it turns
out, I'd have been denied anyway because the road to the
top of Sheetiron Mountain is well and truly blocked ...

 

[SFMCjohn]

The small water crossing at the south end of M-3,
near the intersection with M-10 ...

... and the Bear Creek water crossing on M-10 ... I saw
another small black bear on M-3, just a few miles from
this water crossing ... arty

I'd planned on making a left onto M-10 and a right
over Goat Mountain to drop down through the Pole Garden
to the water crossing to Bartlett Springs road, but I was tired, so I just made the
right onto M-10, through the water crossing to Elk Mountain Road,
Upperlake, Geyserville, Santa Rosa, Hwy 101 and home by 3pm ...

The Midsummer Magic Rally was epic,
so happy that I made it to my first
BARF rally and that it was in such a cool
part of the world ...

see you at the
next BARF rally,
-- SFMCjohn

 

[WoodsChick]

... it's an adventure now ...

On the way to Buck island?



Enjoying the photos!



WC