Smith River Area

Whew! An intense trip it was, and way fun! Another successful outing in our '66 SO42. We left at 3:45 am on Friday, headed up Hwy 101, ate breakfast in Crescent City at the Apple Peddler Restaurant (not recommended) at 8:00, and headed into the Jedediah Smith Redwoods via a backroad that cut through the groves. A nice little road that was...in deep redwood country, basically a single-lane, pothole-infested dirt (mud) road of many curves. Came out on South Fork Road, and headed south, running along the South Fork of the Smith River, until we came to Big Flat, where we hit the dirt again (9:00), and into the wilds we went.

Big Flat Road runs along Hurdeygurdey Creek with the creek on the left (and many offshoot camping roads-we'll come back to those), until a bridge, then the road and the creek change sides. A nice, flat road (with the requisite potholes) to run in mid-range 3rd gear. Only saw one other vehicle. Once the climb starts, the road is gravel, and quite steep in spots as it winds its way up past Dry Lake (a misnomer), and the terrain becomes decidedly more rugged. 2nd gear begins to be used much more than 3rd.

It was on this initial climb that we saw a large golden fuzzy bear galumphing away from us on the road. We captured a brief glimpse (enough to see that it was indeed a bear) of it before it angled sharply into the brush and disappeared. Cool. The video of that event is disappointing, but it is amazing to have gotten it at all!

As the road writhed its way up the ridges with us for company, a number of smaller roads to either side made their appearance, as well as several 4x4 'rampaging' spots....some of which we explored. A wonderful playground for adventure-seeking bus drivers! Being on a solo mission, however, the weight of prudence kept shenanigans to a moderate level. I became more appreciative of the aggressive/expensive tread on my tires as the gravel was decidedly pointy, and somewhat threatening.

The weather was quite nice...hazy but bright skies, warm, but with a cool breeze. Our road (ya, the one we had to ourselves), took us through stands of fir, madrone, cedar, and huckleberry, and then opened up to cliffs of stone and red earth on one side, and sweeping vistas of deep, dark vales on the other. There was plenty of time to look around, as some of the inclines kept us moving fairly slowly. Here and there, the road would level out, and run along a ridge, and I could get the speed up to a zippy 40 mph. Eyes always scanning for potholes, sharp rocks, big rocks and trees, lizards, and suspicious folds in the road ahead, I was having a killer time manipulating levers, a large wheel (for steering), and pedals to guide our hardworking bus through this maze of surprisingly vacant Forest Service roads.

The map came out after a time, while we pondered a fork in the road, and we discovered that we were more than 3/4 of the way through this leg of our trip. Some minor issues with the concept of scale brought us to the realization that based on our itinerary, we were going to have to deal with time as a surplus, rather than a limitation.

During the descent into the Smith River North Fork valley, we were investigating a little offshoot road that led into a wildflower-strewn meadow, with the path winding over to a flat area and a puddle. A deep puddle, which now bears the scars of a bumper and a steering box under its murky surface. Sometime after this, as we descended through the increasingly dense forest towards Hwy 199, I noticed that my gauges were dead, as were my turn signals, and then checked the horn, which also was defunct.

We arrived at Hwy 199 at 11:43, and proceeded to find a nice spot to park and check some issues out and view the Smith River, which was running energetically through the rocks like an emerald snake. I removed the driver's side kick panel and set about attempting to locate the short which was causing fuses to blow. At one point, the CB antenna (RadioShack through the glass), which I had re-applied with double-sided tape, fell off onto the asphalt with a clatter. Sort of amusing. Eventually, I determined that the hot lead to the wiper switch had fallen off, and replaced it....end of fuse problem! I did note the chunk of rock driven into the tread of one tire while looking for broken wires. The horn, BTW, was one such victim....wire severed. I then spent some time trying to get the left brake light to work, but got bored with that, and off we went!

We took Old Gasquet Toll Road, and after climbing through what looked to be a combination of fire damage and logging, we found ourselves with a nice view of the highway and river down below, and to the south, high on the far ridges, we could see the road we had come in on. The next 4 hours were spent rambling about on the roads that dipped and rose in the hills around Patrick Creek. Some of these roads lead up into Oregon, while another, more mysterious road, according to a certain sign, lead to 'Sourdough', which, I regret to say, we abstained from investigating....a mystery place, not on our maps....it's on our list for things to do next time!

We had located a couple bus-friendly campsites along the upper Patrick Creek at which we planned to stay at one or the other, providing we didn't find anything even more awesome. Should there ever be more than one bus up there, these sites would be great, as they have lots of flat space, creek, big trees, and dappled sunlight.

One of our little side-trips took us up a jeep trail...specified 4x4 road, up which we scrambled mostly in 1st gear. Some challenging moments, but nothing too hard. It got way steep for a bit, and then, after passing up one opportunity to turn around, we came upon a washed-out area with deep convolutions which, given the steepness of the road, would have been quite difficult to traverse. As it was, it was difficult to turn around there, as my broken muffler can attest, and at one point I experienced a minor tippy bit with two wheels off the ground...mainly the one that wanted to spin to make us go. I ended up backing down about a 1/8-1/4 of a mile to that turnaround spot. Well....now the engine has more of a throaty sound to it...tailpipe flange thingy broken mostly off the collector.

At 4:30, we parked the bus at our chosen site, and wandered the woods for some time, looking for mushrooms, (only nonedibles found), viewing wildflowers, neat lichens and moss, listening to birds, etc. An early day, of only 13 hours of driving, but a pretty full-feeling one. Got a small campfire going, and also the little BBQ, on which we cooked some luscious vegetarian tomales and corn-on-the-cob, which is best cooked in the husk over hot coals. A bit of wine, a bit of guitar playing and hanging out, and then to bed. Not one vehicle came by on that road, although we did hear a few small airplanes. Nice spot!

The next morning, ate breakfast, made cowboy coffee, checked oil (was good), tightened the gen belt by 1 shim, and we were off to Hiouchi at 8:45. Fueled up, and went back upriver to look for Jawbone Road, which, because of a discrepancy between the map and the signage, proved to be a little more difficult to find than we though necessary. To our dismay, a sign at the beginning of the road indicated that it was closed 8 miles ahead, but we went up there anyway, hoping to reach the trailhead to Buck Lake before being stopped by a locked gate. The ride up was fun, though: Much first gear steepness, but asphalt roadway. Many piles of bear poop were sighted in the road. The only other car we saw stopped, and we asked them about the closure, and they said something about a lot of snow, but they were misleading. They had not been to the top, there was just snow on the surrounding hills, not, as we hoped, covering the road.

Near the gate, there was another jeep trail heading steeply up the side of the mountain, and with a small hope of getting around the offending gate, we headed up it. This one was steeper than the last jeep trail, and was run exclusively in a straining 1st gear, with lots of clutch feathering and bouncing over gullies and veering to avoid the pointier and larger rocks. The trail ended at a wide spot about a mile or two up this road, with a forlorn snow drift resting against the side of the hill. Took some pictures, and back down we went.

Our only option at this point was to backtrack a mile or so to an intersection, where another road started, which would take us over to the road we came in on...to the intersection where we pored over the map the previous day. This was a good road as well....much of the same alternation between open, flat ridge runs, to windy, darker forest. There were the usual side-roads, and the usual short investigations.

Now on yesterday's road, but going the opposite direction (south), we got a better idea of how steep it was, and regrettably passed by several of the more interesting off-road driving opportunities. But I know right where they are! Somewhere in the same vicinity as the previous day's bear sighting, we had another one, this one also on video, with only slightly better results. Very possibly the same bear, although we both agreed that we thought it was smaller and darker than the previous. Could be perspective and lighting, but who know? Stopped the bus, and walked down a side-road near where the bear disappeared, and looked for tracks and listened for brush-crashing, but there was nothing but birdsong.

We decided to travel up the other end of the road that we had started today to see how far we could get up it before the closure. Another great backcountry experience! The most memorable part of this road was the very long, incredibly steep sections with switchbacks at either end. Going up was just slow....no problem. There's only one gear that works here, and that's 1st, and on the way down, I kept it in the same gear for these steep parts for fear of brake fade. We had no problem, however. As promised, there was a locked gate at some point, and we had to turn around.

We had a couple more such roads to explore in the immediate area, but before that, it was lunchtime (around 2:00). Back down in the valley, near Big Flat, we snooped around a couple of the little tracks that lead from the main road to the river. One of them, the more interesting of several, led us back through a little glade, and then to a fork. To the left, a rather steep and deeply pocked rut of a boulder-infested trail, and to the right, a short curve and then another, less-forboding (but still challenging and fun) way down to a meadow below the cliffs with a campsite (party-site) at the far end near the creek. I had tried to go up the steeper road, just as an experience, but it was a bit much, so I ended up backing down it. Going up the way we had come down was fun...bouncy and tire-slipping, but successful.

We travelled one more super-high/steep "Road Closed" road, and then drove a ways up a two-lane paved highway (which was also closed at some point ahead), and investigated a couple side roads on the way down from there. One of them led to a trailhead. The other side road dropped down to near the river, and we had a bus-thrashing good time exploring the various forks off of this road until we met up with Private Property signs. Some beautiful meadows, tall grass, blooming irises, paint-scratching bushes and trees, big puddles, etc. Much fun, but it had to end at some point, so we eventually headed back to Big Flat to search among the side roads for a new camp site.

We ended up going back over the bridge and camping at a spot we had been to before....on a forested bluff, with a trail going down to another (empty) campsite, and then the river in all its green glory. After jockeying the bus to a relatively level position for the night, I noticed that the rear left tire was quite low, and resolved to leave it be until morning. As I was building the campfire, I found a small brown snake coiled up under a piece of bark at the outer edge of the fire ring. Had dinner, and retired to the bus after the light rain became more pronounced.

There's nothing quite so satisfying as making cowboy coffee with water dipped from a rushing river, whose water is green with the minerals from 'serpentine' rock. The snake was still there in the morning, but the remaining air in the suspect tire had fled. Slow leak. With a good spare, a patch kit, two cans of inflator/sealer, and a 12-volt tire inflator, I was not worried, and it turned out to be fine for the rest of the trip after using a can of sealer and the little compressor. I noticed that the tread of the rear tires was lacerated and abraded....we musta been having fun!

On the way back up South Fork Road, we passed the jeep trail that leads to Rattlesnake Lake, which we had been up before. We never did find the lake. To find the lake is on our list of things to do on the next visit to these parts, as is completing the loops we had attempted but failed due to road closures. Back through the rewood grove we went, this time with Michele driving, and eventually got back to the noise and bustle of Crescent City.

While poring over maps the previous night, we had resolved to take a road from Orick to Weitchpec and south through Hoopa, continuing on to Willow Creek. This we did. Bald Mountain Road was long and fun, but the scenery was muted by occassional heavy fog/mist and a persistant rain. The rain continued all throughout the third day. At one point, on an upper ridge, we stopped for a photo op with fields of purplish blue lupines. I picked a bouquet of lupines and stuck them in the ashtray hole (having removed the ashtray). A wonderful scent accompanied us on our wet and gray drive.

Our plan was to check out Willow Creek for better places to eat on the next Shasta Trip, and then to find a way to avoid some of 299 and a bit of heavy logging area on the Shasta Trip. Didn't find much promising in the way of good food in Willow Creek (just a Mexican restaurant), and our drive west from Willow Creek on 299 was plaqued with a shocking amount of angst-ridden SUV and big pickup drivers.....we must be back in civilization....traffic was very unpleasant to be part of. The only road we were able to make hook up with the Shasta Trip route was the same one that we were trying to avoid, so we made the choice between travelling on that road and going through Eureka and taking the back roads from Ferndale down the coast to our neck of the woods. It would be nice to avoid 299 and Willow Creek altogether!

From Ferndale, the road was curvy and narrow, but asphalt, and we made pretty good time through scenic overlooks to the sea (which we could barely see due to fog), and farm-studded valleys. At one cattleguard, the shock and clanging was followed by a metallic sound as something went bouncing away from the bus. Turned out to be our horn, which I had noticed was only attached by one of the springy things a couple days ago. Well...I wasn't using it anyway!

We got home at 8:27 Sunday night, one day earlier than planned. To make up for the unused day, we are going to do the reconnaisance run of Usal Road this coming Saturday. Usal Road has a reputation for swallowing Toyota 4x4's, and its passability is shrouded in mystery. It runs from the Four Corners area of the Lost Coast, to the northern reaches of Highway 1. Looking forward to that!

All in all, it was a great trip. Yes, plagued by "Road Closed" signs, but a lot of really interesting sights, driving, experiences along the way. I like a trip that leaves one with the urge to get back out there, and this one did that! Gas mileage was horrible....so much aggressive driving in low gears, and a lot of weight in the bus and on the rack. We only travelled a total of 698 miles (approx. 325 on dirt and gravel). I used the fan on the auxiliary oil cooler fairly frequently, but kept the oil temp to around 190-200 with a max of 220 degrees. I don't think I like using 30-weight oil on hard driving trips. I might go back to 20w-50 to try to keep the pressure from dropping to 20 lbs at idle (running: 40-50 lbs). The engine was missing a bit under high speed load at the beginning of the trip, but now seems to be running much smoother, albeit a bit more noisy and apt to backfire when downshifting due to the screwed up exhaust. The bus drove really well on the difficult terrain. This bus has been in several accidents, and is great for this kind of trip....a bit rough around the edges, so we need not fear messing up our pretty paint, but comfortable and capable.

It would be a fun thing to share this experience with other bus drivers, but on the other hand, it was nice being alone....feeling adventurous and daring, and self-reliant made for a truly memorable short trip!

Gene Cornelius

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