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 Tuesday, June 22
Prairie Creek Redwood
State Park to Castle Crags State Park, CA
281 miles
We awake to find ourselves in a very wet
fog that is blanketing the Pacific Ocean coast. We pack up the
wet camping gear and head into Orick
for a hearty breakfast at the truly world
famous Palm Cafe.
Today, our goal is to
extensively explore an area in Northern California known as the
Trinity Alps, a mountain
range between the coastal redwoods and I-5. Motorcycle riders before
us have returned from this little known area telling tales of
endless, remote, twisty mountain roads. Thanks to Tim, a very talented
and dedicated rider, all these marvelous roads can be researched
online at pashnit.com,
a motorcyclist's guide to great riding in California.
We travel south along
the coast on Highway 101 until we pick up
Highway 36,
the first of the Trinity Alps roads. We plan to ride it to
Highway
3 - The Trinity Heritage Scenic Byway,
cross Hayfork Pass on Highway 3, then ride west on
Highway
299 to Highway
96 - the State of Jefferson National Scenic Highway.
If all goes well, we'll swing back to the northeast at the end of
the day and stay in Yreka.
While we are still on the
foggy western edge of the Trinity Alps on Highway 36, we are halted by a road
construction project. A construction worker
tells us that we'll break out of the fog and into the sunshine once we
climb up into the Trinity Alps. He is right and we gladly pull over to shed
some clothing. This is a wonderful road
through the forest and hills and there's little traffic except for
the occasional logging truck. But then as we climb over a ridge, the
road is reduced to nothing more than a paved logging road,
barely more than one lane wide with no center line and no shoulders, just solid white
lines on both sides, rimmed with firs trees. Visions of one
of those logging trucks coming around the corner has us cautiously
creeping along but we only encounter a couple of cars.
At Weaverville, we stop for gas before we head west on Highway 299 to Highway 96 in order to make
the big loop through the Trinity Alps.
But before we leave Weaverville, Joe badgers Trev about the extremely manky chain on
his CB1000 and convinces him to take action rather
than risking it falling apart in the middle of nowhere in the Trinity
Alps. A local in Weaverville is very
helpful in putting us in touch with the Honda dealer in nearby
Redding and even gives us driving directions for once we are in
that town. There is a very brief discussion about splitting up the
group but it is quickly and unanimously ruled out. We ride together to Redding. The service department is pretty booked up so we spend a
couple of hours checking out every new bike in the place. Eric takes advantage of the bright sunshine and dries his
wet camping gear out in the parking lot. We are all very taken with
the gorgeous blue ST1300 on the showroom floor but no one is moved
to trade in their ride just quite yet.
With new chain installed
and Trev immediately noticing a big improvement in power transfer to the
rear wheel, we head north to the
Castle Crags State
Park for the night. It has a
beautiful campground with only one flaw. The constant noise from nearby
I-5, plus the occasional train, fills the air. Nevertheless, we have
an enjoyable evening around the campfire.
Click here for Day Five: Lassen
Volcanic National Park & the Sierra Nevadas
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California Cruise ride summary. |
