Mountain Adventure
This weekend, I went camping at Stony Gorge Reservoir near Elk Creek, California. It was a restful weekend, spent swimming in the lake and eating hamburgers. Here is my campsite, by the shore of the reservoir:
It was quite hot during the day, which made perfect weather for swimming, but then cooled off at night. On Friday night, there was a spectacular sunset over the mountains:
This morning, I broke camp at 7:30 and hit the road as the rest of the party was still packing up. I decided to take the scenic way home, so rather than head directly east to the interstate, I went west to Elk Creek and then took the road from Elk Creek south to Stonyford. The rudimentary Google map I had printed showed that I could take this back route all the way to Williams, at which point I would hook back up with I-5 to head home.
At first, it was a wonderful drive through the foothills of the California coastal range. The road wound through ranches along the Stony Creek, and there were few signs of habitation other than one large and out-of-place house about halfway between Stonyford and Elk Creek. The signs along the road pointed right for the Pacific Crest Trail and left to head back to the more populated Central Valley.
When I reached Stonyford, things started to get a little confusing. I drove straight through town and found myself on a dead-end road. I discovered that I needed to turn west onto the Lodoga-Stonyford road in order to curve around the East Park Reservoir. I made it to Lodoga and was comforted to see a sign pointing me toward Williams, which was about thirty miles away.
But a couple miles south of Lodoga, I thought I had taken another wrong turn. The road narrowed and became much rougher without any notice. At first I backed up, because I thought I must have accidentally turned into somebody's driveway. But there was no evidence of a turn off that I had missed.
I figured my best option was to keep going, but as I continued southward the road got more and more tenuous. At one point, I looked around and discovered that the mountains were no longer just on the west side of my car, but they were to the east and south, also. I felt relieved when I reached a turn in the road (called Leesville I see from my more detailed map at home), and saw a sign that said Williams was only 12 miles away. But it also warned that the road ahead was narrow and winding. I laughed thinking that it couldn't get any more narrow than it already was.
I found out that it could. The road started ascending into the hills, and I found myself looking down at an amazing valley (Oat Valley, according to the map). But I couldn't concentrate on the view, because the road was becoming more rough and frankly much more disturbing. The hairpin curves were accentuated by the steep drop-off to my right, with no guard rail to stop me from plunging hundreds of feet to the valley below. Because I hadn't seen another car since Stonyford, I began to wonder what would happen if I had any trouble--especially because my cell phone beeped at the start of this scenic detour to let me know that its battery was almost gone.
The road took on a concave shape amid its many bumps and potholes, and I felt like it was almost as narrow as the width of my car. I drove slowly down the side of the hill to reach the valley. When I got to the bottom, I paused a moment to look up at the road I had just driven. I see now that I had just traversed the Windy Pass.
After that, it was relatively smooth sailing. I crossed another range of hills and popped out on a tiny road just a couple miles east of Williams. In hindsight I was happy I took the detour, but I don't know if you could have convinced me of that as I wound my Subaru up that tiny, bumpy road to cross the Windy Pass.
It was quite hot during the day, which made perfect weather for swimming, but then cooled off at night. On Friday night, there was a spectacular sunset over the mountains:
This morning, I broke camp at 7:30 and hit the road as the rest of the party was still packing up. I decided to take the scenic way home, so rather than head directly east to the interstate, I went west to Elk Creek and then took the road from Elk Creek south to Stonyford. The rudimentary Google map I had printed showed that I could take this back route all the way to Williams, at which point I would hook back up with I-5 to head home.At first, it was a wonderful drive through the foothills of the California coastal range. The road wound through ranches along the Stony Creek, and there were few signs of habitation other than one large and out-of-place house about halfway between Stonyford and Elk Creek. The signs along the road pointed right for the Pacific Crest Trail and left to head back to the more populated Central Valley.
When I reached Stonyford, things started to get a little confusing. I drove straight through town and found myself on a dead-end road. I discovered that I needed to turn west onto the Lodoga-Stonyford road in order to curve around the East Park Reservoir. I made it to Lodoga and was comforted to see a sign pointing me toward Williams, which was about thirty miles away.
But a couple miles south of Lodoga, I thought I had taken another wrong turn. The road narrowed and became much rougher without any notice. At first I backed up, because I thought I must have accidentally turned into somebody's driveway. But there was no evidence of a turn off that I had missed.
I figured my best option was to keep going, but as I continued southward the road got more and more tenuous. At one point, I looked around and discovered that the mountains were no longer just on the west side of my car, but they were to the east and south, also. I felt relieved when I reached a turn in the road (called Leesville I see from my more detailed map at home), and saw a sign that said Williams was only 12 miles away. But it also warned that the road ahead was narrow and winding. I laughed thinking that it couldn't get any more narrow than it already was.
I found out that it could. The road started ascending into the hills, and I found myself looking down at an amazing valley (Oat Valley, according to the map). But I couldn't concentrate on the view, because the road was becoming more rough and frankly much more disturbing. The hairpin curves were accentuated by the steep drop-off to my right, with no guard rail to stop me from plunging hundreds of feet to the valley below. Because I hadn't seen another car since Stonyford, I began to wonder what would happen if I had any trouble--especially because my cell phone beeped at the start of this scenic detour to let me know that its battery was almost gone.
The road took on a concave shape amid its many bumps and potholes, and I felt like it was almost as narrow as the width of my car. I drove slowly down the side of the hill to reach the valley. When I got to the bottom, I paused a moment to look up at the road I had just driven. I see now that I had just traversed the Windy Pass.
After that, it was relatively smooth sailing. I crossed another range of hills and popped out on a tiny road just a couple miles east of Williams. In hindsight I was happy I took the detour, but I don't know if you could have convinced me of that as I wound my Subaru up that tiny, bumpy road to cross the Windy Pass.
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