NICE RIDE, NICE HIKE: SIERRA BUTTES LOOKOUT

Clicking on any picture should cause it to expand.  Should.

THE PROBLEM WITH A DAYLONG RIDE may be the daylong ride itself. Sitting on my ample arse for eight to ten hours, exercising only throttle, shifter, brake and sit-up-straight muscles, means that other muscle groups stiffen and begin to complain. I need to habitualize packing a pair of comfortable hiking shoes and spending a couple of hours off the bike to flex those other sinews and reduce the fatigue factor that rides along after too many hours on the road.

Traveling east on State Route 49 from Auburn-Downieville toward Yuba Pass, the tiny hamlet of Bassett’s rests in a crook of the North Yuba River canyon. At this point the Lakes Basin highway courses northward through a wonderland of primary and secondary roads, paved and unpaved – but more importantly – some very nicely groomed and little-used hiking trails. These paths connect countless alpine lakes crossing over and between the ridges and peaks of eons-old glaciation.

I drive the little Guzzi up the Lakes Basin Highway a short bit, turning left toward Sardine Lakes. Half mile later a right turn finds me on a nicely paved, narrow strip that rises tantalizingly toward a summit trailhead.

It would be two and a half miles from this point to the stairs that lead to the lookout cemented to the Sierra Buttes at 8800 feet. Those unused muscle groups would get their workout.


FROM THE TRAILHEAD, the goal, the lookout atop the Buttes is readily in view. In fact, as the trail – part of the Pacific Crest – weaves its way south, the lookout is never out of sight for more than a few hundred yards. There is some gratification is seeing the progress one makes when hiking at elevation.

North and east toward the Cascades

Views along this ridge alternate between those unfolding lakes just beneath your feet (about 1000 feet) as you look east, to views across the mountains and foothills of the Sierran gold country. On a clear day, the Coast Range, maybe 125 miles west forms a rim above the valley’s inversion.

Mules Ear

Even in mid-July and early August, the display of wildflowers impresses. Tufts of yellow-bloomed Mule’s Ear grow from the gravelly soil.

Indian Paintbrush poke through Manzanita and the Manzanita itself can be found creeping over eons-old chunks of metamorphic effort.

Prickly phlox

Blossoms of yellow, purple, red and white fill areas where snowmelt provides moisture.

The PCT gains elevation steadily but gently for the first couple of miles. It is only once I branch off on an old service road that the elevation begins to take a toll. The stands of fir, below, have given way to singular pines and junipers. These give way to only the occasional prickly shrub. Above about 8000 feet the winters are too long and harsh for anything substantial to take root.


ONE OF THE GREATEST THINGS about a fire lookout is that they always seem to have great views.

Upper and Lower Sardine

Walking around the expanded metal catwalk of the Buttes Lookout we are afforded a view as far north as Shasta, as far south as, perhaps, Yosemite, east well in to Nevada over a verdant Sierra Valley, and we’ve already mentioned the Coast Range to the west.

The tower is affixed to a very shear precipice.

EEEeee-yikes!

My knees get the willies when, typically, heights don’t bug me. I imagine that a small stone tossed from this walkway – DON’T EVEN THINK OF DOING THIS! – would travel the better part of a quarter mile before coming to rest on a scree slope or bounding against granite tilt and continuing its fall.


IT TAKES HALF AS LONG to return to the Guzzi as it took to achieve the summit. Muscles that didn’t get a workout on the climb, did get one gingerly threading down the pebbly path.

Straddling the little bike, one finds that first gear is the appropriate choice for safely descending the steep, narrow paved strip back toward Packer and Sardine Lakes.

The ride and the hike make for a full day. And memories that will linger long after the aches and pains of the stout walk have faded.


RESOURCES:

Sierra County Chamber of Commerce: Not as much commerce going on in Sierra County as they would like in these times, but a great overview of the area is located at: http://www.sierracountychamber.com/ Folks up that way deserve our business.

© 2011
Church of the Open Road Press

A CLASSIC RIDE ACROSS THE SIERRA

STATE ROUTE 49 – NEVADA CITY TO SIERRA VALLEY

“The only thing better than a 500-mile day

is two 250-mile days.”

Donya Carlson – Rider Magazine

Click - or maybe double-click - on any picture.  Some will enlarge. Not this one, however.)

I SOMETIMES SUSPECT GOD made the Sierra Nevada simply so S/He could test humankind’s mettle. There’s very little evidence that the Utes on the east side did much trade with the Maidu on the west. The Donner Party tried to cross ‘em. As did the Big Four. History is littered with tales of those who attempted to tame the mountains and failed.

Eventually, however, engineering won out. Rails cross the Sierra in a couple of places and highways, a couple more.

A classic route is the portion of State Route 49 which heads north out of Grass Valley/Nevada City, finds the North Fork of the Yuba River and follows it to its headwaters on Yuba Pass. From there, 49 winds down to the bucolic Sierra Valley and off toward Vinton.

I try to make this ride twice or three times a year. Today’s ride would be on the new-to-me 2007 Moto Guzzi Breva. I needed to see how I’d handle a 200-plus mile day on her and I needed to figure out why she wouldn’t start from time to time - especially if I'd been riding her a while.  Today was a day that, if I got stranded, I could work it out.

THE ROUTE NORTH out of Nevada City is nicely sculpted into the South Yuba and over San Juan Ridge. Trails explore mixed woodlands, venturing down to the river when bathers swim, picnic and imbibe. Closer to Downieville, the Indian Valley provides camping and picnicking spots along the free flowing North Yuba. The mining heritage is never far from mind. Place names and roads are linked to the homelands of those who came west.

DOWNIEVILLE IS A CLASSIC mining community struggling to stay viable in a time when dredging is restricted; timber sales are limited and tourism dollars tight.  The bell tower serves as a center point to town, screaming "time for lunch" each noon.  Belle Tauer also serves as the gossip columnist for the local weekly newspaper, "The Mountain Messenger."

A stroll through town offers several glances over history’s shoulder. Near the public restrooms, rusted relics look a bit like metallic dinosaurs. Of particular interest is a Pelton wheel. The Pelton wheel was invented just over the ridge in North San Juan. Shooting a stream of water into its iron cups, the machine turned harnessing the power that eventually industrialized the mining process in California.  Samples can be found in museum yards throughout the gold country.  (Note the pulley to the left of the photo, over which a woven belt was looped conveying power to stamping mills and other preposterous rigs.)

Less industrial was the manner in which justice was administered back in the day. The local pizza place is called “The Gallows,” and not without cause. Adjacent to the county courthouse, a noose appears ready for business (unlike the only grocery in town which is currently closed while the new owner renovates.)

Downieville blossomed at the confluence of the Downie and North Yuba Rivers. Highway 49 is reduced to one lane where it crosses, prompting passers-through to wait for the on-coming traffic and perhaps be greeted by one of the community’s friendly denizens.


TWELVE MILES FURTHER ON, Sierra City is a string of antique structures built on either side of 49.

The rush of the North Yuba provides soundtrack as one visits the art gallery or the mercantile. A nice selection of wine waits inside and must be tempting to those who journey the Pacific Crest Trail, which crosses nearby.

Prior to the advent of internal combustion, those who did not walk or slog a mule across, passed this way via stage – the stage being the bearer of passengers, mail, goods and the loot from which it was regularly relieved. The poet, Black Bart, I’m told, may have worked these hills.

BEYOND SIERRA CITY, the road gains elevation. The canyon narrows. Waterfalls lace the area. The mist from their cascade cools the area and provides microclimate for flowers not seen only a few hundred feet either way from the stream.

A Leopard Lily poses nearby.

AT BASSETTS (rooms, café, sundries and expensive gas) the Lakes Basin Highway splits off to the north. This nicely maintained county / forest service road affords magnificent views of the alp-like Sierra Buttes. Tiny secondary roads – some paved some not –

...wind past the area’s lakes…

…and up to the highest ridges. There is a top-of-the-world feeling when I rest the bike on the side-stand and see nothing but peaked horizon for 360 degrees. This is where the ignition system crapped out, so basking in this Sierran glory, I remove the seat, fiddle with the leads coming off the battery and the wiring harness that powers the-way-too-much electronic gadgetry of the Breva, eventually getting a buzz and a restart. I think I know what to tell the service guy when I take it in.

THE LAKES BASIN HIGHWAY joins State Route 89 just south of Graeagle. A left turn takes me to the chiliburger I’d been craving for a while. Then, heading south on 89, I pass through high mountain meadows and stands of yellow pine, turning left (back on 49) at the rusting teepee burner…

…to head west over Yuba Pass. I stop and take in my annual view of the Sierra Valley and think about how things have evolved over time. The miners are gone. The timber men, too, essentially. Down in the valley, ranchers grow hay and raise cattle and eek out an existence in country too beautiful for words. I can’t help but admire these folks and, at the same time, be a little bit jealous of them.


THE BREVA WAS AN ABSOLUTE HOOT throughout the day. 250 miles did not seem like over-doing it. I have identified the gremlin, I think, and look forward to many more crossings of the Sierra.

© 2011
Church of the Open Road Press

Sierra Buttes

[Mid-October] A co-member of a writers group reminds me that when in a boat on the ocean, the coast does not approach; rather one approaches the coast.

Good enough. But when in the outback of Sierra County traveling west from Yuba Pass on a road only identified alpha-numerically by the Forest Service, and when chugging up hill on a dirt and gravel logging road at the east edge of the Lakes Basin, the Alp-like Sierra Buttes do rise in front of me as I near the crest. So, just as the coast approaches, these alp-like mountains grow and evolve before my eyes, capturing more of my breath with each meter of elevation gain.

A stop to absorb the majesty and a quick, reorientation glance at the map. The area at my feet, I find, is daubed with alpine lakes and traversed by countless miles of roads to explore. Somewhere through this area is the old Henness Pass toll road; the route worn-out and disheartened gold miners took to escape the disappointment of the Mother Lode in search of the silvery riches of the Comstock.

Gotta take that one. Must return after the spring melt.