Day 10 - Walker Pass (east of Onyx) to Olancha, California
26 May - 55.72 miles 4:21 hours
Cheree drove me to the top of the pass this morning so it was an easy lovely downhill ride to highway 395 that runs along the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. There are Joshua trees everywhere, I feel like I’m Bono and it’s 1987. The “TIRED AUSSIE …” sign was on the back of my bike in the morning and while I was at a rest stop a family asked me a bunch of questions. The teenage girl walked away shaking her head and muttering “crazy … crazy …”. They offered me a lift even though they were going a short way up the road and had a pick-up full of gear. I wasn’t tired yet so I politely refused their offer. No one else offered me a lift. I was enjoying riding for the first time. No significant hills, an emergency lane the size of a truck to safely ride on, and a warm heat emanating from the desert. Tall snow-capped mountains to the left of me, wide empty desert to my right and nothing but asphalt in front of me for hundreds of miles.
In the blink-and-you-miss-it town of Olancha, I pulled into a trashy-looking trailer park to camp. The place was run by Indians, the old guy who met me couldn’t speak a word of English but he called his son for me. His son had a map of India in his office and it turned out that I’d been to his birth town which was pretty exciting for the both of us. I’d be pretty excited to meet someone who’d been to my home town.
When it got dark, I started listening to some tunes on my mini-diskman and stood out under the flashing fluorescent “Welcome” trailer park sign. Big rigs drove past loudly every few minutes and it was still warm. I suddenly realised that I was enjoying myself immensely for the first time, just standing watching trucks going by in the night and listening to music.
Day 11 - Big Pine (Hwy 395), California
27 May - 76.5 miles 5:04 hours
I’m now officially “into” this biking thing. I don’t even check my miles any more, let alone worry too much where I’m gonna camp for the night. I took down the “TIRED AUSSIE…” sign. There’s no way I’m gonna miss a mile of this.
Passed the highest mountain in the contiguous USA today, Mount Whitney. I had a postcard with a picture of it, but I couldn’t find it from the road, there are so many damn mountains. It’s amazing.
Day 12 - French Campground (near Tom’s Place), California
28 May - 28.63 miles 3:00 hours
Something ate my rice cakes last night as well as a healthy helping of my handlebar tape. Had my first few drops of rain today just after I left the campground. I quickly rode back to a shelter at the campground and waited out the rain, as well as covering up my guitar in a few extra layers of garbage bags.
Got to Bishop for the horse fair finally but the only campground in town is full.
I thought I could sweet talk them with my aussie accent, even with the “NO VACANCY” sign clearly on the counter, but no luck. On the other side of town I put up the “TIRED AUSSIE…” sign again, as I was coming to a climb of at least a thousand feet. Moments later, an old white pick-up stopped for me and whisked me to the Sherwin Summit (elevation 7000 feet). My second Sierra summit and the second one that I didn’t have to ride up. Thanks Cheryl and Jim.
Day 13 - French Campground (near Tom’s Place), California
29 May - 7.96 miles 0:43 hours
When I got to camp yesterday I was befriended by a guy called Cecil, or “Whitey” as his friends call him and his German short-haired pointer, Molly. He’s 79 years old, has had heart attacks, bypasses and now has a pacemaker and still hikes and fishes around here in the hills. He’s been coming up here since he was twenty years old but “they didn’t have the fancy toilets here then”. He asked me if I have had any experience with bears and proceeds to tell me about a neighbouring tenter who had to shoo one away about two years ago.
“Ah, but you’re alright up here I think, you’re in the open a bit more. He was in the bush”.
Before starting this trip, it wasn’t the riding or the being out in the elements every day that worried me, it was the bears. I come from a country where most snakebites are potentially fatal, where you have to check under the toilet seat for poisonous red-back spiders, where kangaroos can beat the shit out of you and koalas can scratch your face off. But for me, none of this compares to a meeting with a bear. I tell Whitey I hope I never have a “bear experience”.
Day 14 - June Lake (Pine Cliff Resort), California
30 May - 42.6 miles 3:34 hours
Day 15 - June Lake Loop to Bootleg Camp (south of Walker), California
31 May - 70.58 miles 5:37 hours
Day 16 - Grover Hot Springs State Park (west of Markleeville), California
1 June - 54.37 miles 4:36 hours
It was about 5 degrees Celsius when I left camp this morning. My fingers are killing me, I have gashes and splits on the knuckles and ends of several of my fingers. Got to the bottom of Monitor pass and decided I needed a second breakfast before attempting to ride over a 3300 foot hill. Rode into Nevada and grabbed a vegetarian skillet and egg omelette at the Casino just over the border.
While riding up to the summit I met several other cyclists all training for the Californian Death Ride in June. The Death Ride is five summits and 120 miles, I’d love to try it one day. Got to soak my tired bones in the hot springs for half an hour, but just couldn’t understand the enjoyment of hot springs on a hot day.
Day 17 - Grover Hot Springs State Park (west of Markleeville), California
2 June - Rest day - 10.78 miles 0:56 hours
Day 18 - South Lake Tahoe Campground, California
3 June - 40.9 miles 4:06 hours
Day 19 - Sugar Pine Point State Park, California
4 June - 26.41 miles 2:50 hours
At the hot springs I was lucky to meet Mac and Barbara, a husband and wife from New Zealand who go cycle touring for a few months every year. We rode up to Lake Tahoe together and shared a campsite together at the state park.
I get lost just walking around the campgrounds as they are laid out in a very organic way amongst tall pine trees. Eventually getting to the front entrance gate was a reward in itself due to the extremely cute state ranger there.
Day 20 - Sugar Pine Point State Park, California
5 June - Rest day - 107.1 miles 7:47 hours
My first century ride. At about 10am I left camp loaded with only my camera and food panniers. Rode over Mt Rose summit (elevation 8900 feet), the highest summit in the Sierras and a wonderful downhill into Nevada. Visited Virginia City with its authentic looking old West shops, bars and casinos. On the way back to Tahoe I knew I was out of my league being exhausted after just two summits.
Managed to hitch a ride with some Mexicans who offered me refreshments and drove me back into South Lake Tahoe. It was 8:30pm by the time I struggled back into the campground. Tomorrow I’m gonna buy myself a book to read in an effort to stop myself doing these bloody rides on my so-called rest days.
Day 21 - Sugar Pine Point State Park, California
6 June - Rest day - 30.72 miles 2:46 hours
Day 22 - Tahoe City Campground, California
7 June - Rest day - 66.27 miles 4:51 hours
Day 23 - Tahoe City Campground, California
8 June - Rest day
Day 24 - Tahoe City Campground, California
9 June - Rest day
Woke up to a world of white outside my tent this morning. It was pretty amazing but bloody cold.
The snow fell for about two hours and had disappeared from the ground by early afternoon.
Day 25 - Tahoe City Campground, California
10 June - Rest day - 75.59 miles 5:14 hours
Day 27 - Donner State Park (Truckee), California
12 June - Rest day - 71.83 miles 5:09 hours
Took a ride down to Jackson Meadows reservoir with my usual half load (I now need to bring the food pannier with me everywhere just to avoid having it chewed to pieces by squirrels). Met some guys from Reno (“…not much worth seeing in Reno…”) who had brought their two sons down for the weekend to get them out of their Mum’s hair.
I showed them the cracks on my fingers and knuckles. One guy, who used to work in a wood shop, said he often used to get the same because of the dryness of the air. His solution was to seal them with crazy glue (superglue).
Day 28 - Mineral Bar Campground in Auburn State Park, California
13 June - 80.52 miles 6:02 hours
Day 29 - Ruck-A-Chucky Campground (Auburn State Park), California
14 June - Rest day - 33.6 miles 4:36 hours
Auburn is seriously trying its hardest to make me give up. After today Monitor pass feels like an anthill. It took me from 7:30am to 2:30pm to do 23 miles. I was hitting roads that were clearly 4-wheel drive only dirt tracks but shown as paved roads on my fantastic maps. My bike got a beating and I’m surprised I haven’t broken any spokes or split my rims. The bolts on my rear pannier became half unscrewed from all the vibrations. I only came to Auburn to see the highest bridge in California. When locals ask me about my route, I tell them I detoured down to Auburn just to see the bridge. Their eyes light up and without fail they will tell me about the Vinn Diesel movie “XXX” in which he drives a car off the bridge into the deep valley below.
I would have got to the bridge today but my planned campsite was a short way before it. The AAA map made it look like the campground was just off the main road, but it turned out to be at least three miles and over a thousand foot drop along a very unpaved and corrugated dirt road. The poor-excuse-for-a-road meant that my brakes were constantly on and I could only go about 2mph. Attempting to walk with the heavy bike was even more challenging. I got about 2/3 of the way down when a young couple in a pick-up, Michael and Lisa, stopped and offered me a lift. Even sitting in the back of the pick-up was a pain in the arse. I have no idea of how I am going to get out of here.
Day 30 - Ruck-A-Chucky Campground (Auburn State Park), California
15 June - Rest day
It’s not so bad getting stuck here as it is hands down the nicest camping spot I’ve been at so far. I’m at the middle fork of the American river, there are only six basic campsites and a drop toilet. I’ve managed to arrange a lift out of here with Buffy who is camping in the spot next to me. She introduced herself to me last night. She’s quit her job and decided to wing it for a while out here with her pick-up, black Labrador and tent.
You meet some strange people in these sorts of campsites. Take for instance Vic, the guy camping on the other side of me. He introduced himself to me with the comment “You meet some pretty strange people in these campsites”. He said he had to meet me, he had to meet someone who had somehow managed to minimise his need for things in life so that he could fit it onto a bicycle.
He was living out of the back of his pick-up and had been down here for a few weeks. The 4-wheel drive on his pick-up wasn’t working so he was kind of stuck down here too.
Vic was a cartoonist and it seemed to give him a large amount of pleasure to show me his caricature of the gun toting female park ranger who collects the camping fees every afternoon. Vic avoids eye contact until he’s finished the punch line of his jokes and then he stares straight into your eyes with an evil-looking distorted excuse-for-a-grin. Buffy thinks he may have ingested a few too many illicit substances in the ‘60s and he’s now trying his best to avoid society by haunting campsites for a living. Vic’s eyes glaze over when he tells me how the river slows down time.
Day 31 - Ruck-A-Chucky Campground (Auburn State Park), California
16 June - Rest day
Yesterday Buffy convinced me to hang around for another day and we took a ride into town to get more groceries. We stopped at the bridge which hangs 740 feet above the valley floor and is a very impressive piece of engineering.
Last night after we got back, Vic wanders over to my tent scratching his head “I assume you’re a vegetarian and you don’t drink….”. I give him the double negative so he offers me a beer. I tell him how I can’t drink beer so he instead asks if I’d like vodka or rum.
“Your place or hers?”, he says pointing to Buffy’s campsite before he wanders back to his pickup to grab the gin. Ten minutes later he wanders back with a cold beer for Buffy and himself, and rum in a ketchup squeezey bottle plus a lemonade for me. We drink and talk, Vic is a real character and has had an interesting odd-jobs sort of life. At times Buffy and I worryingly look at each as Vic seems almost ready to cry into his hands while he’s telling what appears to be a funny story. He later wanders back to his pickup after we’ve spent the last hour trying to pick out constellations in a night sky that is unrecognisable for a southern hemispherian like me.
Day 32 - Malakof Diggins State Park, California
17 June - 61.57 miles 6:01 hours
Spotted my first brown bear this afternoon (or it could have been a brown-coloured black bear, I’m confused about the differences). It was slowly rambling across the road about 300 feet ahead of me as I entered the State Park. As soon as it spotted me it bolted into the forest.
Its apparent panic, seemed exactly like the kind of comic reaction I’d expect a person would make when seeing a brown bear for the first time. The campgrounds are completely empty except for a bunch of kids over the hill in the group campsite making a hell of a racket.
Day 33 - Sardine Lake Campground, California
18 June - 64.36 miles 6:15 hours
Last night it was warm enough to sleep without the fly of my tent. I woke in the night to the sound of a large animal walking past my tent.
It disappeared pretty quickly as I fumbled for my flashlight. I fell asleep again but within 15 minutes I was awakened by the group of kids screaming out from over the hill.
Day 34 - Plumas Eureka State Park, California
19 June - 33.19 miles 2:59 hours
Day 35 - Plumas Eureka State Park, California
20 June - Rest day
My campsite neighbour for the past two days is Ted, a forty- something, obviously single white male from Los Angeles. He came over to my tent to introduce himself yesterday and quickly noted that my campsite beside the river was much better than his. He determined which day I was leaving so that he could take over my site. When he spotted my bike he told me all about how he’d stopped riding because he got sick of staring at a road. Ted was now into mountain hiking. As a member of the Sierra club his aim was to climb as many peaks as he could so that he could tick each of them off his Sierra Club summits list.
The campground is so peaceful except for my neighbour Ted. Even when I think I can get some peace while eating a meal he comes over to my table, sticks his foot up onto my bench and proceeds to lay out his hiking maps in front of me. He points out each of the peaks he plans to do in the next week and then asks me what time I was going to be leaving in the morning so that he can bring his tent over. Ted’s conversational skills are limited to only talking about himself.
Day 36 - Stealth Camp (6 miles West of Chester), California
21 June - 86.11 miles 6:15 hours
My tent site was not even cold this morning before Ted brings his tent over and proceeds to set it up. I’m trying to have one last peaceful breakfast but am failing badly. Before I’ve even taken my food out of the bear-proof food locker, Ted is already putting his stuff in. He has to leave straight away because he’s going on a bird watching tour in the park. He’s already pointed out a bunch of bird noises for me. “Hear that?” he’s asked me repeatedly over the last few days, “that’s a (insert bird name I’ve never heard of here)!”.
He’s finally driven off in his Subaru Outback and I’m finally left to finish off the last of my breakfast in peace. As I’m packing up my food pannier I help myself to a few packets of his dried fruit, nuts and jerky, all from Trader Joes. The only guilt I feel is the guilt of not having taken more. Karma will get me back I’m sure.
Spent the day dodging logging trucks on highway 89 and did my first stealth camping outside of Chester.
Day 37 - Southwest Campground in Lassen Volcanic National Park, California
22 June - 27.43 miles 2:41 hours
My first National Park of the trip and what a great one to start with. While I was hiking to Mill Creek Falls I met a retired couple from Florida.
“Lassen is better than Disneyland” they told me, and kindly offered to send a digital photo of me and an email to my family telling them I was fine.
Day 38 - Manzanita Lake Campground in Lassen Volcanic National Park, California
23 June - 30.67 miles 2:44 hours
Last night a father Ad (born in Holland) and his two shy kids Hannah and Willem invited me over to their campfire for marshmallows. Ad is a cow farmer in a town just past Chico and grows corn and alfalfa. We talked and ate marshmallows until it got too cold to sit out anymore.
Today’s riding goes down in my “Top Ten Bike Rides List”. I got out of the campground (elevation 6700ft) at about 7am and rode up a wonderful cliff-hugging road to the summit at 8512 feet. On the way up, I spotted a squirrel sitting on the side of the road looking as though it too, was admiring the spectacular views. A guy got out of his car ahead of me and took a few photos as I was climbing. He smiled and thanked me as I passed and said he admired me for what I was doing.
Near the top I spoke with Luke, a young park ranger, who recommended Washington’s Olympic National Park to me. He’d done some touring himself, had no girlfriend, house or commitments and lived out of the back of his pickup. Being a park ranger was the perfect life for him.
At the summit there were still banks of snow beside the road that towered over my head. After the summit it was a wonderful downhill (all downhills are wonderful, except the Auburn ones) that left me woohooing all the way down.
I believe that regardless of your age, the exhilarating feeling of flying down a hill on a bicycle is the same as it felt when you were 5 years old and on your first bike flying down a hill. I hope when I’m eighty years old I’m still woohooing down hills on a bicycle.
Day 39 - McArthur Burney Falls State Park, California
24 June - 59.22 miles 3:51 hours
While I was hanging around outside the campground toilets this morning (ok, I admit I try to stand in the most sociable spot in the campground as people go and take their morning piss) the lady that had been camping next to me with her kids exclaimed surprise at how quick I’d packed up camp. She lived down near Vegas with her Polish husband and after hearing my accent said that she and her husband were ready to move overseas to give her kids some culture. When I told her I’d left my job she gave me a “good for you!” and then we bitched about work and work ethics for a while.
She said I was doing what she had always dreamed of doing when she was younger.
A very stoned, feral-looking kid approached me when I rode up to the Burney supermarket. His name was Mark and he’d hitchhiked all the way from Carolina to go to some big national hippie festival in nearby Alturas. He told me about some free hot springs out at Big Bend which I may go check out tomorrow.
Day 40 - McArthur Burney Falls State Park, California
25 June - Rest day - 72.96 miles 5:36 hours
I thought today would be a nice casual ride out to the hot springs and I was entertaining the thought of checking out the hippies in the woods. The ride along the main road was bearable, but the turn-off to Big Bend began descending very rapidly into a deep valley. I stopped to decide whether to continue or not as I knew it would be a very long climb out if I went all the way. I decide to push on and finally got to town after several miles of woohooing down beautiful curves through thick forest. I stopped at the only store in town, bought a snickers and used the opportunity to ask the guy behind the counter if there were some free hot springs around.
“Yeah, it’s in the nice white building a block up the street, costs five bucks”
I told him I meant the free hot springs…
He gave a small sigh and hesitated as though he always hated giving away the town’s secret to an out-of-towner;
“Down the road, up the hill for two miles, park on the left and walk down the stream for a mile”.
I thanked him but had already changed my mind about the hot springs when he had mentioned the mile-long walk. I decided to avoid the big climb back and head back to the campgrounds via the shortcut road; a dubious road the park ranger had told me to avoid. Only 24 miles I thought, can’t be too bad. The shortcut road quickly turned from a pleasant paved road into a gravelly, rough, corrugated road and I began making promises to Stef, that I would never take her on another dirt road if she could just survive this one. By the time I got back to my tent I was sore and exhausted and ready for another rest day.
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