Killing Time

As I sat at my computer I was getting this sudden PANG of NEEDING to be in the mountains. It was as if the trees themselves were calling me. A distant howl that I could hear from my office chair, beckoning me to come back.

Sure, I’ve got a Gixxer sitting in my garage…and sure, I’ve gone on a couple street rides with it.. but I dunno… I don’t really FEEL like a street rider anymore. there’s so many cars on the street. Idiot drivers. Deer. Guard Rails. There’s no run-off in case of a mistake. It just feels so damned dangerous out on public roads. I like the track, where I can totally fuck up a corner and live to tell about it, and prolly not even fall down.

That leaves me with a bit of a predicament, cause I always long to be in the mountains on twisty roads away from civilization under canopies of Firs and along rushing streams and brookes…Since I stopped really riding on the street, I’m away from the mountains for months at a time. I hate it.

Yesterday, I needed to go back.

I didn’t feel like riding. I knew the weather was going to be somewhat inclimate, and I thought about doing some trails in the Element. I tuned to 1580AM before leaving only to hear about chain control and snow and this and that over Donner Pass, so I thought about it for a sec then called Han. :)

It was drizzling a little bit when I headed out the door for Han’s house. I was going to trade him the Element for his Nissan for the day. I love Han’s truck. It’s a Nissan Frontier with the Nismo Off-Road package. I got to his house, and we switched. Of course, he hands it off with the dash flashing “12 DTE” at me (distance till empty) and for those of you that know Han…well, he doesn’t live close to ANYTHING.

So my adventure begins: will I even make it to the gas station? Haha!

I did. And I headed east, towards Foresthill; destination: Robinson Flat. Well, a few miles from Foresthill, I realized that my plans were going to have to change…

On Main Street in Foresthill

The Velaro gas station where my favorite gas-ladies work. :D

There’s a Catholic Cemetary on the other side of town

I continuted on… The plow had gone up a few minutes before me

I stopped for a shot near Iowa Hill Rd/Sugar Pine OHV

Pretty soon, even the plows had turned around…after a few more miles, I had no choice either, as there was no more tracks but mine.

I took some secret roads and turns and headed for lower elevations

The road was running

One of a few watercrossings

This was pretty neat…the water was running down the hillside and right over/through this solid piece of rock. I’d never seen anything like it before.

Cascade of waterfalls all the way down the hill

Random truck shot

I was trying to get it up higher for a shot, but as you can see, it kept sliding back down.

I went and hiked around for a little while. The weather actually turned pretty damn nice out.

Even looking at this pic right now makes me want to go back.

There were a few water crossings.

If only I could have gotten across here…

Anyhow, my time was up and I had to go back down into Sacramento to pick up the woman from work…The weather wasn’t as nice back in Sacto.

Pity..I wanted to get a shot of the truck all muddied up in front of the nice Capitol Building…but the torrential rain on the way down there washed it all off.