TR - Orogenesis 2024

[evdog]

Jeff had to take off but I wasn't done riding as I wanted to see what shape Pup Meadow trail was in. It got nuked in the 2021 Windy fire but it was still fully rideable a year ago when I was here. I figured there could be a bunch of deadfall already. It is a key connector for Orogenesis so we need to make sure it is passable.


Last year, the first part of the trail was hard to follow, but not overgrown. This year it has seen a bit of traffic so it is easier to follow, but getting overgrown in spots. At least this stuff will be easy to hit with a hedge trimmer!




Parts of it are still clear and riding great




Most of it is like this with a bunch of branches and debris on the trail (a lot more than shown here, actually).

This is the only downed tree and would have been easy to cut out if I'd had my hand saw with me. Party foul.




A bit of cool rock further out.




I stuck my head down the Pup Meadow extension trail but it was in much rougher shape with downed trees, and overgrown. It has an easy fire road bypass though. I opted to check out that road instead, which was in great shape and pretty nice (unburned).




The main forest road below that has been widened for post-fire logging and was choked with silt.




My reason for going this way was to check out another road that climbs back up to the start of Pup Meadow in case Pup gets too covered in deadfall. It was a bust with huge ruts, downed trees and heavy brush. After a quarter mile it all but disappeared.




If needed, we can use Sugarloaf road as an alternate. It's a paved, but single lane road and very scenic.




To get back to camp I hopped on FR 24S53 which is the road that crosses Upper Tobias mid-way. Then I climbed the upper part of the trail. Definitely did some hike a bike on the steeper parts but the rest was rideable.

[evdog]

Bonus TR - still had a bit of time left in the day to do something else nearby. I had never been, so I opted to take a hike up to Baker Pt which has a defunct fire lookout.


The final approach was cool. And with the lookout in sight it seemed like it should be a quick hike. Wrong.




Nice view to the north. The rock formation upper left is called the Needles. It used to have a fire lookout as well, but the volunteer manning it accidentally set it on fire a decade ago




The first part of trail kinda sucked with white thorn growing over the trail and big rocks to navigate around. Past that, it got nice. If you can see what might look like foot prints on the trail in the photo, those are bear tracks.




The lookout. The door to both buildings was open. Lower one was kinda gross. Lookout was not so bad.




The shitter has a nice view though




Looking south over the Kern River, Lake Isabella just visible in the distance. The hike was only 2mi roundtrip but packs a punch since it traverses way around on the north side of the peak before climbing up to the lookout. Made it back to the truck just at sunset. Perfect.

[evdog]

After the Baker Point hike I pointed the truck north and headed towards Camp Nelson. I had thoroughly scouted the trails in the area back in June, but I had one big item to check off today. Crawford Road 21S94 climbs all the way from Camp Nelson up to Windy Gap, where the Summit Trail crosses the road. It would make a good alternate route until all the deadfall gets cleared off Camp Nelson and Summit Trails. I had driven part of this road before, but there are some threatening signs where it crosses into the Tule River Indian Reservation and I had turned around. Since then I've confirmed that the road is open to the public through the Reservation, just be respectful. Stay on the road, no camping, no fires, etc.


Just before the Reservation, the road goes through a nice Sequoia grove.




The road is pretty nicely graded. Windy Gap is out of sight on the right




The Windy fire burned over the ridgelines above and down the slope a bit but much of the road went through unburned forest. This is what a lot of the roads were like before the fire.




Didn't see a single person on Crawford Rd. After riding over Windy Gap and back to Hwy M-90 I checked out a few forest roads off the highway for camping spots, and then did another side trip up to the Sequioa Crest community high above Camp Nelson. Orogenesis climbs up to Sequoia Crest after passing through Camp Nelson and then drops down to Wishon Campground. From there it heads north toward Mountain Home State Forest on the Doyle Trail.

The pic below is from Sequoia Crest looking over to Mountain Home. Moses Mountain and Dennison Ridge are on the left, with Mountain Home being the forested area just south of those peaks. Orogenesis heads up the valley bottom below on the Doyle Trail and then turns west, climbing up to Mtn Home. The 2020 SQF Complex fire burned all the way up the valley but looks like they did a good job of stopping it at the top.




Quick stop to check out the Alder Creek Grove in Sequoia Crest, another area saved from the SQF fire.




My plan for the afternoon was to re-scout the Doyle Trail. I wasn't sure how much of it burned, and it doesn't see a lot of use or maintenance. It's an important connector for Orogenesis.

When I got to Camp Wishon however I found temps were in the mid 90's and I was engulfed in a cloud of gnats immediately after getting out of the truck. Settled for a swim in the S Fork Tule River, and then moved on. I'll come back when temps are cooler.


I figured I had enough time to get up to Mtn Home and get in a quick ride. I did, but I'd need lights. Fortunately I did get to see conditions on the drive up the hill. The forest up top is mostly unburned. The forest on the lower slopes burned, much of it nuked.


Some of what used to be singletrack got bladed into dirt roads or doubletrack. I descended part way down this road but the singletrack I planned to take was gone, covered in deadfall and debris.




Some singletrack remains. A bunch of logging was done, so there are now much "better" views. Sequoia Crest, where I'd been earlier, is in the distant ridge-top strip of forest on the right.




I pushed up the singletrack towards the remaining forest




Another trail turned into road. Hopefully they will let these narrow back to singletrack.




I got back onto real trail and connected to the inner loop. The big trees are still there. Some deadfall, but mostly the trails were their usual dusty selves.




Ride thru tree. It was well past dark at this point and I didn't have any options that were short mileage so I just headed back to the truck.




Here is what things looked like a week before the fire. https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...to-Shaver-Lake

[evdog]

I planned to try and scout the lower trails at Mtn Home the following day and hopefully connect south to a mining road that climbs back up to the state forest. This entire area was likely in the burn zone, and parts of this were already in sub-par shape before the fire. So I wasn't sure how far I'd get.



Right from the campground I got onto a couple trails that started out ok but got progressively more covered in deadfall and debris the higher I climbed. I finally got to the upper dirt road/former trail I'd ridden the night before, and that took me over to the northern loop. That loop has seen traffic because there is a pack station that uses it to head up into the Golden Trout Wilderness.

The start of this northern loop trail is a bit "horsey" at the moment.




It burned, alright




Pretty sad to see the forest like this. It was so lush before the fire.




Got into a section that didn't burn so bad. Once the grade lessened the trail was still pretty nice






This log had inches thick bark on it last time I was here. The fire burned through a solid bit of wood too




I did a short side mission up to the Wilderness boundary, half mile north of the loop.




Ditched the bike and hiked a bit further up into the Sequoia grove. This trail goes all the way north into Sequoia National Park.




Back on the loop I headed south. The South Fork Tule River runs through this canyon with some really nice looking pools. Had to hike down to check a few out.




And do a bit of fishing




Back on trail. There was some deadfall but it wasn't terrible.




The trail has decent flow. And at the same time it's rocky and raw enough to you on your toes.




I crossed the road and picked up another trail that passes through the lower campground before contouring down the canyon. This one was even more technical.




Just after exiting I came across a CalFire / CDC prisoner crew of about 50 out doing some trailwork. They were about to head up another trail I planned to ride later. Thanks for the work guys!




I headed a bit further down the road and picked up another trail that heads south towards Camp Wishon and the mining road. This trail drops down and crosses the river (not shown) and continues south to the National Forest boundary. It looked like the crew had just worked on this entire section.

I cross from State forest to National Forest at 2:11. Can you spot the difference in trail? Forgot to note it in the video - from 2:23 on is a different trail, the one the trail crew went up when I saw them. They had already finished this trail and one more by the time I caught up to them.




About 100 feet after crossing the forest boundary, the trail looked like this:




I ditched the bike and hiked south. It was really overgrown in places but generally passable....for awhile




After crossing Silver Creek however, the deadfall got much worse. I crawled over multiple bunches of trees before I decided to turn around at this one. Good news is the tread is generally still there. But it will need lots of work to re-open. At least there is road access not far away.




On the way back I stopped at this hole right below the trail for a swim




Then I headed back to where the work crew had gone. They had already finished two sections of trail by the time I caught up to them. Not sure what condition the trail was in before, but definitely looked good after they went through.








Rather than try to pass them and get in the way I dropped back down the upper section (the video above from 2:23 on) and climbed back up the dirt road to camp. There is a third section which they were starting to work on that I'd tried to ride the night before, and found it completely gone. Hopefully they will get that one re-opened as this whole climb is what we want to use for Orogenesis.

We'll have to get the gnarly section between Mtn Home and Doyle Trail cleaned up though (section I turned around on earlier). There is a mile or so between where I turned around and the mining road, and another 4 miles south on the Doyle Trail to Camp Wishon.

[evdog]

I had set a time limit on the ride as I needed to get a ways north during the afternoon and hoped to be able to drive through Sequoia NP during daylight.


Stopped briefly to take in some views on the drive down from Mtn Home. Currently we are stuck taking pavement for about 70 miles leaving Mtn Home State Forest due to Wilderness and National Park rules. Not only that but we have to drop all the way down to the Central valley and then climb out again later. This is one of the gaps we've identified on the route.

That is Moses Mountain in the photo below. Once the route gets enough traction we will eventually propose a new singletrack from Mtn Home to South Fork Road near Three Rivers that will run across these slopes. If we can get it approved, it will eliminate half of that pavement. #goals




Until then, or if it never happens, riders will take Yokohl Road north to Three Rivers. It might be blazing hot, but at least there's no traffic.






I made it into the park before dark and got to visit a few groves on the way through.






The view from Kings Canyon at sunset did not suck.

[evdog]

The reason for my haste through Sequoia - Kings Canyon was a permit to hike the Rae Lakes loop. TR here --> https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...64#post7142464

[evdog]

Backpack trip was over. I slept in and caught up on admin a bit, and then it was back to the Orogenesis scouting.


I was camped on Sierra National Forest land just outside King's Canyon NP and north of Grant's Grove village. There's a large plateau up top, part inside the park and part on Sierra NF land. Some ridges drop down to the west into a valley, and to the north to the Kings River. On one of those ridges, Verplank Ridge, starts a trail of the same name that drops 4,000ft in 5 miles down to the Kings River. There are a few other trails lower down as well - Sampson Flat, Davis Flat, Mill Creek etc. All of them are in serious states of disrepair, if they exist at all.

My first target was Verplank trail. It is missing from many current maps and following at least one fire, the trail barely exists on the ground - if at all. It is still shown on some maps though including the current USFS motor vehicle use map, since it is a moto-legal singletrack. It is notorious among moto riders for stranding those who explore it overnight when the trail disappears and it is too steep to ride back out. Rescuing bikes have taken teams of riders multiple days. Typical example: https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/t...angle.1323744/

It is a perfect connection for Orogenesis on paper although the steep grade may make it unsuitable. But that's why we scout these things.

Step 1 is to see if the trail even exists anymore. Last time I was here the area was still under a closure order for danger tree removal. At the river, Verplank intersects the Mill Flat trail which connects back to Mill Flat Campground. I hiked a bit of that trail and it does somewhat exist (the trail bench is there) but it soon became engulfed in poison oak and had no sign of use and no actual trail tread. I've looked for the other trails in the area at top and bottom and they have all similarly faded away.


Chicago stump is a cool spot, so I made a short side trip to check it out again.




Cut down in 1893, it was the largest tree known to have been felled at the time. It was shipped in pieces to Chicago for the World's Fair where it was reassembled to prove that such large trees actually exist.




But the people there thought it was a hoax. If only they had the internet like we do now, right? Right?




Riding on - there is a loop road that head's out to Verplank Ridge. The first part was pretty nice and had some great views.




Found the turnoff for the trail. The spur road was narrow and rustic, but fully passable.




End of the road




Things looked promising for a minute but I'm guessing the path was created by people like me stopping in to see what's up. Dead ends always see twice the traffic vs thru trails.




Not far around the corner the deadfall began and the brush closed in. No hint of trail tread at all. I walked a bit further and it just got worse. That was all I needed to see.

Accounts from moto riders said it had been passable to maybe 3/4 mile down. But those accounts are over 10 years old. We'll put it on the long-term interest list but it isn't a priority since there is FR 12S01 that drops all the way down to the river as well.




Back on the road I finished the loop.




The second half was mostly pretty nice, but had a few super steep sections. I think we'd use the first half of the loop if it were needed.




I headed back into the park




I wanted to scout some roads east of Grant's Grove. Similar to Verplank, a lot of the Sierra NF land behind Grant's Grove had been under closure order previously. I wanted to ride out all the way to Lookout Peak.




There is a short, steep hike from the road's end up to the peak. Some pretty big deadfall and resulting social bypasses made it kind of hard to follow. It was a scramble at the end.




But the views into King's Canyon were worth it.




The Happy Fire had just started recently from lightning and was smoldering away happily




Got back down to the bike and headed out as I didn't want a long ride in the dark. Cool area though. There are some OHV trails, some dispersed camping options and a couple campgrounds in the area.




Another awesome sunset from the highway




So the scouting for Verplank was a bust, but it's another good data point. If we want to use that trail, it's going to be a major project. Unfortunately there is difficult access at both top and bottom.

Another data point was that Mill Flat Creek road from this same area down to Sequoia Lake is closed due to washouts. That is the only other suitable route from Grant's Grove down to lower elevations. There had been some talk of bringing Orogenesis up to this area since there is a store and restaurant at Grant's Grove. But it's also a bit out of the way. And with no open routes back down, it's not something we can currently use regardless.

[evdog]

My campsite near Grant's Grove - nice shade, picnic table, pretty nice.




The mission for today was to scout more of the forest roads east of Grant's Grove and north of Hume Lake. The first one which would make a logical route was pretty nice




There was a nice view over Hume Lake




Riding along I got to this spot where it became too steep and rocky for comfort on the moto (gnarly spot is out of sight and around the corner).

I won't ride down anything unless I know I can get out, and this section was be too gnarly for me to climb back up. I hiked down a couple turns to where it mellowed out.




Headed back to the highway and stopped in at the General Grant Grove. Love these trees!




The place was busy as always




Chunky




Next I headed south and started on the same loop from the other end. It started off as single lane pavement. There is a surprising amount of this type of road throughout our National Forests.




I peeled off onto a smaller road and followed it to where I had turned around before.

This route is a decent connection for bikes. The steep section I'd encountered is just a few mins of hikeabike going uphill and would be rideable downhill on a MTB. There really aren't any other logical ways to connect where we need to go in this area if we decide to come up this way. My preference is to stay out of the park entirely. If people need to resupply, they can climb 5 miles up the highway. Doing so as an out and back is still a shorter distance than climbing all the way up here on dirt and and taking this loop.




I checked out a few other forest roads and then headed back to camp. From there I headed down the hill and south to Eshom OHV area as there were a few things down there I wanted to check out.

That's Redwood Mountain up inside the park.




There are a few options to get through Eshom. Most of the roads are narrow and quiet.




I wanted to check out the road to Cherry Flat, which heads southeast about 5 miles from the OHV staging area. It drops down to a spot about 700ft above the North Fork Kaweah River.




Drove out part way and unloaded the MTB. The road was getting rough and the bike would be faster. In retrospect should have rode the moto, but I expected some downed trees. There weren't any.




The road was nice and primitive all the way down where there was eventually a turnaround.




Wouldn't you know, there was a footpath heading downhill towards the river.




Not many signs of (human) use, and the trail was pretty overgrown. But it's good to know it's there. Inside the park on the other side of the river is an old road alignment that runs all the way along the river to North Fork Drive, which connects to Three Rivers. Upgrading this connection for bike use would be our dream scenario as it would avoid about 35 miles of paved road riding. Unfortunately the Sequoia-Kings Canyon Wilderness boundary was drawn right down to the river which puts that old road alignment within Wilderness and a pipe dream for bikes. I did however see some satellite imagery recently that suggested this road bed had been bladed back into road, likely for fire access. So you never know....

[evdog]

Planned to spend another day in the Eshom area mostly south of Hwy 180 and west of the park. There are a bunch of OHV roads some of which I scouted previously and others I wanted to scout for the first time.


Started from the Eshom OHV staging area again and headed north. The first forest road was pretty nice.




Until I got here. Did not want to take the moto through cow shit infested mud. I hiked around and there were more mud holes like this within a couple hundred feet. Given this is late Sept with no rain in months these are likely a permanent problem. No thanks.




I continued north toward Eshom campground and spotted singletrack off the roadside.




It was pretty nice and connected to a trail that runs between the Hartland Christian camp and Eshom CG. Looks like it was used to access a prescribed burn. This one was not on my maps




I checked out some other roads and then headed north on the route towards Hwy 180. This connection was longer than I remembered.




Decided to ride past Sequoia Lake and Delilah lookout. Found this sign on the north side of Hwy 180.

Setting your google maps app to "avoid tolls" forces it to route you off the highway onto OHV roads to avoid the Park entrance booths. This doesn't end well for those not driving high clearance vehicles. I've encountered passenger cars on these roads a few times whose drivers were wondering how they'd ended up there. Nice of the land managers to put up signs now.




It didn't matter for me as I would be turning left off this road to head west. My road will climb up to a ridgeline that has great views on both sides.




Looking south




And west




Two roads pass Delilah lookout. I rode the lesser used one, a narrow doubletrack. Made it within 500ft of the end before encountering deadfall. I hiked down to where the two roads meet, and there was deadfall on the other one as well. And quite overgrown. I drove both in 2018 or 2019. I guess they are not being maintained anymore? Too bad, because you can drive a long ways out on the ridge and it is very cool. Further out on the ridge there is another disappearing trail that drops down to Camp 4 on the Kings River. Like the others I could find the upper end, but it soon disappeared into heavy brush.




Riding back. I really like Delilah ridge.




The view south towards Eshom and in the distance the west side of Kings Canyon NP. Smoke was from the Coffeepot Fire above Three Rivers.

[evdog]

It was getting on in the day and I wanted to look at some singletrack in the area. I've ridden two of the trails before the fire, Dogwood and Itchum. But I've never ridden the trail between Hartland and Eshom campground. I had also found a connector down to this trail from the main forest road.


I parked near where I'd found the singletrack connector earlier and hit the trail toward Hartland.




It started off pretty nice and hit a few cool granite areas above the stream




There was a nice steep granite roller off the end of this one, right next to a waterfall




Little plank bridge was a nice touch




There were a few trees down. This one was a beast.




I hit the end of the trail and then turned around to ride it back. When I got to the granite area I heard some crashing in the bushes and then barking, and a group of three hunting dogs approached from across the creek. I don't think they knew what to do with me. They followed me up the trail for a little while, sniffing around everywhere. Hunting isn't allowed after dark in CA and I'm not a fan of poaching so I called the fish and game tip line since there surprisingly was cell reception. A game warden called me back the next morning and said some of the locals like to run their dogs just for training, even at night, and there is no problem with them doing that. Cool, good to know.




I wasn't done riding, I climbed up the road a few miles so I could hit Dogwood and Itchum. Spotted this California mountain kingsnake on the road. It was less than a foot long, and not thrilled to see me. I made sure it got off the road.




Along the way I checked out the opposite end of the road from that morning with the cow shit bogs. About 500ft down the road was completely washed out with a 10ft deep gully. It would be a perfect route to use for Orogenesis if it was in good shape, but too many issues.




Dogwood and Itchum both burned in one of the recent fires. They were really cool before the fire with loamy trail surface below big trees. Some of those trees survived but it's not the dark lush forest it was before, the trails are covered in silt and sand, and are kind of a mess. The Hartland Trail needs to be logged out but I think it is a better way to go. Hitting Dogwood and Itchum also takes us a few miles out of the way.

[evdog]

Sequoia Lake

This place just north of Hwy 180. It's mostly private land but there is a trail around the lake which I did not think was open to the public.

Someone suggested connecting to that trail and then taking another connector over to the forest road to the west. I couldn't find anything on satellite or any mapping software/layer that shows anything exists besides the lake loop. Time to go take a look.


I found the connector trail. And it looks like limited public access exists. Doesn't mention bikes, but suggests only the route to the observation point is allowed. I kept going.




Trail started off nice




And then.... this was a tough one to get around.




And the deadfall kept coming after that. The trail was pretty mellow though and would be ok on a bike if allowed. I got around a corner and heard voices up ahead, some sort of crew working. I ditched the bike out of sight and walked on. Workers were doing some fuel reduction cutting brush above the trail, which was now covered. Didn't try to get through but asked a few questions. The workers weren't employees and didn't know about bikes or whether connecting south would be cool. Guess we'll just have to call and ask. Maybe they'll let us trade some trail maintenance for letting some bikepackers ride through. It doesn't look like they maintain the access trail very often.



After that it was time to do some driving down 12S01. Not sure what this road is actually called, I've seen a few names like Mill Flat Rd, Davis Rd, Sampson Flat Rd and Crabtree Road. Regardless, it drops all the way down to the Kings River. This is currently what we'll have to use for the route.

That's Sampson Flat down in the middle.




Part way down I stopped to check out a side road. This one climbs up to Delilah Ridge just north of the lookout. It had a bunch of downed trees at the top. At the bottom here the corridor was obvious but no sign of recent use. Just some old tire tracks in hardened dirt. It got overgrown pretty quickly.




Looking across from the switchbacks you can just barely make out a road or trail climbing right to left to a saddle on the left side of the pic. That should be the Davis Flat trail which connects to Verplank Trail on some maps. I couldn't find where it connects to the road though.




Part of the switchbacks. They are pretty long ones, but that makes the grade of the road fairly mellow.




Looks smooth here but the road was in a lot worse shape than the other times I've driven it. Having a moto on a hitch carrier definitely didn't help. I had to go slow and careful to avoid dragging the carrier across some of the ruts and grade dips.




Maps show another old road dropping down this ridgeline. But again I couldn't see anything. It's really steep.




The terrain gets much steeper towards the bottom of the canyon.




And there is water. I'd definitely wait to filter from the Kings River if needing to fill up though. Lots of cattle not far above this point.




I got down to the river and parked. I wanted to take another look for the Camp 4 Trail that drops down from Delilah Ridge. I had looked for it once before at the river but I had a gps track this time. Standing there I thought I could see the profile of a trail from below. When I got up there - nothing. I walked some transects straight up and down the hill in a few different spots crossing where a series of switchbacks was shown. If it was there I would have crossed the trail a number of times. Nothing. We might just have to wait until the hill eventually burns and see what emerges. Otherwise, if we want a trail it might as well be new layout. That would probably be better since we could add some extra switchbacks to reduce the grades.




Maybe higher up something would be visible, but I was already covered in burrs and running out of light. Something to explore on another day. I changed out of those clothes and went for a swim.




Decided to head to the other side of the river to camp. But found the site I wanted already occupied. He agreed to move along though....




For now we'll need to use the road 12S01 as the route. It would be nice to have singletrack available to ride here instead. But from what I've read, and looking at elevation profiles, all the trails here would be too steep to climb. So riders might want to take the road anyways. The trails would make awesome descents, albeit with ridiculously long shuttles. The top of Verplank is too far out of the way for that trail to make sense. The Camp 4 trail would add Delilah Ridge which is really cool plus some singletrack without adding a bunch of extra miles. But the singletrack looks very steep averaging 750ft/mile of vert for 4.5 miles. And no sign of it on the ground. The other road off Delilah Ridge might be the most realistic alternative, but you are just trading one road for another with a lot of extra work to open it back up. That isn't worth it to me. Similar to other areas, I think we'll keep Verplank and Camp 4 on the long term project list and re-visit once the route is open and running.

[evdog]

Mid Sept now. Camp on the Kings River. Warm temps down there so I sat out pretty late and stared at stars. The hammock chair is awesome for that.




First on my list was to check out the Bear Wallow Trail. I tried to hike up it a few years ago and lost it within the first 500ft, nothing but tall grass and weeds. But the Basin Fire burned this area back in May, so I wanted to see if anything emerged from the ashes.




It looked promising at the bottom but there were a number of different paths going different directions.




It wasn't until I got up a bit higher and saw the switchbacks that I knew there was really a trail there




I kept hiking higher to see what I could see




Nice views back down to the river




I passed one section where the trail dropped down rather than staying high as shown on the USFS map. Couldn't see any trace higher up. But it joined back up after a steep climb and kept chugging towards another saddle.




It started to get pretty narrow




This was becoming pretty typical, about 8" of bench. I could see it contouring way up along the slope and out of sight. I hadn't expected the trail to exist let alone get this far up so I hadn't come prepared and was out of water. I had made it 2 miles and about 1200ft up, or about half way to the ridge top. Time to turn around.




Looks cool from up above!




Hopefully I can make it back again soon when temps are cooler. But I was stoked to have found some usable trail. No telling what it might look like higher up. I think the fire did go all the way to the ridge top though.

[evdog]

Back at camp I went for a swim. The water was really nice! Then I packed up and started up the Blackrock Road




Bailey Bridge




Now with a route marker. This is a mandatory crossing for the route. There is no other way to get from north to south unless we go west of Pine Flat Reservoir, which would require dozens of pavement miles.




Another bridge with some decorative coloring this time. Blackrock Road is pretty cool. It's paved much of the way, but narrow single lane road with steep cliffs above and below. And light traffic.




Looking up the canyon. Blackrock Reservoir drains out here.




Keep your eyes on the road




Bear Wallow Trail ends at the saddle in the middle of the pic below. There is a road that climbs up to this saddle from the reservoir. And another one that drops down to the saddle from behind the peak on the left. I tried to access the reservoir road on the drive up but it was infested with deadfall and overgrown (heard that before?) and not worth spending hours exploring since we would want to connect all the way to the top. I've driven down almost to the saddle before and planned to scout it again soon.




Looking for a campsite now, I kept driving. The road turns to dirt soon after passing the reservoir.

There are some cool views looking up towards Wishon Reservoir from this road. The canyon holds a lot of nice granite.




Rancheria Creek Falls. I could hear the water from across the canyon.




Found a decent campsite near the top of the switchbacks. I would finish the drive up to Wishon Res in the morning.

[evdog]

Just another day....

My campsite for the night. Just a pullout off the road, but had a decent view.




Looking south back to the switchbacks I'd driven night before. Blackrock Reservoir is just out of sight around the corner




And a better view looking north towards Wishon Reservoir. If you look closely you can see the line of a road near the top on the left. That is Crabtree Road 11S01. It's a cool narrow road that has cliff edge exposure through the area in the pic, then turns north and heads up to Wishon Reservoir. If the route comes up this way rather than Bear Wallow Trail, this is the road I'd want to take. The Blackrock Rd I'd driven up is a pretty ho-hum wide dirt road.




I found a spot to park and unloaded the moto. Token shot with Wishon Reservoir as a backdrop.




I headed south to Rodgers Ridge. The road along this ridge eventually drops to the saddle where Bear Wallow Trail begins.




View looking south over Kings Canyon




The road heads west as primitive doubletrack for a ways before dropping down a series of switchbacks. I was able to drive part way down the switchbacks a few years ago before hitting deadfall.




View looking west from the road. You can just barely see Blackrock Road down there. Bear Wallow runs along the ridge from the left. Can't see any hint of a trail from here




My ride came to a dead stop almost 2 miles from the saddle where Bear Wallow begins. I wasn't prepared to do a long hike in today, so I turned around here with plan to come back another day.




Hmm... this tree wasn't here on the ride in. Fortunately the it had broken into pieces on the right side and I was able to pull a section off the road so I could get through.




I headed back to the reservoir and then west towards Dinkey Creek resort, following a series of forest roads on the south and then north side of the main McKinley Grove road.




Lots of logging going on all across the Sierra Nat'l Forest




I had scouted some of these before but it was good to confirm which ones are still good for the route and which ones are not so good. Things can change over time. A lot of the roads used for logging are now a loose, silty mess.


Headed back towards the reservoir. Of interest, there is a singletrack shown on maps called Cliff Camp Trail that starts just south of the reservoir and travels 3.5 miles south towards Rodgers Ridge across the terrain pictured below. I have only been able to find the start and end of it. It soon disappears. Another trail that looks like it would be worth resurrecting!

[evdog]

In the afternoon I headed a bit west towards Shaver Lake. There are a three trail segments someone recommended that I had not been aware of and are not on any maps. They were billed as rad granite segments. They look good on maps as connectors.


Found the first one.




I rode up a short forest road spur to get to it. I had been seeing RV trailers parked all over the place, all of them unattended and was wondering what was up. I found out a couple days later hunting season was about to start and these were all hunters trailers staking out their spots.

The ratio of unattended trailers to deer I had spotted was about 100:1 so far. Good luck, guys!




The trail continues. I cut out one small tree here.




Then, they multiplied. Being a good citizen I cut these ones out too.




Then it got much worse and I gave up. A hundred yards ahead the trail turned uphill to the right and any hint of trail disappeared.




I followed the GPS line cross country until I got to this slab section. I was finally able to ride again.




But be careful which way you go. Some lines end in a cliff. I tried to follow the GPS line but it didn't really mesh with the terrain. Looking at the obvious lines, this would be a great freeride trail but a shitty bikepacking trail regardless of which way you were riding.




The bottom of the drainage. Need to cross the low spot to a campsite and then climb out back to the highway.




I crossed the highway and checked out another segment of route on that side. It went in a couple hundred yards past another campsite with more unattended trailers. From there the road climbed steeply up a silt-infested slope.




After 500ft or so, it levelled off and was really nice riding.




Headed back to the truck and drove on. Caught a nice sunset from a highway viewpoint.




I still had one more segment to check out. There was no hint of trail at all here. The trail looks like it would go to the right of the rock formation and then start dropping down.




It seemed to cross left to right here and then cross back to the left out of sight below. It was almost rideable to here given the lack of brush.




Looking back up. This part was pretty steep. I couldn't find a logical place to drop off this rock area. Below this was thick forest and again, no hint of a trail anywhere. There was almost 1/4 mile of forest down to the nearest road.





I'm a bit puzzled as to why either of these sections were recommended for Orogenesis. There is no trail for the most part. They are super steep. They might be fun for freeriding on an unloaded bike if there was a trail - but there isn't . Even if there was a trail, most bikepackers would not be able to ride down this stuff on a loaded bike.

[climberevan]

Thanks for keeping this TR going! I really do need to spend more time in southern CA.

[evdog]

For sure! Even though a lot of it looks like shit because I'm exploring for a very specific route, there is a ton of fun trail to ride down here and on the west side Sierra.

[evdog]

Another day.... still mid Sept, near Shaver Lake.


Despite spending quite a bit of time in the area I had never checked out the Bald Mtn OHV trails. Along the with shortcuts I'd explored the previous day, the current Orogenesis route uses another shortcut that drops down from Bald Mtn trails to another granite section that is part of the Tour de Granite ride. This shortcut was described as "used to be there, might take a bit of work to make it rideable again." The plan was to check this out as a way to get to Bald Mtn, plus a couple other spots.


And this is what it looked like. No hint of trail at all. But definitely some cool granite. Like the two other spots, it would make for a great freeride trail if a trail actually existed. It was steeeep to get up here.




On the climb up I was thinking that a better spot for a trail would be down in this valley between the ridge and Bald Mtn. A local I talked to later mentioned this specifically when I asked about any connection here.




It's a tough life trying to grow out of solid granite.




This is the rest of the shortcut route. Terrain gets a lot more suitable for a trail. But there was one more steep hike a bike section to get to the top which you can see on the right.




The view from Bald mtn looking over Shaver Lake




The Bald Mtn lookout tower is up there in the distance on the left. Still a ways to go




Looking north towards Huntington Lake and the Kaiser Wilderness




Bald Mtn lookout tower. It was rebuilt by a local 4x4 club at some point so it's now more of a view tower.




The trail up to the tower alternated between sandy/DG jeep trail and granite slab. It got steep in places but was mostly rideable. There were often multiple jeep lines which means even more MTB lines. I dropped off the summit and headed east on some other trails. These were steeper with more rocky and ledgy terrain. It was all rideable downhill, but would have a decent amount of hike a bike heading uphill.




After exiting the Bald mtn system I climbed up the road a couple miles to take another look at the Dinkey Creek Trail. Dinkey is shown on most maps but a lot of it no longer exists on the ground. This upper part north of the Dinkey Creek campground is on all the maps. It goes up to some pools in Dinkey Creek. Access from the north is via an old mining road. I tried to access it a few years ago and dropped down a half mile, but I wasn't prepared for a long hike that day and turned around. This time, with bike, I would either ride through to the campground or have to do some hiking back out.

This is the old mining road. It's pretty rough but mostly rideable downhill. It would be 100% hike a bike headed up.




I hadn't gotten all the way down this road last time. At the bottom I found a fairly obvious trail complete with some flagging. It was a bit overgrown but not hard to pass through.




Trail sign at the intersection with Dinkey Creek trail. Things were looking really promising. I ditched the bike and followed the Dinkey trail north to the pools. Definitely hiker only trail to the pools.




Back at the bike, I headed downstream. The trail was impressively rideable with just a bunch of old trees down on the ground. Most, aside from the new ones, could be ridden over. There was a steep drop down at the end that had some very tight rock squeezes I had to lift the bike over. Otherwise, this is a fantastic trail if we can link it in. The mining road section and connector would need some work but there is good road access for that.




The Dinkey Creek campground is my main hesitation in trying to use this. It is run by a concessionaire and they charge for day use access to the area. And they are quite militant about it. I don't think bikepackers would want to pay $10 just to ride through a campground. Not sure they are allowed to charge for people just passing through to access Nat'l forest trail without using any amenities. Will have to check with the Forest Service on that.

I climbed up this trail out of the campground picnic area rather than ride through the campground. Unfortunately it turned into a mess of deadfall about 2/3 of the way up. It does not link well to the rest of the route.




I pedaled back up the road to the OHV trails to check out one more trail for the day. It was late afternoon by now and I hadn't brought lights, so I had a turnaround plan in case the trail was in poor shape.




It turned out to be pretty awesome with some nice granite sections and steeps.




Perfect view to enjoy golden hour




It was on the technical side with some really tough corners, and a few spots that were too gnarly to ride. But also some nice cruisy sections.




Typical corner




Made it to the bottom before sunset and had a short but cold pedal back to the truck. Lots of good stuff found today. And the not-so-good non-existent connector from this morning. Need to find a better way around there because Bald Mtn is really cool and worth using for the route.

[evdog]

Still mid Sept, still Shaver Lake.


Took care of some admin in the morning.

Mid afternoon I headed over to Ely Mtn to check out the trails there. I rode Cannonball and Thunderstruck. The trails on Ely Mtn were built by the Yosemite South Gate Trails Cooperative in partnership with Socal Edison, who owns the land.


This footage from Thunderstruck is from a later day when I rode with some locals, but way better since I knew the lines and had a rider to follow. Really fun trail




And Cannonball, from this ride





Pics are all from this day.

Ebikes not welcome here. Too bad for them, as there is a road climb right from the bottom that would be perfect to run laps on. I'm sure people do it anyways.




There is a pedal in at the top to each trail if you're shuttling. You'll enjoy some nice views of Balsam Forbay Reservoir and the Kaiser Wilderness in the distance




Heading to Cannonball there is a singletrack option near the top of the climb not shown on Trailforks, so of course I took it.






It goes out to a nice lookout before re-joining the access road




Start of Cannonball. It's the more technical of the two main trails. Thunderstruck is more flowy with go-arounds for features.




Cool section of trail




Made it back up for Thunderstruck around sunset




Nice rock roll to start




Make sure you have enough momentum for this one. It's a pretty vertical entrance




Nice sunset view from up here




Another optional roll




Both are really fun trails. I would have to come back to check out the third trail, Granite.

[evdog]

Still mid Sept, still near Shaver Lake


This was in the middle of a week-long cold front, and rain was in the forecast for today so I planned to do some driving rather than riding.

North of Huntington Lake is Kaiser Peak and the Kaiser Wilderness. There is a whole section of forest between this and the Ansel Adams Wilderness that is regular National Forest land. It is a pretty big area with a whole network of forest roads. I have not been able to explore it previously because the road in, Stump Springs Road, has been under fire closure or closure for danger tree removal every time I've visited. But the road was open on one end as of August.


Rain on the road driving up to Kaiser Pass




There are two main dirt roads that form a loop, 6S02 and 7S05. That is what I planned to drive, and see what I could see. I couldn't resist this doubletrack off 7S05 that would bypass some of the wider road.




This deadfall wouldn't stop bikes but it stopped me in the truck.




The sign was amusing. But also sad because you know it is there because this had become a big enough problem to get noticed.




Continued on to 6S02. Mt Tom came into view




I decided to take a side trip up there to check out the fire lookout, and got hit by more rain on the climb up




It was a steep, narrow road. Was happy that I didn't run into anyone driving the opposite direction




There was a truck parked by the lookout tower which meant it was still open. I walked around a bit up top




The lookout volunteer called me up to check out the views. He was cleaning up as this was his last full day for the season. Said the other side of Stump Springs is closed due to large washouts on the road.

Looking south to Kaiser Peak




North to Ansel Adams wilderness and Yosemite




Looking down at granite domes in the distance




And north-west, the back side of Mammoth Mtn came into view when the clouds cleared a bit




I dropped back down and continued the tour. The road got more primitive for a while heading around the north side of Mt Tom




Really nice section to drive through. The roads were mostly in good shape. There were lots of hunters around and they seem to clear out the deadfall.




As I continued around the road transitioned back to main road. It headed through a few areas that got nuked in the Creek fire. Other parts were untouched or just had the ground fuel burnt off.




Rain started again on the drive out and got pretty heavy as I headed back to Shaver Lake. I wasn't able to find a few things I needed in town, so I dropped down to Fresno. Also on the menu - In n Out and cheaper gas and groceries. Rain was done by the time I got back up the hill, and warmer temps on the way in coming days.




I was stoked to finally get to check out the area north of Kaiser. I don't think we would use it for Orogenesis because it goes pretty far out of the way and would bypass needed resupply options in Shaver Lake. But for a local bikepacking loop, it will be a great option once Stump Springs Road is open on both ends.

[evdog]

Still mid Sept, still in the Shaver Lake area


I wanted to head back to Rodgers Ridge and see if I could access the upper end of Bear Wallow trail on foot. Riding the moto in a few days before there was a downed tree about 2mi from the end of the road. This time I brought food, water, hand saw, and chainsaw so I could get down to the saddle and hopefully onto Bear Wallow.


Rode the moto in to the big downed tree on Rodgers Ridge and then started hiking




View from the top of the switchbacks. Bear Wallow should climb up the hill somewhere to the right of the saddle




One of the switchbacks. This one was still seeing traffic until not long in the past.




Around the next corner was the first big patch of deadfall. There was no sign of any use beyond it. I started cutting branches and downed logs to make access easier.




When I said no sign of any use, that wasn't completely accurate. And this wasn't the type of log I was cutting.




I got down to the saddle near Wiesbrod Spring where Bear Wallow begins. The abandoned road that climbs up from Blackrock Reservoir ends here as well. A very large log had been intentionally placed across it at this junction, so it was obvious the Forest service wants it closed. Rodgers Ridge road just had normal deadfall for an unmaintained road.

There appeared to be a couple foot paths heading west from this junction. One would likely go down to the spring. The other should be Bear Wallow. Within a hundred feet though, it looked like this.




No hint of a trail bed, no corridor in the brush or sign of cut logs. Nothing. I pushed on ahead through the brush trying to follow the line on the GPS but it got so thick it was almost impassable. These were large shrubs like cyanothus that grow tall and mesh together. I found a downed tree to walk along which provided a bit of a break and even there it was tough to push through. In an open patch 100ft ahead I found what could have been remnants of old trail tread, but it soon disappeared again. I couldn't see any thing that resembled trail up on the hill above and the brush appeared continuous all the way up the hill. Unfortunately it might take another fire to burn off this brush to see what's underneath. Either that, or just cut new trail through the growth. I had been hoping to explore a mile or two along the ridge top but given how tough progress was, I decided I could better spend the time elsewhere.


View down into Kings Canyon on the hike out.




I rode the moto over towards Dinkey Creek to check out a few forest road connections. This missing bridge right by Dinkey is currently the route across the creek. We'll need to re-route to the bridge on McKinley Grove Rd just to the south.




I was looking for forest roads that would connect around the slab shortcuts I had scouted earlier that had non-existent trail. Found a few good ones that connect pretty well.




The current route uses this road. Lots of deadfall, but we could log it out and scrape in a line to have singletrack.




Or use this other road that ends up at the same spot. Personally I'd go with option 2. We have enough work to do already.




I checked out some connections on the west side of Dinkey Creek as well. I found this trail which connects well up to Bald Mtn, but it leads to a Forest Service work center. We'll have to find out if they are cool with bikes passing through.




I think the next move with Bear Wallow is to do another hike in from the bottom once the weather cools down and see if we can make it up to the ridge top. It's going to be a major project to get this trail going again. Unfortunately this area does not have a lot of local riders.

[evdog]

Getting into late Sept. Still in Shaver Lake area.

I wanted to head back to Bald Mtn and see if there were any better ways to get through the area. The way I had dropped off the summit would require a lot of hike a bike going the other direction, but I'd seen some green rated trails that might bypass the steeper parts.


I headed in from where I had camped on the north side of Bald Mtn. This is pretty typical of the grade for much of the way in.




There are a couple steep parts mixed in, and then as you get closer to the summit things get steep. But grippy.




View from the lookout tower




Then I set off to look for green trails. This one was not bad. Grades were pretty decent but it was more sandy.




Same trail, lower down




I checked out a couple trails that were labelled green on one end but got kinda gnarly. I then found them labelled blue or black at the other end. They would be ok by MTB, but each would have some hike a bike on the steeper parts depending on your direction of travel




Next I headed north and checked out some forest roads heading towards Huntington Lake. As with other areas some patches were nuked by the fire and some were burned lightly or unburned.




I climbed up a bit towards Red Lake. The road to it is a popular OHV trail and the jeeps and SXS were out in force. Lots of hunters out. Being mid day a lot were already higher up towards the lake and I only encountered a few out of a group of 10 jeeps heading down before I turned off.




I turned onto a spur road that heads up behind China Peak. I soon ran into a locked gate and set off on foot to see if I could find any sign of the Chinese Peak Trail. This is another singletrack I've been looking at on maps for years but never got around to checking out. It connects from China Peak over to Kaiser Pass Road near Weldon Camp and Badger Flat. It would make an excellent connector for Orogenesis and would also make a great loop above Huntington Lake. But I've never heard of anyone riding it, and it shows zero activity on heat maps. I didn't know what to expect.

I poked around and didn't see any obvious tread, but then I spotted a small cairn. Looking both directions I saw another cairn each way. Then I could make out a vague path between them. I walked about 1/4 mile along the trail before deciding this was worth coming back for with the MTB.




I headed back down the mountain and checked out a few more forest roads. You can't get all the way to Huntington on them, but you can get pretty close. And even closer if the ski area will allow you to ride their access roads.




I made it back to the truck with an hour of sunlight left so I decided to head back to Ely Mountain and do a lap before dark. I was prepared to climb back up with lights but met a few locals who offered me a ride back up. One of them, Kevin, seemed to remember meeting me on a scouting trip 6 years ago. He recalled me hobbling around with a knee injury (I had ACL surgery 2018) and looking at crossing a fairly deep creek in my old tacoma. Small world.

Had a great run on Thunderstruck. It's the go pro vid from post #69




Fun day out exploring again. I think the current Orogenesis route through the Bald Mtn OHV trails is as good as we are going to get. It has some hike a bike but mostly on solid granite. It is possible to bypass some of it, but it adds distance and puts the summit lookout further off route.

[evdog]

Late Sept, still Shaver Lake area

After finding the remnants of Chinese Peak trail the day before, I headed back with the bike. While it would be possible to loop it from Huntington Lake I opted to self shuttle up to give myself more time. Because you never know....


If I made it through the trail I would cross Kaiser Pass Rd and climb up to Potter Pass. The descent back to Huntington is really fun. There is a possible bailout down Big Creek not shown on the paper map, which would be about half way across




LFG. I shuttled about half way up the dirt road climb to an OHV staging area for Red Lake.




Pedaled up and picked up the trail. First of many cairns to come




Spotted tire tracks, this was a good sign!




I followed them down to this point, a quarter mile later. This was the last I'd spot any sign of traffic.




Finding a piece of wing was not so promising. I walked a circle 50-100m around this wing but didn't see anything else.




Started seeing a lot more downed trees. This one was huge. It was getting harder to pick up the trail again on the other side. Very vague, where you could see anything at all. I spent a lot of time walking forward and back to sniff out the next section of trail.




Nice rocky section that was partially rideable




Aside from cairns there were occasional blazes and ribbons as well - green, red and white/blue. I added some orange ribbon on a few sections I'd had trouble at.




The trail goes through a small rocky valley here. It got pretty hard to follow for a while. No visible tread at all, and lots of deadfall. Finally, made it through.




Thankfully scooters aren't allowed! Part of the trail near the end is old road bed. It leads to an old cabin called Weldon's Camp.




I had forgotten that there is a singletrack parallel to the road from Weldon's to Kaiser Pass Road. It's pretty trashed from horse traffic but mostly heads downhill after a short climb.




The Rancheria Creek crossing. Just an easy climb up to the road from here




Onwards to Potter Pass. It was looking like I'd have enough time to finish the ride and get in a swim before dark.




The trail tops out at Potter Pass which is as far as bikes can go. Fortunately there is a fun trail that drops all the way to Huntington Lake.







Temps were nice and warm again so it was nice to sit out under a full moon.




For as poor shape as Chinese Peak Trail was in, at least it exists and was HAB-passable. There are probably 150 downed trees and tread is so far gone on over half the trail you can't see any hint of it. I hope we can get this trail resurrected at some point. It ties in well enough with Orogenesis that we could use it. And you could loop it from Huntington with Potter Pass trails for a killer ride.

[evdog]

Late Sept - still near Shaver Lake


I had ridden two trails on Ely Mountain but there is a third one called Granite that I wanted to check out.





Nice view over Shaver Lake




Lots of steep slabs, though the trail is a bit lacking in anything difficult until you get to the singletrack at the end. The hardest part was figuring out where it goes...it seemed like there were a lot of extra cairns that didn't make sense. Not a big deal once you've ridden it once or twice, but it was annoying for a first lap.




I came across the local SAR team partway down, doing some training. I think they were a bit surprised to have a biker drop down on them from above. Despite the hard to follow cairns I was not in need of their services however.




After the ride I hopped on the moto to check out a few nearby roads.

This is why you scout and re-scout. Dawn Road was a cool forest road before the fire, that we were using for Orogenesis. It's a great connector and I've driven my truck on it a couple times. Time to find a re-route.




This is another road that connects to Dawn Rd. It was previously abandoned and going back to singletrack, but was re-graded for logging post-fire.




I pedaled down it about 3 miles where it connects to Dawn Road. This intersection is half a mile down from the gully pictured above. What I saw there was not good:




More washouts as far as the eye can see.

Dawn Road continues as a shelf road for about 4 miles. It looks like every spot where the road crosses a gully is washed out. At the far end, Dawn connects to the Old Railway Grade Rd which is a similar shelf road running for many miles above the San Joaquin River valley. That road is under Forest Service closure order so it is likely in similar or worse condition as Dawn Road. It will probably take the Forest Service a long time to repair them.




I did find an alternate route along a powerline corridor that will work.

If we use the Thunderstruck Trail for Orogenesis, this alternate will come out right where Thunderstruck meets Huntington Lake Road, which is perfect. From there riders can take the alternate all the way down to Shaver Lake for resupply. The main Orogenesis route will have to follow Huntington Lake Road north for a couple miles and then drop down the paved Powerhouse Road to the river. There were construction crews working on Old Railroad west of Huntington Lake Road but I'm not sure how far they have gotten. And they have a long ways to go.




After the road scouting it was time to re-locate towards Bass Lake.


Looking across the San Joaquin River Valley. You can see the trail of the same name on the far side of the valley, lower down. This trail is eventually supposed to connect all the way from Hwy 99 near Fresno to Mammoth Lakes.




Crossing the river




I found this spot randomly a few years ago. The geographic center of California.






Nice sunset! No one around, it was super quiet.




I have spent a lot of time this year scouting new stuff and re-scouting old. The washouts on Dawn Road show how important it is to do this, especially in burned areas. There are a lot more of those to scout following the current fire season.

[evdog]

Late September, now in Bass Lake area


The 2020 Creek Fire also raged across the Bass Lake area. I wanted to check out as much of the route there as possible.


First stop was to see if any work has been done on the French Trail, aka San Joaquin River Trail. In this area it roughly follows the Minarets Road before dropping down to Mammoth Pool reservoir.

New carsonite posts were put up after the fire, all of which point towards trail that is completely non-existent. I got excited driving past one crossing at night and seeing trail tread heading away from the road on both sides. Turned out it was just a cow path. No work has been done at all.




Looking out toward some of the granite domes I'd seen from Mt Tom




My next stop was to do a quick MTB ride on FR 8009. When I scouted this one a few years back it had a ton of deadfall and a couple landslides. 8009 cuts off some pavement riding and would be a nicer, more primitive road than FR 7S07 provided it's in passable condition.




The good news is it was very passable. The big trees down before had burned away and it looked like a rancher ran his cattle down the road and cut out new deadfall to ATV width.




Down near the bottom I stopped in at the Jesse Ross cabin, built in the 1860s. Glad I did as there was a Forest Service crew repairing a fence there. Talked to them for a few mins, they are a fire crew that helps out with recreation projects like this fence at times. Said they had started working on rehabbing the French Trail the season before the Creek Fire but all their work was destroyed. He said they'll get back to it as time allows.




Third project for the day was to unload the moto and ride as much of the route as possible to see how things looked. Lower down the forest got torched. But after a couple years of widespread closures, the roads were mostly open again.




Orogenesis turns off the main forest road 7S07 and follows a smaller road north. I really like this smaller road as it passes through a couple narrow passages that were excavated out to make the road. It's also narrow and sees minimal use due to a large washout mid-way. There is a bypass around the washout that only hikers and two-wheeled vehicles can use.




I headed over towards the top of Blind Squirrel Trail which runs down a massive granite playground.




And then dropped down Road 8029, another road I really liked. It was narrow, winding road that ran through dense forest with lush vegetation. Part of it burned, and it was definitely not as lush as before with much of the vegetation burned off, but hopefully it will come back.




While it's not quite the same post-fire, it is still a cool route. We have Orogenesis set up so that riders can descend Blind Squirrel whether riding Orogenesis north or south. If heading south, you'll climb up this road, descend BS and connect back to the route on Browns Creek Rd.




Next I headed up to Shuteye Pass trail, which is an option for Orogenesis. It climbs 2000ft up from Minarets Road to Shuteye Pass and then drops 500ft down on this side of the mountains. So it would be a pretty direct way of crossing over.

I had never gotten around to scouting it because it doesn't tie in to the route very well. It requires over 10 miles of pavement riding whether you hit it from the south or the north.




I had no trouble finding the trail but it was steep and rocky. Too steep and rocky to be suitable for bikes IMO. Nevermind loaded bikepacking rigs.




It would be all hike a bike uphill and plenty of HAB downhill. Not worth riding 10+ miles of pavement for this.




At the pass I spotted a few cairns that may have marked a trail heading down the other side, but I could not spot any hint of tread. It is a steep and rocky slope heading down to Minarets Road. I checked out the bottom a couple years ago. The forest down there got nuked. As with French Trail there was a shiny new carsonite post pointing to a spot where no trail existed. Even if there were a trail I think it would be too steep for bikepacking. I think we can finally cross Shuteye Pass Trail off the list.




On the ride out I checked out a couple moto trails heading south towards Whiskey Falls. The first one was rated green, and pretty nice.




The second one was rated blue. I was wondering why because it was pretty flat and followed an old road bed. Then I got to this spot which dropped steeply down for 3-400ft. It was a bit sporty on the moto. 300lbs doesn't like to stop on debris covered slabs.




Whiskey Falls




I took a different way out. Pretty nice roads and they were less burned than roads on the ride in. But they also had a bunch more vert along the way. Got back down just in time for sunset.





A good day on the moto. I was stoked to find all the roads in good shape. And the forest up top was not badly burned for the most part, just a few pockets that got nuked. I think the fire was worse further north.