Continued...
I had planned to make another 3-day foray into the Shasta-Trinity NF but the
forecast there had a 70% chance of rain, not very encouraging. I decided to go
with the 20% forecast in Stanislaus NF in the Sierra foothills west of Yosemite
NP. The area is bounded by SR120 on the north and SR140 to the south. In between
there are a few paved roads and many, many unpaved ones. Of interest were a
P900 and
P1K in that region with more than two dozen other summits I might be able to
visit, depending on road conditions. Most were drive-ups, or nearly drive-ups,
none of them involving more than half a mile to the summit (which is why I
provided no elevation/distance profiles for them).
I had no idea which roads were open and
which ones might be closed, so there was a good deal of uncertainty on the
whole exercise - just my sort of fun.
Wagner Ridge/Hells Hollow Ridge/Peak 3,956ft
All of these are located on the 7mi-long Wagner Ridge. I accessed the good dirt
road that runs along the ridgeline from the east via paved Smith Station Rd
heading south from SR120. There are several along the ridge
and the
road seems to be kept in decent shape. I could have more efficiently driven in
from the west via Boneyard Rd, exiting to Smith Station Rd, but didn't realize
this beforehand. All three summits are essentially with
due to the trees. Peak 3,958ft was the most open with a small
clump of amidst the grassy top, with a USFS
from 1937.
Dudley Hill/Greely Hill/Monotti Hill
All three of these minor hills are located around the small town of Greely Hill
a few miles south of Wagner Ridge. The first two were drive-ups.
is home to a large telecom installation (cell tower, I
think) that was being installed during my visit. The gate was open so I drove
to the top, only to have one of the workers stare me down until I had turned
around and gone back down the hill. Greely Hill (the hill)
is on the west side of town and may be private property though there were no
gates or other impediments to simply driving to the top. It had the most
open views, overlooking the Central Valley to and the Sierra
foothills to . Monotti Hill is located on forest lands, the
drive in going over a rough 4WD road, 2S47. Parking at the base of the hill on
the north side, the route goes up modest slopes with
some poison oak that wasn't hard to work around. The summit had open views
, those to the north blocked by trees. After doing these
three, I stopped at in Greely Hill (the town) for
refreshments and topping off the fuel tank before heading into the wild.
Shingle Hill
Heading east out of Greely Hill, this is the first stop along the way. The main
road running southeast is Briceburg Rd, partially paved until becoming a
well-maintained dirt/gravel road. I turned right on Dogtown Rd, a good road,
and then the rougher to get within about a quarter mile of
Shingle Hill's summit on its . An easy walk through the
woods gets one to the with no views. There are mild
amounts of poison oak to watch out for, all of the low ground-cover variety.
McCauley Hill
Back on Briceburg Rd, I drove about a mile to the junction with
that climbs east out of the drainage and towards the
higher elevations on its way to Yosemite. This was part of the first road
constructed into Yosemite back in 1874, the same one John Muir used when he
first visited around the same time. I drove this a few miles up to the
3,200-foot elevation where there is a junction with ,
a steeper route up from Briceburg Rd to the southwest. This secondary road sees
less maintenance and it was necessary to stop at to cut off
some pine branches that had partially fallen across the road. The initial part
from Old Yosemite Rd up to McCauley is badly rutted and only suitable for 4WD.
From McCauley Hill back down to Briceburg Rd, the cutoff road is in
but I had a few more branches to cut there. The
summit is located about 100yds off the roadway and makes for some tough
brushwhacking through dry, over-the-head brush to find no discernable summit,
and few places to stand up. The summit
lacks any redeeming qualities as far as I can tell.
Jackass Mountain
Back down at Briceburg Rd after descending McCauley Cutoff Rd, I immediately
continued southwest across Briceburg onto another forest road, 2S11 (Google Maps
has it as "State Rte 2S01Y", a name that makes little sense). The topo map
shows this as a drive-up, but the road no longer reaches to Jackass' summit. I
in an open grassy area where the road currently ends, hiking
about half a mile up to the summit over portions of the
which as one nears the summit. It may be possible to drive up
from the northwest side. Nothing of interest at , but at
least the road goes right over
the top so there's no need to delve into the heavy brush.
Texas Hill/Black Mtn/Peak 2,925ft
Back on Briceburg Rd and a few miles further southeast leads to the spur road,
Ponderosa Way, heading west and up to a long ridgeline running north-south
between Texas Hill and Black Mtn. This road is in decent shape and even better
once one reaches the ridgeline where a very wide firebreak was created here
a few years back. I drove to the north end of the ridge where
is located, walking the to
the summit where it is blocked to vehicle traffic. is flat
and open with in all directions thanks to the firebreak. I then
drove south a few miles along the ridge, on the northeast side
of the summit and walking about a quarter mile up
to of Black Mtn. Like Texas Hill, it is also open in all
directions. Looking , it seemed a road goes up to, or at least
near to Peak 2,925ft another mile and a half in that direction. I hadn't planned
on this one, but it seemed worth checking out while I was there. I was able to
drive within about 0.4mi of the summit. The topo map shows a spur road going
northwest over the summit, but this is no longer driveable and
with brush. Still, the with a
semblence of a use trail going along
it made getting to the summit an easy proposition - it would have been very
ugly bushwhacking indeed without it. It took barely 10min to reach
and a similar amount of time to return.
Peak 3,277ft
From Ponderosa Way, I took an alternative road (3S10) back to Briceburg Rd so
that I could attempt Peak 3,277ft on the way down. The road passes about 0.6mi
from the summit on the south side with about 300ft of gain. The satellite view
makes it look like a difficult bushwhack but there are at least two different,
old firebreaks running up the mountain, one of them from near where I started.
Even though they are decades old (you can guess the age because all the trees
growing on
are a maximum of about 15-20ft tall), they make a
world of difference and it took less than 30min to find my way to the top. The
firebreak I followed stops just short of the highpoint, necessitating some
pretty rough travel through a tangle of to find another
indiscernable highpoint. Future adventurers should consider it suffice to reach
the end of the firebreak and call it good, at least until the next fire burns it
all down. This was the hardest summit of the day, coming in at just under an
hour's time.
Jenkins Hill/Soapstone Ridge/Little Grizzly Mtn
Back on Briceburg Rd, I drove a few more miles south before turning left onto
Soapstone Ridge Rd, the long, rough road that would lead me up to Big Grizzly,
the P1K I planned to climb the next day. These three summits were all along
the same ridgeline with varying degrees of difficulty. The hardest part,
perhaps, was the driving as this road is not well-maintained and there was much
brush to be pushed aside. Stopping to trim it back would have taken all day, so
I simply put up with the pinstriping as part and parcel with the adventure. I
stopped a few times to trim back more serious
obstructing tree branches, but the rest of the
ridge was passable with 4WD. My first stop was , a minor
point at the south end of the ridge along a spur road (3S01).
appears to go
right over the summit, so no need to jump into the brush on either side. The
toughest part was finding space to turn the Jeep around in. Heading back north,
I drove a few miles up Soapstone Ridge until I was on
of
the summit identified on LoJ as Soapstone Ridge. Though barely a tenth of a mile
from the summit, it was a challenging climb thanks to rampant poison oak that
had me watching every step. Though most of the slope had clear passages through
the heavier brush, the summit area was a different matter which saw me
half-crawling through heavy brush to find another
with no
views. The last summit of the day was Little Grizzly, a few more miles up the
road and the only one of the day's peaks to rise above 4,000ft. The
appears to offer the most open route to the summit, a distance of about
a quarter mile from the road. The poison oak was less prevalent here and I
enjoyed the easier effort this entailed and the better lighting in the very
late afternoon - it was after 7p before I started. The roundtrip effort took
but 15min and there was even a neat little pile of and
a view overlooking the foothills to near sunset.
After
to the Jeep, I drove only a short distance further to a place
called Little Grizzly Flat on the topo map which had a nice little clearing to
park and spend the night. Though I didn't do all that much hiking, I'd
been driving or hiking almost 13hrs since I had gotten up in the morning. I
showered in the fading light and settled on guacamole and chips with beer in
lieu of an actual dinner. I hadn't really earned the latter and it didn't feel
like I was going to bed hungry...
Continued...