California Dreamin'

As we bid goodbye to our Alaskan friends who’d been visiting (the last in a steady stream of company for almost a month) a week ago (May 2004), I hope they weren’t too concerned that we seemed distracted, for in our minds we were already trying to remember what all we needed to pack so we could leave the same morning. Memorial Day weekend was coming up, and we were ready to hit the road!

We’d had wonderful visits with everyone, but we were really itching to get out and do something ourselves, since Photo: Misty mountain view on a rainy day. we’ve both been very busy, and we only had six days before Jim had to be back to attend an important meeting in Portland.

Two hours later we had thrown everything into the trailer we could think of, grabbed Missy the cat, and we were off. As we headed south the sky was not looking good, but we didn’t really care. If we couldn’t do any mining, we’d find something else to do. Jim loves to explore, and while I'm not as adventurous as he is, we do love to drive back roads, and learn about an area. It was good that we had these thoughts because it rained every day we were there until our last day. But, true to our word, we had a great time.

We headed to the Klamath River in northern California, and were able to get the last space in an RV park there. We had a battery (actually a fuse) problem, and needed power to run the heat. The river was already high and fast when we got there, since they have had a lot of spring rain there as we’ve had here. Then, with the rain while we were there, it went up another two feet or so, and became muddied, so we didn’t see anyone dredging during that week until that last day it cleared up That meant that they all had cabin fever in no time, as most had just arrived there, and were anxious to dredge.

Photo right: Wild lilacs on the road bank.

Jim’s experience dredging in Alaska was very different from mine, in California, and his goal was to camp alone as far away from anyone as he could get, and be as near to the dredge as possible. In Alaska he had to pull his dredge out of the water, and hide it where bears couldn’t get at it, and rarely ever had more than two consecutive days of dredging. And where he dredged was waaaay out in the bush. If something had happened to the airboat up there you’d have to walk out, because no one else can get up that far without one, and there’s no means of contacting anyone. We do know people who’ve had to do that.

This was his first experience at camping where there were other miners, and he does love to talk mining – that was one reason he set up the Alaska Gold Forum several years ago, because the miners in Alaska were not communicating at all, for the most part. He liked it. Actually, if you have a four-inch Pro-Mack dredge hanging out the back of your pickup (as we did), hardly a guy walks by without going all the way around the truck a time or two to look it all over, and that’s all it took to find an instant friend. Some were members of his Alaska Gold Forum, some had read the magazine I used to be editor for, and even the one or two who didn’t fall into these categories had mining in common. So, for the times we were in camp there were conversations whenever we felt like it.

We didn’t spend much time in camp, however, except for one day. I hurt my back getting into a bottom cupboard and couldn’t move the next day. On that day Jim took off to explore a road he hadn’t been on, and climbed clear to the top of a big mountain. He loved it! He got some great photos, but missed the one that would have been the best. A huge cinnamon Black Bear was feeding in a high mountain meadow, but was too far away to get with our camera. Except for the different color of his coat he could have been just one more tree stump. The first photo on this page is one he took up on that mountain.

Photo: Alpine wildflowers form a natural rock garden on the mountainside, with raindrops creating sparkle among the blossoms..

On one rainy day we drove about 50 miles upriver to a creek I used to mine on, and we drove up that to the small USFS campground where I’d camped with family and friends. It was as beautiful as I remembered it, and cool under a big canopy of trees. As I sat at a picnic table I could see in my mind some of the fun activities we’d had up there in years past.

On another day we drove up the Scott River road, and I was happy to see it is improved from my previous trips. We drove up all the way to the towns of Fort Jones and Etna, where we stopped for lunch, and then continued south, climbing the mountain that divides this valley from the canyon of the North Fork Salmon River. This road was very much improved, and is actually wide and paved now.

I had camped at the LDMA camp (Finley Camp) on the North Fork in years past, and it still looks just the same. Everywhere in that area is beautiful this time of year, but this year, because of all the rain, it was especially beautiful.

Photo above: Bambi and Mom out for a walk.

When you travel on down the North Fork, in about five miles you come to the tiny town of Sawyers Bar. I had been to the store there before, but no further, so I don’t know if they’ve widened the road since I was there or not, but there are houses so close to the road that it is not a problem to reach outside the windows of your vehicle and tap on the windows of a few houses. Unfortunately, I was so amazed to see that, I didn’t even think to get a photo.

Past Sawyer’s Bar there are no communities, and few residents, for a long way, and it was a beautiful drive. Although it stayed cloudy, it didn’t rain while we were over there. We stopped at a river access for a break, in what had obviously been an old homestead. What a beautiful, serene place! It had big shade trees, a grassy meadow, fruit trees and wild blackberry bushes, on a small bluff above the river.

I am not good on narrow mountain roads, but down to Forks of the Salmon the road was good, and didn’t bother me. There was little to no traffic. From Forks of the Salmon we headed back up, toward the Klamath River highway, and here I encountered probably the worst section of road I’ve ever been on. Hewn out of the solid rock of the mountainside, near the end of this stretch the road is so narrow it is heart-stopping. When I saw the beautiful waterfall in the photo on this page, I asked Jim to stop and back up to a pullout so I could take a photo. There are very small, but frequent pullouts, because if you meet a car, one of you has to back up to one.

Photo: Remains of old footbridge crossing the Salmon River. Well, when I asked Jim to back up I assumed he would back up on the road, and swing forward into the pullout. WRONG! Never assume with an Alaskan driver! He swung into the pullout as he backed up, and when I looked out my window, there was nothing to see beneath us but a whole lot of air for a hundred feet or so, and rocks and the river at the bottom.

That did it! I totally panicked. My mother said my father almost drove us off a mountain road when I was a couple of years old – one wheel was off the road, and we were teetering. From that day on she would never drive in the mountains, and it appears to have traumatized me, because I have an extreme fear on a road of this type, and can’t seem to control it.

Jim took the photo for me, and we went on, but had to almost immediately back up for another vehicle we met, and by the time we got off that stretch of road I had a splitting headache, was completely stressed out, and exhausted. Jim is an excellent driver, probably the best driver I’ve ever traveled with, but there are some things where logic and rationality simply don’t compute in my head, and this was one of them.

When we got to Happy Camp (a small town) we stopped in and visited with Photo above: A waterfall tumbles into the Salmon River friends and went to dinner with them, before heading back upriver to our camp. It was after 9 before we got back to the trailer, and it had been a full day, but a very enjoyable one.

The roadside banks and hillsides up there are just covered with flowering bushes, trees, and wildflowers this time of year. Lots of wild lilac, Scotch broom, dogwood, wild rhododendron, sweet peas, chicory, Queen Anne’s Lace, yellow daisies, lupine, and many other unidentified species, where they can get sun, and those are interspersed with scenes like the one on the right, through cool, towering trees.

The point of our trip was to relax and have fun, and we certainly accomplished all that. In fact, we can’t wait to get back and do some more of it!

Photo right: Driving down the Salmon River road.

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