Friday–Sunday, Aug 23–25 2013
Marc writes, pictures by Marc and Markus
Friday
Rob rode up to Gardnerville with this group of serious riders. They left around 8 AM on Friday morning.
Three riders (Tom, Markus, and Dimitry) decided to join me for a night of camping at Wolf Creek before meeting others of the SMBC in Gardnerville on Saturday for dinner and the annual awarding of the boot.
We met at the Black Bear in Tracy at 9:30 for breakfast. It’s a short ride, a little more than 200 miles, and leaving later lets us miss most of the bay area commute traffic.
We took I5 to Stockton where we picked up highway 4. You could see the smoke from the Rim Fire in the distance. It wasn’t too long before you could smell the smoke, too. After a rest and gas stop in Murphys we continued up highway 4 toward Alpine Lake where this picture was taken. That is not fog. The smoke from the fire is blocking the sky.
When we got to the campground it was empty. This is an unimproved campground with no marked camp sites and no amenities save a couple of pit toilets. You bring in everything you need and you bring out all your garbage.
Markus stayed in camp while Tom Dimitry and I went to Markleeville (about 13 miles away) for needed supplies (beer). When we got back we could really start camping. There were signs indicating no fires allowed, but stoves were OK. We fixed our dinner and talked until the sun went down. About 8:30 PM Tom said he was beat and went to his tent. The rest of us followed suit.
I read for a while and was probably asleep by 9:30. It would have been a little bit earlier, but the noise of another camper arriving and unloading his horses kept me awake for a few minutes. The night was uneventful other than the howling of coyotes about 4 AM. And it started to get a bit cool.
Saturday
Around 7 AM we were standing around a fire pit some previous camper had built, wishing we could start a fire and wondering how cool it was, anyway. OK, it wasn’t cool, it was cold. About 34. The site is surrounded by mountains so it took a while for the sun to reach over the peaks. Once that happened it soon warmed up. By 10 AM we were stripping off the extra layers as we started to break camp.
The wind had shifted enough that we were not bothered by smoke Saturday morning. We broke camp and headed over to Monitor pass to 395, then south 5 or 6 miles to a diner where we had brunch. After brunch (it was almost noon) Tom, Markus, and I headed the 25 miles or so to Gardnerville. Dimitry was going to do some more exploring.