The Breakfast Club: 2017 Northern California River Ride

Friday–Monday, 23–26 Jun 2017

Tom writes (regular text) and Markus comments (italic text)

Friday we met at Marvin’s for breakfast and then headed for Weaverville. Carl joined Markus and I and continued with us after breakfast to Hopland where he will have to tell you where he went after that. Markus and I continued north on Hwy 101 with the requisite stop in Laytonville for gas. As we passed the junction of Hwy 1 and 101 at Leggett it occurred to me that I might like to stop at the Peg House to see if an old work acquaintance who owns the place was in residency. It turns out that she was and we had a nice visit. It had been 34 years. She even bought the ice tea for Markus and me. We will have to have lunch there in the future. Today, lunch would be at the Eel River Brewery in Fortuna. After lunch we headed for Hwy 36 and warm weather. After a change of apparel at Bridgeville we started to feel the heat. I found a shady corner before the junction of Hwy 36 and 3 to take a quick break. It would be 105 degrees in Hayfork and we kept rolling for Weaverville.

Hwy 101 wasn’t as bad as anticipated. The part until Hopland was the worst. After that, 101 was pretty scenic and temperatures weren’t too bad. Only two relatively short stops due to one lane sections and one stop was comfortably in the shade. At the other stop we had some bikers from Oregon directly ahead of us. One guy came over, introduced himself and made a bit of conversation.

We were informed that a motorcycle group had booked the entire motel. We knew it wasn’t us, but wondered who it would be. Turns out the group is called SCAM. Sonoma County Avid Motorcyclists. They were a fairly diverse group of about 20 riders. A few Multistrada’s were joined by a scrambler and a Super Tenere among other more street oriented bikes. They had taken a few different routes to get there but trickled in most of the evening. They invited us to join them for a catered BBQ the next evening. We gave it a lot of thought, but took too long with the ride to get back in time to join them for food. We did spend a couple of hours with the group enjoying a few beers and stories, they seemed like good people. They have a facebook page and it appears is a pretty big group though not updated much.

Marvin’s Restaurant to 49er Gold Country Inn map

On Saturday, despite the expected high temps, we set out on a nice “Day Ride”…

This is one of my favorite loop rides. We head up Hwy 3 north out of Weaverville and stop at Trinity Lake. In years past, the side arms of the lake have all been dry. This year, the water is near the old high water line. Very nice indeed. We had a tip to visit one of my co-worker’s cousin’s little shop in Callahan. We always like to stop in Callahan, now there was a reason, or was there? We were too early to enjoy the bar and the young’uns that owns the place wasn’t there. We had a nice conversation with the lady who was working there though and then proceeded on a little adventure. Yes, bootable adventure… Markus decided to take some pictures of the scenery and an old Ford parked nearby. There was even an old Avanti in decent shape sitting right in front of the post office. He took many pictures. I hope some good ones. He also dropped the key to the Africa Twin somewhere between the motorcycle, everywhere he had walked while in Callahan, and the motorcycle…

Hmm. We’ve had many keys accidentally left on bikes over the years. Nothing ever happened - at least that I know of. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned here?

After half an hour of looking, Chris yelled out that he had found the key and my longest visit ever to Callahan was over. Poor Markus, he was contemplating the need to call his wife and have her drive 285 miles (each way) to bring him the spare key. He could breathe a sigh of relief as he has already had the boot.

We even contemplated figuring out how to hotwire the Africa Twin. The sad part is that the key was right at the first spot where I had looked. We had checked and rechecked that spot many times. Eagle eyed Chris saw what I couldn’t.

We then continued on to Fort Jones and the Scott River Road. A quick stop along this little gem of a one lane road is always nice. The questions always come up about this place once we drive past it. It looks like a very high end fishing lodge, but check out their website and you’ll see it is something else… http://www.scottriverlodge.com/

Lunch in Happy Camp at the Frontier is surprisingly good. The ice tea really hit the spot. The Klamath River highway is one long stretch of sweeper after sweeper for the next 90 miles. It really is one of my favorite stretches of road. We stop in Willow Creek for Ice Cream before the trip back to Weaverville.

49er Gold Country Inn to Raging Creek Pub Eatery map

After ice cream at the Raging Creek, we headed back to Weaverville…

Not sure if it is the anticipation, the high temps or just the truth: ice cream there tasted heavenly!

It had been 110+ along the Klamath River and while it was a few degrees cooler on the Trinity, we decided to take a walk into the river and cool down a little. The river access at Big Flat isn’t the best spot, but it does have good parking where we could keep an eye on the bikes.

Raging Creek Pub Eatery to 49er Gold Country Inn map

On Sunday, we went for a hike.

Murderous hike :)
Since it was just Tom and me we decided to go on this very scenic and fairly easy hike. It would have been easy, hadn’t the temps been in the triple digits. Luckily most of the hike was in the shade. Still after that we decided to hang out in Weaverville until the temperature cooled down in the evening.

49er Gold Country Inn to Brandy Creek Beach map

Davis Gulch Trail info (pdf).

Return to Motel reverse of directions above.

In the evening, we went for another ride…

Tom forgot to fill up in Weaverville and had to get gas at a very sketchy gas station in Douglas City (see picture). We went on a short loop along Lewiston Lake. Lots of sights to take in, so we rode at a very leisurely pace.

We stopped a few times along Lewiston Lake to take pictures that didn’t turn out too well. Then when we thought we could get a good one, the battery crapped. We continued on up past the Trinity Dam and along the water admiring how nice the lake looked full of water. There were a couple of boats at the launching ramp as we took a few pics with our phones.

Evening Ride map

We left early on Monday, heading for home…

The ride home map