Sunday–Tuesday, 14–16 July 2024
Marc writes:
The end of May I looked though my schedule to find space for a camout roughly midway between Hendy Woods in June and Kings Canyon in September. I told the mailing list I was going to camp for two night at the Silver Creek campground off of highway 4 about 10 miles from Markleeville. Tom said he’d join me – maybe. Jag was a maybe, too.
Saturday night before the ride I got an email from Jag saying he was going to miss both Sunday breakfast and the Campout. Also on Saturday I apparenly ate something that didn’t agree with me. I did not sleep well Saturday night, waking several times from stomach pain.
Sunday
When the alarm went off Sunday morning I was OKish. I packed the food items on the bike and headed to Concord for breakfast with Chris, Paul, Tom, and Rich. Tom’s bike was packed to camp. Guess I’m not camping alone.
After breakfast Paul left for his place in Tahoe. He said he’d drop by the campsite Monday morning to join us for a ride as the site is about 30 miles away from his Tahoe house. Chris and Rich were going to ride east bay back roads. I had planned on getting on 4, but was (easily) talked into following Chris to Marsh Road. Marsh road joins with highway four, but bypasses the freeway miles.
Tom and I continued on 4 with a rest stop in Farmington. That’s about when breakfast (guess) fired up whatever was ailing me Saturday night. The ride stopped being enjoyable.
We also stopped in Murphy’s for gas and one more stretch break at Lake Alpine.
Lake Alping break
Lake Alpine
We arrived at the campsite and set up camp. Temperature was moderate. I was slow and felt like crap. How bad? I skipped both beer and dinner. I did enjoy the fire Tom made from downed trees/branches surrounding the campsites. We only used my saw once to make one of the larger logs fit the fire ring, although those particular pieces didn’t get used until Monday night. I was in my tent by 8:30.
Tom’s pics
Tom sent these pics from Sunday with the comment that “one of us did eat”. I think the picture of me well captures how I was feeling.
SMBC flag
Tom’s dinner
Marc and fire
Monday
I slept well and felt OK when I woke up. I made some coffee. A short while later both Tom and I started making breakfast. I was going to take it easy and have a single egg. Paul arrived just as Top finished making batch one of a Chorizo scramble. Perfect timing. Paul started in on the first scramble as Tom was making the second.
After breakfast and clean up I started feeling the egg I ate. I told Paul and Tom to enjoy their ride – I was going to stay in camp.
Bike and Tent
Tent and Bike
Lots of cut trees
The creek
More creek
I wandered around a bit with camera, slowly. Then I sat in my chair and let my mind wander. For whatever reason I started feeling a bit better and made a second cup of coffee around noon. While enjoying the coffee and thinking what I might want to eat for lunch it started to rain. Hard. With thunder. Lots of thunder. I moved to my tent. Never did get lunch.
Note to self: when running to tent…
- don’t forget jacket hanging over clothes line. (I remembered this about 20 minutes later and retrieved the jacket.)
- don’t forget riding gear draped over saddle of bike.
- don’t leave gloves where they will fill up with rain water.
Raindrop races
And one more note… make sure you have plenty of reading material. I brought my iPad and had about 2 1/2 hours of reading enjoyment downloaded. That is not enough for a 5 hour stretch of tent time. I found myself staring at the rain drops on the tent rain fly, making bets as to which will win the race to the bottom.
Tom and Paul got back to camp about 4:20 PM. The rain for them hadn’t started until they hit Monitor Pass, about 20 miles from the camp site. Paul headed to his Tahoe home; Tom headed to his tent. As long as I was out of the tent to say goodbye to Paul I moved my wet riding gear to an unused vestibule of my tent to give it a chance to dry. Other than the gloves I was lucky. The gear was drapped such that the waterproof side was toward the rain. Gear interier was mostly dry.
The rain stopped at ten minutes before six. I was hungry. I made myself dinner and ate standing up. Everything flat was very wet. My camp chair had an inch of water in the seat. After cleaning up it was time to attempt a camp fire from the very wet wood piled next to the fire pit. It took three of the fire starters that Tom brought to get the job done. Yeah, we had to stand or stoop to enjoy the fire. We did. It was worth it.
I think I made it to 9:30 before going back to the tent for the night.
Tuesday
When I woke up Tuesday it was under blue sky and warm-ish temperatures. Apparently the skies had opened up while I was sleeping as the campsite and everything in it was wet. Very wet. So it goes. We packed the wet stuff wet (I’m surprised the tent fit into its bag) knowing we’d have work to do once home unpacking, cleaning, drying, and re-packing the gear.
We left the site about 8:30, heading for the restaurant at Alpine Lake Lodge, about 45 minutes away. We got there to find out the restaurant doesn’t open until 11AM. Apparently the 8 AM time I saw on their web site is when the store opens. Back on the bike and off to Arnold.
We had just about gived up finding a place in Arnold and going on to Murphy’s when I saw a sign that said breakfast. Good enough. We were hungry and just about any breakfast would do. I was feeling pretty good so ordered big. Stomach must have shrunk in two days. I finished maybe half.
Leaving Arnold we kept on 4 with one final stop for gas in Farmington, outside of Stocton. After gassing up we stayed on 4 instead of jumping on I5. Tom led the way to Vasco Road, Livermore, and finally freeway the rest of the way home. Weather was very much in our favor with central valley temps in the 80s, not 90s. I was home before 2PM.
Good trip in spite of the rain, stomach ailments, and the gear hanging from various placed in my garage, waiting for it to dry before I can put it away.