We tackle the High Lakes, CA!

For those of you not familiar with the High Lakes area here in Northern California, they are due east of Philbrook Lake, perched between Highways 32 and 70.
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This was my first ride with my new friend redog1, and my 3rd "big" ride ever. (I may have left the fact I just learned to ride a motorcycle in early August of this year out of the conversation until we were starting to hit the trail).. Short pause as he surveys the situation, "Well your young and that bike is light, you ready?" -You bet!

Leaving Magalia, we head towards Sterling City. 12 miles up the pavement I look up to see a faint dust cloud heading off onto a trail, I take pursuit for a few miles and come across a rather large water truck clammering down the trail in front of me. Knowing I just lost my guide I turn around to catch back up with him somewhere along the route. Not long to look and he finds me. Oh, not this trail? Inskip?, sounds good lets go.

Heading Right onto Brown's Ravine Road we meander back and forth around the hill, nice trail, note taken, will be back for sure. As we climb towards our destination, the reason we ride starts to become more clear, stress sheds, thoughts more colorful.

We slow to a stop for a quick pic, the first of our lakes. This one dries up part of the year.
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The trail gradually became more technical it seemed. Here redog1 negotiates with the first real dropoff on the route.
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Success!
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I believe this is a shot at Long Lake
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Insert random detour here:
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We had gotten through some pretty rocky and steep terrain up until this point, but about halfway through this particular patch, I realize if this was on our "to-do" list today, he would have told me. We meet back up at the bottom of this hill and sit staring at a very large wall of rock, with a tree off to the side as if to temp us, or to mock us!
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After a quick exploration on foot, we decide we missed our turn not too far back. Here's redog1 coming back up this gnarly hill.
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Photo op. for our last lake on our trip, Grassy Lake. There is so much land all around these lakes, but only one main trail.
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We start our decent down the side of this part of the mountain. This burn is from the story fire, 13 years ago. This drops about 2000 ft in just a couple of miles of trail, Maybe we will come up to the lakes from this way next time.
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At the end of a long decent there is a real nice switchback, it looks timid in the photos, but it was pretty burly.
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Here my guide says I lost 1 point for a toe tap on the way down.
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Someone had cleared this trail by cutting right through this monster laying across the path.
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A look back up the hill.
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Amazing..
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Looks like a lot of fun!

Gnarly.

Here's a link to a youtube vid from part of our trip. Link is now working with original audio swap to music. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bXmwls10nE

Good job. Looks like a fun day!

I'll keep my comments short.
"This was my first ride with my new friend redog1, and my 3rd "big" ride ever. (I may have left the fact I just learned to ride a motorcycle in early August of this year out of the conversation until we were starting to hit the trail).. Short pause as he surveys the situation, "Well your young and that bike is light, you ready?" -You bet!"

I have to admit I was a little surprised when I found out my riding partner on this day only had 2 MONTHS OF RIDING EXPERIENCE.:huh, really? I could have changed the ride right then but left it up to him as to how far he wanted to get into this. I'll also say that he did an admiral job for being a N00B. Neither of us had a tip over, there was no whining and he motored on like a trooper and should be proud of what he accomplished. This isn't a ride for a beginner.


Leaving Spring Valley Lake and getting started on some of the more difficult part of the trail.


More than enough rocks and boulders to negotiate on this ride.


Getting ready to come down the steps. That rock right where Jeramie is standing is where I almost rode off of the first time I rode this ride with Lucasleader in July. tI would not have been a good outcome. About a 2' to 2 1/2 ft drop.:eek1


I have to insert the usual disclaimer here, pics do not do justice, blah blah blah.


Sucess


This next series of 5 pics are of Jeramie coming down the hill that's in the video he posted. Seems somebody wasn't paying attention to his GPS and took a wrong turn. The pics were taken before I realized my mistake dunno. It was a workout (at least for me) to get my pig turned around at the bottom of the little ravine we went down. As I was coming up the hill my rear tire began spinning against a rock. I was trying to keep the front end down while saying to myself, "come on baby bite, come on bite, grab that rock, it did and up comes the front, stay on it, whew" I was as good as out and sweating like the pig I was riding. Had to wait for a few minutes for the clutch to cool down at the top.










I'm thinking as I go down this hill that non of it looked familiar. I wandered around a bit as I was waiting for Jeramie to come down and knew something was wrong. We discussed it and looked at the gps and I saw that I had missed the turn we were supposed to take. There was a waypoint right where it should have been telling me the direction to go IF I WOULD HAVE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO THE GPS!!!! Moral here is, why do the homework if your not going to turn it in? Sometimes I can be such a dumb shit.
Anyways... back on route we rode by Long Lake.


Anyone who read my ride report will recognize this series of pics. I took the same ones of Lucasleader, the difference is on this day it was chewed up a lot more from the rock crawlers. No slam here, it was fun and that's what this area is about. It is an OHV area. It is a LOT steeper than it looks.




and very loose where he's at..






The south entrance to the OHV area


Rock Creek


Why I ride, I love the outdoors. It is my church and my therapy. Helps me maintain my sanity in this crazy world.


I'm done, I took no more pics. I may chime as this progresses. Great job Jeramie.
Ride on.

Was a pleasure riding with ya Brien. Thanks again for not counting me out before we started and teaching this new dog some old tricks. Until next time..

Totally bad ass! Probably would have killed the Tiger. Makes me want the Berg even more.

I don't know much about your tiger other than it looks like it would be amazing on street and fire roads as well as smoother trails. Some of the terrain up by these lakes (even as low as on Brown's Ravine Rd.) were incredibly technical, requiring you to really "Muscle"the bike into the correct line to take. It also looks heavy, which is why I bring this up. I couldn't imagine trying to come down the highway 70 side of the hill on anything I couldn't really toss around a bit. Just not worth it to have that thing fall over on those rocky slopes.

Been there done that! Ask redog1......lol

. pssst. I already explained it to him.

Dang Redog, That looks nuts. I could not make it through there on my bike, well the one that has lights.
I would like to ride this area on my Trials bike. Is there acsses to the rocks by a truck.

There's a staging area at the top of the hill up High Lakes Rd. Take Skyway up past Inskip to where Skyway turns into Humbug Summit Rd. Take Humbug Summit Rd. (stay to the right) to Philbrook Lake Rd, turn right. Follow that to just before Philbrook Lake and there is a left turn onto High Lakes Rd. Take that all of the way up to the Staging area. There is a signboard up there telling about the area and showing maps of the trails. High Lakes OHV area. Lot's and Lot's of rocks for you to play on. High Lakes Rd. is a pretty smooth road. Guys haul their rock crawlwers up there and stage.

I'd hate to see you take the Dakar up there and tear it up. Too nice of bike for that.

Here's a link to my wife and I's Youtube Channel. I will be uploading more videos (unedited and without music) over the next couple days when I find a few xtra minutes here and there. I hear that the terrain around the lakes changes pretty drastically with the seasons and amount of traffic so will be interesting to check back on different spots.
http://www.youtube.com/user/camau80/videos?flow=grid&view=0
Part 1 and 2 "legs" of High Lakes route are up now.

those 3 videos covers the first half of the ride.

Nice ride report from you guys, Brien. That place looks awesome and would love to ride it sometime (I am sure I will...). I hope I see you, and ride with you again soon!

Want to plan on riding High Lakes next July? Probably won't be accessible much longer this year.