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On Top of the World |
The first of several off road trips to test the truck and the equipment occurs.(Map this!)
The stretch of Sierras in Calaveras county is particularly beautiful. The Redwoods have a sheen a little different, a little particular, particular to this place. Past the Big Meadows there is an unsigned forest road, a poorly maintained dirt track that winds its way down valley to the shores of the Stanislaus River, down to a small campground. Here we camped next to a placid bend in the river, where the fish were biting.
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Camp by the River. Photo: Steve Dozen |
Meeting people on the internet has a bad reputation. We tend to focus on the thirteen year old falling prey to a predator, the lonely survivalist nut-job with gleaming eyes, and the fringe that engages in its dark and obscure operæ. For each one of these unsavory characters there are thousands of others getting together and forming a community around a common interest. Why should we give ourselves to fear when a world of new friendships lies within our reach?
There was Steve who was our soft spoken leader, Ray, a thickly muscled Asian man, Rusty, an off-roader with bundles of energy and Cedric, a well-heeled student from France. We had all camped together and assembled at the General Store in Bear Valley for our first trail run at Corral Hollow.
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Meeting at the store. Gas is $3.99 a gallon. |
Gone thru the map of trails. Terrain was quite mountainous.
How was the trial run? How many miles did you cover. Time taken on the trails?
It must have been bone shaking.
Did media cover your run? It would be an advertisement towards ruggedness of F.J. Cruiser. If possible, get some Toyota dealers involved. It may give little safty for both.
Aai was very worried about two of you.
We went very, very slowly. Most of the the time a human walking fast would be quicker than us.
The Corral Hollow trail took about 3 hours, Mt. Reba about two. The Slickrock trail took about three. Don’t know about the mileage, but we didn’t go very far.
If you download the .kml file on the maps page it will have a folder called trail-runs-tracks, under which you will see the exact route we took.