Elherbinator Posted April 18, 2018 Report Share Posted April 18, 2018 Took a solo trip with Merlyn and Fonzie to the Mendocino Forest this past weekend. Ran into some interesting weather and obstacles, so thought I’d share the fun!We left San Jose around 6am Saturday with plans to head up across the Richmond bridge to highway 101. 101 north past Santa Rosa is a beautiful drive this time of year. We made a pit stop at Black Bear Diner for breakfast and stopped for gas in Willits. We ended up getting to Covelo (last town before the forest), in Round Valley, around 11:30. Round Valley is a really neat area surrounded by mountains on all sides. The Valley itself is beautiful and unique. It’s an Indian Reservation and evidence of the lack of a prosperous economy is evident as you drive through. There was an unusual amount of abandoned vehicles along the roads with busted windows and tires. It was a very strange theme we noticed for the area.After Covelo we headed to the M1, which would take us almost all the way to Howard Lake (our destination). It should have been an easy drive on the M1, then a left at Little Doe Campground and onto a couple mile trail to Howard Lake. A trip any stock suv should have no problem with. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had made a mess of M1. A few miles into the M1 portion of the trip we ran into a mudslide.We had driven into it and reversed a few times before this pic. It had no tire tracks in it before, so It could have been a fairly recent development. After making the progress you see in the pic, we were unable to go forward due to some logs in the mud and it got thicker like a concrete mix with lots of gravel. We would have to give it a go with more momentum and get lucky, or have to winch through. We had till Monday incase things didn’t go well, so we decided to push forward and try to make it to Howard. We tried with a little speed and didn’t get far. At that point we were totally stuck. So we got the recovery gear out and started winching.We had to change the winching configurations a few times to get us where we needed to go.Once out, we were relieved. It’s always a little stressful when stuck solo like that. I had that same winch break at the annual last year, so it’s always in that back of mind now. The Smittybuilt X20 came through though. I would recommend nobody skimp on their winch when purchasing one. It is definitely worth the money when you need to rely on it. Also, get a synthetic line. Those steel cables are garbage in comparison.Once out of the mud we headed up the M1 to Little Doe Campground without incident. We were a bit surprised to run into some snow, but besides that the road was in very good condition.The trail to Howard Lake was a fun little dirt road. Nothing challenging, but it crosses a couple creeks and a bunch large puddles to go through.Once at Howard Lake, we found a nice camp spot and unloaded the canoe and camp gear. The mudslide kept everyone out, so we ended up having a huge area of wilderness all to ourselves. It was great if you like solitude. Here are some pics of the lake and camp. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/0a7d396ba309a10c25e5af2188fcdd9a.jpg https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/f5fe87e4cfba095d4695c2713683ccec.jpg https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/d090854e8c3eb6ca5008b0d2fee180a4.jpgWe hung out at Howard Lake Saturday and decided to explore the rest of the area on Sunday. So we got in the Rover and headed farther up M1 to Hammerhorn Lake. Hammerhorn was just a handful of miles away and a drive of maybe 10-15minutes. Hammerhorn has a bunch of developed camping. It is smaller than Howard, but has a nice hiking trail around the lake with some piers you can hang out on.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/2aaef614441271171953e8502dbbc003.jpgAfter checking out Hammerhorn for a bit, we decided to continue up M1 to check out the higher elevations. Up the mountain we saw some deer (which is rare because they can be hunted here and are more skittish than most deer I see in the hills near San Jose) and rabbits.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/58e3fa08341095e93790aa902e669c62.jpgIt was lightly raining all day, but once we got to about 5000 feet we started getting snow.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/5e4c61c427bf0d14579c5d8c1b7ce8b6.jpgWe went a little higher and started to get a lot of snow around 5500 feet.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/cc3a6ee986f9bb5a1557994c4bbed7f0.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/ba5b504fe58931faba6fade1f72d016d.jpgWe had fun in the snow for a while and decided to head down before it got too bad. Once back at Howard we made a fire and hung out in the weather. It wasn’t raining anymore, it had turned into a mix of light hail and snow that melted immediately. We headed to our tent around 10 and watched a movie on the iPad. We watched a movie about a couple that got lost in the woods and attacked by a bear. It was called “backcountry†and was not a very good movie in general and a terrible movie to watch while camping. Coincidentally, right at the end of the movie we hear a bear sort of do a grunt / howl thing. It had to be close to hear over the sound of the creek flowing nearby. It was probably within 50 yards of us and we had seen bear poop all around the area.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/39e21ba2b43f0d7495058ebe62c5a272.jpg So I yelled a quick “whoa bear†and we didn’t hear him anymore. We were a little on edge after seeing the bear eat a man in the movie, so we left a led lamp on low outside the tent to maybe keep it away. We also had some bear spray on us in case the bears got too curious. Around 3am I was awoken by another loud bear noise. I gave another “whoa bear†and it seemed to go away. A couple hours later we were awoken by another bear noise. This time it was different, a little higher pitched. It was presumably a cub. The cub was making a couple hoot type howls and seemed to be slightly distraught. I yelled at the cub, but he would not stop crying. He went on for a few minutes and then it stopped. Fonzie (our dog) did nothing in reaction to any of the bear noises btw. The next morning we woke up to find a winter wonderland. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/36204aa51f79e177d5b95fbaa3914c27.jpg https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/01f1314049b141b1b3c7436e6ae8634a.jpg https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/934afc87f067eb6ed6ad5b41f3c25a82.jpgWe even found some slightly covered bear track about 30 yards from our tent. We followed the tracks and they went all around the area and then off into the woods. I think the cub got a little lost. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/93083a9b584dd6c76e6eedf6b65f286d.jpgWe hung out for a bit and reveled in the beauty of the snowy scene. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/c3c9ac7e3a1ad0d9e8ff7bef3c4a2a57.jpgWe packed up and left camp around 10:30. We decided to head to the M21 and take that to the M4 and then take that out of the mountains and to highway 5. We didn’t feel like getting muddy again if we didn’t have to. We got about an hour into our journey and ran into a lot of snow on M21. We ended up having to winch through some snow and decided to turn around. We figured go with the devil you know, and we knew the only obstacle we had to deal with by going back was the mud. We didn’t take pictures of the snow winching, by that point we just wanted to go and didn’t care to take any pics. So we headed back down the mountain. We got to mud and started to go to work. We got through easier than the first time. Having it tracked out made it go much faster.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/183313ab40ef9fac0380d44ba647c151.jpgOn our way home we had a terrible death wobble going on. Mud was caked everywhere, so I figured it could just be an imbalance in the wheels. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/b85e1c34e7751ada934606e9269223d3.jpg So I picked out some dirt and it got a little better, but was still shaky. When we got to Willits we found a self service car wash and sprayed some dirt out of the wheels and under the vehicle. We made a huge mess of that car wash. The mud had polished off all the black paint off my drive shaft and turned it into a cool polished metal finish. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180418/69ab3b3b893e4962b4eec2f845f8b919.jpgOnce most the mud was sprayed off, the wobble diminished almost entirely. It’s still there, so I might get under there and clean it better. If that doesn’t work I’ll head over to wheel works and take advantage of my lifetime alignment.So that was the trip! It was a lot of fun and super memorable. If anyone has any questions about the trip or area, PM me and I’d happy to share any knowledge I’ve gained. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lithium1330 Posted April 18, 2018 Report Share Posted April 18, 2018 nice trip report. BTW, I think I saw you on 280 heading south this morning... or was it yesterday. Anyways, I remember distinctly a Disco with a green canon on top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elherbinator Posted April 18, 2018 Author Report Share Posted April 18, 2018 nice trip report. BTW, I think I saw you on 280 heading south this morning... or was it yesterday. Anyways, I remember distinctly a Disco with a green canon on top.We last drove it on our way home Monday. We were on 280 near Saratoga around 7:30. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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