LandRonB Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 Land Rover UNO (Unannounced Night Out): Snow Camping in the Stanislaus National Forest When: Saturday, Jan 10. Where: Lake Alpine US Forest Campground - see attached map (GPS Coords Avail) Cost: Free - just your time, company and gasoline or diesel fuel for your truck (well - add food for Sat night stay and Sunday b-fast) Time: Caravan time: start 7am from North of Berkeley Area or meet along the wayFinal Meet Place @ Lake Alpine Campground: 12noon Food: BYO. Pan for Sat lunch, dinner, and Sunday breakfast. What to Bring: - 4 Seasons Tent- Cold weather sleeping bag- Cold weather clothing- Snow boots or shoes- Sled if you want to have fun- Cooking gear- More to add tonight.... Objectives: test out your snow camping equipment for Shaver Lake Snow Run. While at it, have fun in the snow, enjoy camp fire and stories. Personally want to test out my 4 season tent using a cot inside and on top my sub-zero sleeping bag. New cooking equipment and clothing. And on the way back home Sunday, I want to check out this 95 RRC near Angels Camp. Details: Lake Alpine Resort has cabins/restaurant if gets too cold or need place to grab a beer! Anyway, it's a Land Rover wknd. I just got off the phone and the US Forest Service for Stanislaus National Forest/Calaveras - they said it's the perfect wknd to drive up there. Hwy 4 is clear all the way to Lake Alpine. US Forest Lake Alpine campground is open. On winter schedule - need to bring your own water, portable toilet e.g. Petts Wag Bag, and pack out our garbage. We need to pick-up a camp fire permit @ the US Forest Service office before 2pm on Sat: 5519 Highway 4P.O. Box 500Hathaway Pines, CA 95233Phone: (209) 795-1381 If you have the time or kitchen pass, come and join me this wknd Snow Camping. Not too far from Bear Valley. About 3 1/2 hours from the East Bay Area. Trip Agenda: Setup tent, hike some, setup camp fire, dinner, talk gear/Shaver Lake Snow Trip or other topics, nite out and then pack/leave Sunday a.m. PM if interested. Need your cell (so I can program it in my SPOT device and have it handy to call) and where you want to meet. I will be traveling East of 4 passing thru Concord, Stockton and Murphy. We can have several rendezvous points along the way. Planning to leave the Bay Area after breakfast or before 7pm and want to be at the campsite by noon. Anyone interested? Come on! Might even get to hit designated vehicle trail covered with snow: http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/stanislaus/calaveras/osv.shtml Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandRonB Posted January 20, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2009 That was a fun trip. We ended moving this trip to 01/17/09. Thanks to the company (Gary, and Dave & Family) who made it fun and enjoyable. Objective was to camp in the snow, and we did. Snow wheeling took place to get to our destination and not the focus on this trip. And this thread should be called "last minute camping trip" vs UNO. Hard to do unannounced night outs with our busy lives, kids, work... Req some prep and heads up. Besides, we're not in a para-military operation. I really wanted to see if folks would be up and ready to go on a trip with only a few days heads up. The original plan for this wknd was to camp @ Lake Alpine campground passed Bear Valley Ski Resort. In preparation, I called the Forest Service and the person I spoke to advised me that road is clear up to Lake Alpine and camping is avail for the winter. We left Saturday morning and when we got to the the Forest Service Station (FS) in Hathaway Pines to pick up our camp fire permit, we got more details re: road/access to camp that changed our original plan (I should have asked how far was the road closure to camp). Per FS, the road is clear up to Lake Alpine, but it we would have to park our trucks @ a Snow Park lot, and hike 1 mile to the actual campground. They would not allow our vehicles thru due to snow being deep. Important detail we needed to know in the first place but I forgot to asked during pre-planning. With kids and tons of gears, not a good option to hike and leave our vehicles parked a mile away. The other option suggested was park at the Snow Park just before Bear Valley and find a suitable place to camp near the parking lot. We realized that camping near a parking lot would be insanely noisy with people coming in/out, snow mobiles, traffic... Not a good option either. Dave suggested to find a Forest Road, drive as far as we can get with the ability to turn around and get back, and just camp there! Better idea and that was our new plan. Camp Location We ended at Forest Road 6N59. Here's the broadcast from my SPOT satellite messenger. Red Balloon = our location marked by the SPOT. SPOT sent our location via email or text message, and using Google Maps, one can open the message and map link to our location in Terrain view (pic 1); we were up in the 5400-5500 ft elev. And in pic 1, Blue X = where we actually camped. The SPOT was off by 100 yards from our actually location (GPS tolerance); here's a picture (pic 2) of the bend a few yards from where we actually camped (you can see the bend in the map). Here's the Satellite view mode (pic 3) of our location. Actual Weather Saturday/Sunday Sunny Saturday and Sunday during the day; highs probably in the 60s, dipped down to 30s perhaps a lil lower 25 at night (I had to put on another later passed midnight). Road and Forest Road Conditions Hwy 4 was clear; the FS road we ended up driving thru was covered in snow; snow packed and passable (see pic 4: Gary's D90) on designated routes except when I took the wrong line and ended up in a soft/deep snow area. Good thing Nate's Utility Tray has a connection for recovery point. A quick pull from Gary and I was back on the road. LR3 and D90 did well on the snow. More... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandRonB Posted January 20, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2009 Tent Setup It took 10 minutes to setup my tent (finding a good spot and flatting/packing the surface of course took longer). Likewise for Dave's tent. After placing the tent foot print/flooring in the flatten spot, Gary helped me setup my tent (pic 1) and put the rain fly over. I am using one of the REI 4 seasons tent w/the rain fly suspended from the tent to help keep the morning dew off the tent (pic 2). Took a lot of energy to flatten the surface of the snow of the tent setup - I can see where a roof top tent can be a plus! Pushing the tent stakes in the snow and burying them held the tent in its place securely (pic 3). Actually, should not have buried them too deep next time as the stakes were harder to find/remove next day camp break down. About 1/2 hr before the family hit the sack, I turned-on the portable Coleman propane heater and turn it off when we were ready to go to bed. Worked well - very welcoming to come in a warm tent before dozing off. Kids slept well. Just have to be careful with the hot heating element not to burn any tent or sleeping bag materials. As soon as I turned it off, I set it outside away from the kids. Here are pictures of our trucks after setting up our tents (pic 4-6):L my 04 DII, Dave's LR3, and Gary D90. Camp Fire and Dinner Dave and Gary did a great job collecting firewood. I brought two box for starters. With the amount of forest wood they gathered, didn't need to bring any CA store purchased wood next time. Brought them just in case we couldn't find any dry/good fire wood. Used a blow torch to get the fire started quickly (see pic 7). (Pic 8) Hats off to Dave and Jette (pronounced Yet-ta) for being great host - cooked up the New York steaks very tasty and juicy. The soup they made (perfect for the cold weather) had a kick to it (secret hot Vietnamese sauce ingredients added). Kept the fire going all night till bed time (we hit the sack before 10pm). While dinner was underway, the kids were busy digging in the snow, playing and just having a blast. Kids and shovels = hours of entertainment (pic 9 & 10). Plus the Corona/beer that's been burried in snow and chilling were ready to be served. Refreshing after expanding a lot of energy flatting/packing the surface of the snow for tent setup (otherwise you'd sink 2-3 feet deep), and getting the gears out of the trucks. Our host served steak dinner and sourdough bread over camp fire complimented with drinks, Rover talk and future 4x4 wheeling trips and general chit chats under the stars. More... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandRonB Posted January 20, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2009 Entertainment It's all about our kids tonight. No - I didn't do my robot dance over Styx tunes' "Mr Roboto". The night kicked up a notch when my 4 year old took out the Skyy Vodka and Captain Morgan Rum j/k (early bartending job training - pic 1). Noticed his Land Rover beanie hat. I brought the Ipod and Altec Lansing Ipod music system for entertainment (since we don't have Dan to play the guitar). And when the song "Party Like A Rockstar" came on. Max and Jacob whipped out their shovels and did their best air guitar act (see pic 2) - very funny to watch and entertaining to say the least. Note: still looking to do/edit a video of Land Rovers on the trail (perhaps on the Rubicon) with this music in the background. Party Like a Rockstar like we all are in our Land Rovers! It was fun hanging out with Gary, and Dave & Family's during dinner; good food, drinks and company! More... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandRonB Posted January 20, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2009 Experimenting with my oldie but goodie Canon EOS 650 Most of the photos were taken from my small/pocket size digital camera. Here are a few black and whites taken from my new EOS 650 (garage sale found): Gary's D90, our trucks lined up and tents setup, camp fire and my DII on this link http://targetphoto.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=7tyxsxyo.727dzf3k&x=0&y=xuo46d&localeid=en_US&cm_mmc=site_email-_-site_share-_-core-_-view_photos_button Next day was another sunny and warm day. After b-fast, we broke camp and was ready to leave a lil pass 11am. We stopped by to dump our trash at Angels Camp and also grab something quick to eat for our drive back home (another 2 1/2 hrs). Next Year Maybe next year, I like to use this trip as a NCLR club snow camping trip in 2010. It will be 3 1/2 hours away from most Bay Area folks, a lil closer if you live in Sacramento, or Modesto area. Around the Jan and February time frame for a day of mock snow recovery techniques/training, and then 1 night camping in the snow in one of the Forest Roads like 6N59. Group of 3-5 Land Rovers I am thinking. Bring your roof top tent if you have one - that would be the way to go, or 4 seasons tent! See you all on the next trip! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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