Gold Lakes Camping trip 5/14-16

Massive Pic heavy thread here...


May 14-16 Gold Lake 4x4 Camping trip.

Headed out to Lakes basin with the Wife and Hound dog for a 4x4/camp/fish trip. We drove out through Downieville and Sierra City, taking the Sierra Buttes Trail, up and over to the Gold Lakes Trail, and down into Gold Lake 4x4 Campground.

Had tons of fun, wheeled pretty hard (for my taste, more importantly for my 6 month pregnant wife's taste )


Here's a ton of pics from the trip...

Set off from Sierra City on the Sierra Buttes Trail. Beautiful 75 degree weather and great views!

Hitting the road



Finally on the Dirt! Stoked!


Great views of the road below.


And the Trail ahead…


LOVE this book! Wifey doing the navigating… #backcountry adventures


Sketchy tight spot. Boulder had rolled into the roadway, leaving EXACTLY a Tacoma-width track… Wifey was NOT happy about this section of trail. Its hard to see in the photo, but that’s a 500 ft drop on the driver’s side… Thankfully she’s a good spotter, and we snuck by. Rubbed the sliders a tad bit on the rock, but made it through safely


Hitting the Pacific Crest Trail!


Awesome views!



I take lots of pics of my truck…


Hit some snow… More to follow on that note.


Tried to head up to the Sierra Buttes fire lookout, but ran across a huge downed tree blocking the trail. (note to self, add chainsaw to kit…) Had to turn around in a tight spot… some teeter totter action…




At the trailhead.




Hey snow! Cool, lets drive through it!


Bad idea… guess it was deeper than I thought.



Sadie on watch while I dug us out.


Finally dug out, and found a nice spot .2 miles up the trail.


Late night camp grub!


Great camp spot off the Gold Lakes trail. Views of Deer Lake below.




Packed up and hit the trail… Made it about .4 miles down Gold Lakes trail, ran into some pretty substantial snow drifts. Made it around a few good size ones, but this section was off camber down hill, and with no winch or other trucks for rescue, we chose not to fight that battle!




Heading back up Gold Lakes trail towards Gold Lake Hwy. Great views!!



Made it back around to Gold Lake Hwy, entered the Lake from the Hwy. Headed around the Lake via 4x4 camp trail. Some pretty good rough rock trail. This spot was a bit tight, luckily the snow had melted off since the last crew went through.







Couple of easy creek crossings.



Made it out to the 4x4 camp and past, to check out Little Gold Lake. Obligatory poser shot on a rock




Sadie Holding it down!


Set up camp, right by the lake. Not a soul in sight. Love it!




Wifey sighting in some big game




Grub on the Grill! Flank steak marinated in Kinder’s bbq sauce, Corn on the cob, Taters in the coals, and sweet onion.



Awoke the next morning to RAIN!!!



This is my “its freezing cold and Im ready to go home” face…


All things considered an excellent trip. Fun camping, fun Wheeling, no luck fishing, but great camp grub anyway! Thanks for checking it out!

 

Sweet man! looks like a great time!!! Glad you guys made it home safe

Did you have to use the 4x4 at all up that way?

 

Really cool....! Thanks for posting this and sharing. Pictures are great.
So jealous and very much so could use a trip like this with the wife, we love being away from it all.

 

Awesome! Nice pics too.

 

That looks like a awesome trip! Thanks for the pics.

 

Awesome trip! I can't wait to get up there after finals!

 

Great pics, enjoyed looking. Beautiful country. Congrats and well wishes for your soon to be new addition!!
Linda

 

Think they'll get that boulder off the road soon? I wanted to do the Buttes trail for my first time in about a week, but I don't know how comfortable I'd feel going around that rock.

 

Take some tools and take a swing at breaking it up. It looks like it's fairly "soft" and that a few swings with a sledge might do the trick

 

/\ true. Worst comes to worst I can probably find a shoulder to park the truck on a ways back and just hike the rest of the way in.

 

Hehe that tree looks familiar!

We were the first ones through, cut off all the limbs and stacked the rocks.





Nice trip and great pictures! Fun to see that dang tree again. Thanks for sharing.

 

Ya chances are it will still be there. It's on the section of trail that's past the "county maintained" section. Unless another off-roader moves it it'll probably stay put. I was thinking of ways to move it, but they all seemed to end up with the rock being further in my path. Maybe you could break off a piece with a sledge? I dunno...never tried it!. The bummer is that the rock is within the first .5 miles of the trail. It'd be a long walk to anywhere from there. However you can get to the Sierra Buttes trail a different way, by continuing up hwy 49 to FR93 to sardine lake, follow fr93 towards Packer Saddle and Deer Lake, and it will lead you up to the opposite end of Sierra Buttes trail.

Ya! that tree! I had been looking at the pics from your trip over on t4r, i was glad to find all the snow was gone off of the lower Gold Lakes trail. I Made it through both ways without much trouble. Thanks for the good trail prep!

 

is 4wheel drive needed up that trail?

 

A couple guys and some long solid pry bars and looks like you could roll that boulder over the edge with some work.

 

Yeah I'd say so. I mean I'm sure you could do it without, but there's some fairly challenging sections. If you're not 4x4 then you at least need sufficient ground clearance. Plus having 4lo really helps to just crawl along some of the trickier spots. You should check out the "Backcountry Adventures-NorCal edition" for hundreds of fun off road trails, the majority of which are 2x capable.

Thought about that myself, however that boulder must weigh a few tons, and the town of Sierra City is below that grade road. It'd be unlikely that it would roll all the way down, but I would sure hate to be the guy who drops a 2 ton boulder on somebody's house

 

thanks bro. I just purchased "Guide To Northern California Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails". Im stoked! cant wait for this summer!! many trails to tread!

 

It's a great book. Gonna leave you with few free weekends

 

Free is good...lol

 

looks like you guys had a great time. My brother has been up there a couple of times and stayed at the lookout tower with his 4runner he says its awesome country and fairly moderate trails. Thanks for the pics.

Brett

 

What I mean is you're gonna find lots of places to go in that book