Finally got a quick trip in March 1-2
A buddy of mine (he's on here, I forget his username), Bobby, put together a little trip to Cow Mountain in Ukiah CA, March 1st through 2nd. Here's the story, pics coming after:
Thursday it was raining in Santa Rosa. I met my buddy Bobby at his house, and we hit the store for some food after that.
It rained on and off on the way to Ukiah, and the wind was terrible on the freeway! I seriously need wing window seals. Bobby's CB would transmit but not receive, so I handed him my handheld unit. The batteries lasted about 15 minutes... but it worked during that time at least.
Hit the range at North Cow, and it was sunny but very windy. Had one earplug in my bag So, Bobby shot the .22 rifle for a while. I put a few rounds through the Kimber .45, and hit the gong at 400 with the SKS (open sights, surprising with that wind!). Put 3 rounds through the Mosin but that was enough of that!
While packing up from shooting, we realized that neither of us had any firewood. Bobby says, "did you bring your saw? Or your axe?", well I didn't. And there was wood on the ground to cut too. We found some stuff, loaded it in the Suburban, and headed to South Cow for camping.
The road to South Cow was pretty slippery. In 4 high, I think I was experiencing axle wrap on the front end as the big Suburban was attemping to claw up the hill to the staging area. Once at the staging area, we found the gate closed "due to excessive wet weather". We didn't think it had rained that much... oh well. We had no place to be, so we headed back to North Cow to camp at the Mayacmas campground. Felt like the longest drive, and the washboard sections were terrible! It did rain on and off on the way up, which was nice (I thought).
The road to this campground is fairly narrow in parts, and has quite a dropoff too. I was only slightly nervous since it was pretty slick out there, but neither of us had any problem. The campground was empty (nobody else wants to camp this time of year?) so we certainly had our choice of a site. Found one that had enough room for both Bobby's 4-runner and my Suburban, and set up for the night. Attempted a fire, but the wood was soaking wet. We crawled into the backs of our vehicles around 7:00 since we ran out of light...
The morning woke us with cold. I'm guessing it was in the 20's, as the ground was crunchy, the picnic table was ice! I set my coffee mug down and it slid across the table. I was comfy except for my feet; and with the temp still going down, my feet were just getting colder. We had a quick breakfast, coffee for me and hot chocolate for Bobby, and packed up. Sounds easy, but I had a terrible sinus headache, and didn't want to move much.
Once on the way down, parts of the once muddy road were icy in the shadows of the mountain. I mostly stayed in 4-hi, but had to use low for the steep down parts. Even at that, since were trying to get warm & home quickly, we both had the BBQ-esque smell of burning brakes at the bottom of the hill.
Being the good buddy he is, Bobby invited me over Friday to hang out... however other things were on my mind. Shower for one... but the most important pressing issue was, well, you ever drink some coffee in the morning and then... you don't really want to use an icy cold outhouse, do you? So I headed home & took care of business
I think I have some bolts to tighten up after those roads. And, when flexing decently, my interior lights were coming on. Need to see what's up with that. Back door popping a little? Body flexing? Not sure. Maybe even the light wire grounding in the roof?
It was a fun quick little trip, and sure felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, with nobody else around. We've got some more exploring of the area to do coming this summer!
Clay
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