A New Kind of "Car" Camping

Imagine this: you’ve been driving all day long, and the sun is setting. You’re covered head to toe in sunscreen, sweat, and dirt. You just find out that the fire you’ve been watching burn on the horizon has shut down the highway, the very last leg of your trip. Do you set up your tent next to an irrigation ditch and wait it out, or do you push on?

We pushed on.

Let me be clear, we did not push on into the fire, rather we found an alternative route, a backwoods road that wound through grassy valleys, deep into the heart of farm country, that we hoped would spit us out closer to home. 

Owen and I were traveling home from a motorcycle camping trip in the eastern Sierras in early July. We did little planning ahead of time: I had the name and sketchy directions to a remote hot spring and we knew we wanted to see Mono Lake, but that was about it. We ran into some challenges but overall, things worked themselves out. For example, we hit temps in the 90s and a ton of traffic coming into Yosemite National Park, but that forced us to take a long break at Tenaya Lake to eat lunch and cool off. We didn’t actually know how to get to Mono Lake, but that made us to stop at a visitor’s center where we got beta on the best place to see the lake’s famous tufa formations and were told where we could dispersed camp in the nearby national forest.

Tenaya Lake, Yosemite 

Tufa formations at Mono Lake

The next morning, we went in search of Wild Willy’s hot springs. Until we laid eyes on a body of water, I was not convinced we were going to find it. We were driving down a random dirt road in BLM land, across cow gates and through open grassland. There was not a single sign for Wild Willy’s, but its mystery made me love it even more. It also meant we had the place to ourselves when we finally found it. Later that day, we cooled off at the lakes near the town of Mammoth Lakes, and it felt like an adult summer camp. The view was incredible, and there were dogs everywhere we turned. I was seriously tempted to call in sick to work on Monday and stay out there an extra day.

En route to the hot springs

We found Wild Willy's!

Horseshoe Lake

But, like the responsible adults that we are, we rolled on. That’s when all hell broke loose, and we found out the highway had closed because of a brush fire. Sunday evening traffic in the Bay Area is bad enough without a closed highway, and the roadways immediately clogged up. No one knew where to go and people were driving like lunatics. I seriously did consider napping on the side of the road, because we had been riding on the motorcycle for over eight hours, and the seat felt like slab of concrete at that point. We took a chance on the wild country road, and although we hit soul-sucking levels of traffic, our route worked. It was an extreme test of our will, endurance, and iron butts, but I know it’s all good training for our motorcycle trip to Alaska next month.

Back in May, over Memorial Day Weekend, we also went on a motorcycle camping trip. The plan was to drive six hours to see a waterfall in northern California that I’d spotted on the cover of a Backpacker magazine. I realized that there was a good chance we'd be disappointed. I’ve had the good fortune of seeing some incredible waterfalls in my life, so I am hard to please. We had all intentions of planning out the details, but we had trouble finding much information about the area: exactly where the waterfall was, and where we could camp nearby. We were also a little anxious because in California, holiday weekends usually mean everyone and their mother comes out of the woodwork to go camping and hiking. We decided to take a chance though, and told ourselves that at a minimum, it would be a good opportunity to get more practice on the bike and to test out our gear.

Things got off to a good start: we found a great place to dispersed camp in Shasta-Trinity National Forest, with Mt. Shasta looming above us. The next morning, we easily found the trailhead for the McCloud River Falls Trail, and saw not one, but three waterfalls, with the trails nearly all to ourselves. After glancing at another map, Owen realized we weren’t far from Lassen National Park, so we made the impromptu decision to head there for the night. En route, we stopped at McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park, which was swarming with people but so worth it. We also happened upon a random cave, formed from lava flow from a volcanic eruption thousands of years ago. I could not believe our luck. I assumed I'd see one waterfall on this trip, but instead got four waterfalls and a cave. 

Searching for the perfect campsite in Shasta-Trinity National Forest

Mt Shasta loomed overhead

So many waterfalls! McCloud Falls...

...Lower McCloud Falls

... and the grand finale, McArthur-Burney Falls

One thing I love about riding the motorcycle is that it’s totally immersive. We experience the sights, smells, sounds, and temperatures of the landscapes we’re traveling through, which you don't always get when you're in a car. The morning of Memorial Day we drove through Lassen National Park, where the temperature dipped down to 40-some degrees and there was still enough snow to go snowboarding and skiing. By lunchtime, it was nearly 100 degrees outside of Chico. I've never shed layers faster! We took shelter at Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, which was not a bad place to be stuck at while we cooled off. Owen has some experience riding a motorcycle in the heat (he made the mistake of riding through Death Valley in the summer a couple years ago), so he knew the trick to staying cool in our full gear. We soaked our heads, shirts, and bandannas at every rest station we passed on the ride home. It still felt like we were being spun in a dryer with the heat on full blast, but we did make it home in one piece.

Seeing geothermal features in the snow at Lassen National Park made me completely lose it- I couldn't stop taking photos

More snow at Lassen National Park. Not exactly what we expected for Memorial Day Weekend

Our motorcycle camping trip in early May to Big Sur was when I first discovered the joys of dispersed camping on the motorcycle in public land. We've done plenty of dispersed camping with the car, but there is something totally epic about riding the bike off road, directly into our campsite. We encountered water crossings, steep climbs, and dense fog, but all in all, but the trip was fairly mellow compared to some of our others. There was no fire, snow, or sweltering temperatures so you could say we got off easy.

Bixby Bridge, Big Sur

Los Padres National Forest, Big Sur

As you've probably gathered by now, we've become somewhat obsessed with motorcycle camping recently. But there are a couple other things we've been up to recently that I'm also excited about. I finally swam in the Pacific Ocean, we are on a Jurassic Park kick, and we've even managed to fit in some wedding planning. We have a couple more adventures coming up- stay tuned!

Early morning ride on Highway 1