After spending about two weeks in the Caribbean, I flew from Sint Maarten to Reno, Nevada to meet my friends who live there. I flew with American Airlines, with stops in Charlotte and Dallas, two of their major connecting hubs. Luckily, none of the three flights it took to get to Reno were delayed and I got into town in the late evening.
The first few days went by quickly, reconnecting with my friends Jan and Tom at their home in Reno. Among other things, we took a short trip out into the desert to Lahontan Reservoir, and Tom and I went on a Jeep ride on some of the countless trails near his home.
Soon thereafter though, I met up with my friends Greg and Shari who live on the California side of the Sierra, about two hours of driving from Reno. Greg and I had been planning a motorcycle ride of a few days for the next time I visited. In contrast to my last visit, when it was too early in the season to go into higher territories, this time it was possible to take on the Northern California Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR). The NorCal BDR is a mostly off-road, 940-mile route leading from Mammoth Lakes to Alturas at the Oregon border in the very north of California. Check out this link for more information on the BDR, including a map. Since Greg lives not far from where the route intersects with Highway 50, we chose this as our starting point instead of starting at its southern terminus. From there, the route consists of six recommended day stages, with the final one ending on the Oregon border. With long days in the saddle, we managed to complete the route (and riding back to Greg’s on pavement) in four days.
The first day, we did not get as far as we wanted, since we ran into some (smaller) problems along the way. We helped a fellow rider get back on the road after he dropped his Ducati Desert X and it was leaking coolant. Plus, I somehow managed to lose my phone from the mount on the handlebars and Greg and I spent probably more than an hour looking for it. Very luckily for me, Greg found it! We called it a night in Truckee where we stayed at “The Inn at Truckee” motel.
The next day, we continued northwest on the BDR, passing through the lovely little town of Downieville. The highlight of the day was for sure the optional, short dead-end road leading up to Sierra Buttes Fire Lookout, not far from Downieville. The 2619 m (8591 ft) high fire lookout is no longer in use, however the view from up there is very spectacular and definitely worth a visit. A bit of a rough road, I was able to ride Greg’s KTM 990 Adventure up there, however I would have refrained from it if it were any harder. I probably spent too much time taking in the view at the lookout as we got to Quincy, our destination for the day, only in the dark around 9 p.m.. Luckily, the local motel still had a room available for us. However, the only place to get something to eat at that time was the local bar, which was pretty entertaining though.
The landscape got flatter and the area more wide-open as we continued north. On our penultimate day, we reached Alturas, which is on US 395, about 70 kilometers from the border to Oregon. That meant that we had only a short bit left on the BDR the next day before we reached its end, which lies also on 395, in the border town New Pine Creek (which consists of a dozen buildings or so…). Finally, we used the rest of the day to get back to Greg and Shari’s, riding on paved roads through Chester, Quincy, Sierraville and Truckee.
After we returned from the NorCal BDR, I stayed at Greg and Shari’s for a few more days. We took out Greg’s dirt bikes to ride a trail for a day, plus we did another nice day ride (on paved roads) through the Sierra, where we rode across Ebbets pass, Monitor pass and Sonora pass.
When I got back to Jan and Tom’s in Reno, they were hosting their guests Lyn & Robert from New Zealand. They’ve traveled to the US many times in their lives. Jan knows them and their family from her work as a teacher, I only briefly met them before they moved on to visit their recently born great-grandson somewhere in the east of the country!
All in all, it has been a great visit again, I got to discover new places and made memories together with some of my best friends!
Heard the stories and saw some pictures while you were here but we loved your blog that we can revisit. Always fun to have you! Until next time.
Thanks for looking at it Jan! Indeed it was a cool ride on the NorCal BDR and the visit at yours was marvelous!