Donna hit the Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail Sunday for the fourth day in a row. She rode 24 miles, bringing her four-day total to 110 miles. She’ll continue to train and up her mileage. I don’t expect her to have any problems when she rides the RAGBRAI event across Iowa in July. The mileage on her bike earned her a Milk Stout from Bike Dog Brewing!

Bike Dog Milk Stout

We pulled out of Cal Expo RV Park just before 10am and hit the road Monday. It was an easy drive across the I-80 Business Loop to I-5 north. As we put Sacramento in our rear view mirrors, the traffic thinned out. The interstate narrows down to two lanes north of Woodland. It wasn’t an issue until we hit construction which restricted it to one lane. There were plenty of warning signs to merge left as the right lane was closed. However, drivers refused to move over and merge smoothly. Instead they stayed in the right lane as long as possible trying eke out an advantage which resulted in everyone coming to a stop when their lane closed and forced them left.

I fueled up at the Pilot/Flying J in Orland and then we traveled another 11 miles and stopped at the Olive Pit in Corning. We always make this stop when we pass through this area. The Olive Pit has every kind of olive you can imagine. I picked up a few jars of bleu cheese stuffed olives – my favorite martini garnish.

Back on I-5 north we could see Mount Shasta dead ahead. Also, to the northeast we could see the snow covered peak of Mount Lassen. When we traveled through here last year we didn’t see much snow on Lassen and lots of bare areas on Shasta. This year these mountains still have plenty of snow.

Shasta Lake also looked much different than the past few years. Instead of low lake levels and docks sitting on dry land, the lake was nearly at full capacity. Donna read that the lake was at 96% of its high level.

It was quite warm outside – we fired up the generator and had the front roof air conditioner running. We crossed the Black Butte Summit at 3,912 feet above sea level and continued down to Weed, California. We exited on CA97 at Weed and drove through town then went four miles up CA97. We turned off at Big Springs Road then took Jackson Ranch Road and went to the public access area of Lake Shastina, our destination for the day. We arrived around 3pm.

The public access area is BLM land and offers up to 14 nights of free dry camping. We set up right next to the lake.

Our boondocking spot at Lake Shastina

Windshield view of the lake

The lake level is very high – a few trees have their trunks under water. Donna hiked over to the boat launch north of our site before dinner. She made a salad for herself with leftover green chile turkey burger from the night before. I heated up leftover chicken and apple sausage with sauteed onions and apples and rosemary and enjoyed an IPA from Modern Times in San Diego with it. This IPA was called Orderville and had a pale color. It was light and refreshing in spite of its 7.2% ABV. They describe it as an aggressive, fragrant IPA that blends the fruit-forward character of Mosaic hops with the resinous stickiness of a variety of dank hops. I don’t know what dank hops are, but it was a very good IPA.

Modern Times Orderville

The lake was calm and glassy before sunset.

Glassy lake southwest of our site

Just before I stepped out to take a sunset shot, a fishing boat sped by and riled the surface. I took a shot of a fiery sunset. A few moments later, as the sun dropped behind the mountains, the clouds and lake took on a pink hue.

Sunset

Change of color a few moments later

This morning Donna went for a hike at 7am. She hiked up the mountain to the north of our site. There’s a trail that zig-zags through a few switchbacks up the mountain. She took a few photos on her hike.

View of Mount Shasta in the background

Looking down at Lake Shastina from the trail

Looking south from the trail – our site is at the base of the mountain

This is truly a beautiful spot that we may very well return to someday and stay for a longer visit. Today we’ll push on northward. Our destination for the day is the SKP park in Sutherlin, Oregon. We’ll probably stay one night there and continue north to Vancouver, Washington.