After having access to the internet, I researched more closely into the expected
weather of our chosen forest campsite.
Previously, I’d looked up the weather for Ducor, CA, since that had been
listed on a campground review as being the closest city. I was pleased with the upcoming sunny and
warm weather. However, when I realized
that the forecast for the elevation of 6000 feet was 5-10 degrees better than
the forecast for Kernville, 2000 feet…I got concerned. So I googled the elevation of Ducor: 200
feet. Shit. It seems that technically it is kind of
close to our campground. Just much
lower down. After some digging, I
finally was able to get an accurate forecast.
It was for lower to mid 50s in the day and 20s in the night. Brrr.
Now, I might have still gone for it; but I’ve been anxious about getting
caught up the mountain in a freak snow storm.
So we agreed to forego that lovely spot in favor of our other
boondocking find, which is both warmer and closer to town. Funnily enough…when we were driving to our
“Clearing Campground”, there was a sign up saying the road was closed at
Johnsonville. This meant that we could
NOT have gone to the forest campground after all. I guess the light snow we’d enjoyed the past
few days had dumped significant inches of snow up the mountain.
We did some café internet until noonish, and then we headed
back to ripoff RV to load up and pull out.
I was starting to get nervous. I
was scared we wouldn’t clear the powerlines.
And Missy was nervous too; her concern was making the turnaround. Funny, because neither of us was worried
about the other’s concern. As it
turned out…we were both foolish to have not considered the true potential for
boondoggle. (I’d love to end on a
dramatic cliffhanger here….)
So the forest service road up the mountain went pretty much
the straight opposite of the way we were driving. Since the highway is next to the river, I’ll
go ahead and use upstream and downstream to describe. There was a large pullout on the side of
the highway at the start of the Forest Service Road. Heading upstream, I pulled over into that spot and Missy hopped
out. She was going to hike up to the campsite
to make sure it was unoccupied and that the route was still clear. I continued on the highway upstream for
about 5 miles to a big parking lot where I could turnaround and head back
downstream. I was extremely nervous
about heading to the campsite. I
figured our chances for getting stuck or for disaster were 30%. And
the exit strategy was almost non-existent.
We’d either have to back up blind downhill onto a main highway…or leave
the rig permanently on the dirt road. Missy
got back in the car, reported all was clear, and we headed up the steep
mountainside road. (Note: we were in
4WD).
When we previously scouted this drive (twice), we both
carefully considered the turnaround and the steep curbside/drop down driveway
into the campsite. We had neglected to
consider the one heinous ‘S’ turn in the road, nor the approach to the
turnaround. Sigh. The turnaround is shaped like an AIDS
ribbon. You drive up one leg, go into a
loop-di-loop and head up the mountain on the other leg. This arrangement is how to handle the
switchback. As it turns out, the
transition from the narrow forest service road into the loop was un-makeable. I pulled forward and soon was brushing up
against the rock sides with the passenger side wheels of the RV. We needed to pull straight for about 20 feet
before turning the wheel sharply to the right to get into the loop. But, the opposing bank was only 15 feet
away. We decided to try anyway. Inch by agonizing inch, we shifted forward
and back and forward to try to gain clearance from the rocks. Missy left her spot in front of the truck
to go watch for clearance at the RV wheel.
I snuck forward as far as we could and then turned the wheel. I didn’t think we’d made enough space, but
there was nothing left to try. So I
gunned it….spun the wheels in soft sand(or so I thought)….gunned it harder….and
we made it! Juuuuuuust enough clearance
to get into the loop! As I turned to
the right, I was shocked when I felt the truck plummeting a few feet to the
ground. Oops! It turns out there was a large boulder in
the front of the truck. I couldn’t see
it from the truck. Missy had assumed I
could see it, and would know to avoid it.
Nope. I ended up driving right
over that sucker. If I’d known it was
there, we never would have made it into the loop because I would certainly have
nixed driving over it. Fool-hardy and
lucky for once! I guess the universe
is paying us back for all the tire troubles we’ve had.
The outer edge of the loop is comprised of mostly deep soft
sand. Of course, the outer edge is
where we needed to be to clear the rv around.
Luckily, 4WD worked great. And
as I’d told Missy, backing up as needed worked perfectly. That was part of the RV driving lesson I
remembered from Jeremiah: don’t be afraid to back up to gain clearance in
turns. You’d be surprised how much more
room you’ll gain then you think is possible.
When we headed up the
mountainside, we both let out big sighs of relief. We’d gotten sooooo lucky! We did have an issue with the bad S
turn. I slowed down to a snail’s pace
and had Missy get out and watch. She
said that a piece of paper wouldn’t even fit between our tire and the
rock. Phew!
We got to the “driveway” of our new home and it was touch
and go getting in. There was a big
curb leading into quite a drop-off. We
did not make it without some major scraping.
But no permanent damage done.
Missy thinks the RV was almost going to tip over, but as the driver, I
never felt that things were unsafe.
Once on the driveway, Missy climbed up onto the roof of the RV while I
drove under the powerline. Luckily, we
cleared it just fine! We parked the
rig and then both needed some time to recover from this adrenaline-filled adventure.
Tuesday:
Lazy/recovery day today. The
only thing we accomplished other than relaxing was cleaning all the windows to
maximize on the amazing views.
No comments:
Post a Comment