Pearch Creek

Highway 96 along the Klamath River is literally why we have Dory. Twenty or so years ago, Richard and I bike toured through this area. I learned then that I am not the biker that Richard is. I also learned that I really don’t care for campground showers. But I did love the traveling. Life sort of ceased for us for about ten years, but then our son went on an adventure through Northern California and Oregon. He carried a satellite tracker and I remember following his progress wistfully as his little blip made its way through the Klamath and Six Rivers National Forest. His trip rekindled in me feelings of wanderlust, but I had to find a way to do it that was compatible with reality. Teardrop web searches led to small trailer searches, led to the Alto 1723, still the only solution that does 100% of everything we need. It is strange that it took eleven years of Dorying before we tried a grand do over on Highway 96.

Leaving the Eureka/Arcata coast, we knew we would need to top everything up. Richard filled the fresh water tank in Sue Meg using a jerry can. We got gas for the car and for the generator, and enough food to last a week before heading over the pass on Highway 299. There are two big climbs and descents, which I pedaled myself over once upon a time, thank you very much. Doing this in a car brings fewer bragging rights, but also less crying, so it’s an overall win.

There is a lot of road work happening at the moment. On the upside, almost all of the road surface is in excellent, freshly painted, condition. On the downside, we spent a good amount of time waiting for pilot cars to take us past ongoing construction. The views are every bit as thrilling as I remember, and there is very little traffic.

As for services, there is the town of Willow Creek, at the bottom of the pass. We didn’t explore that much, but it has some restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations, a hospital, and even an Ace Hardware. This whole region is known as Bigfoot country, so many of the businesses are going to be named accordingly. In fact, this part of 96 is called the “Bigfoot Scenic Highway.” So we will for sure be looking for him.

Hoopa is the next town, right in the middle of reservation land. This is smaller, but has a grocery store, museum, a couple of restaurants, and a gas station with a mini mart. Cell service went in and out along the road. We rolled on through though, looking forward to seeing how much Orleans had to offer. 

We found the answer to the question to be: not a lot. There is one functional, but not modern gas station. No credit card pay at the pump 24/7 here. There is one store, and there is a conservation center with free WiFi. No cell service anywhere in town.

We had a reservation in the Forest Service campground of Pearch Creek. Originally our plan was to stay closer to our bike ride at Oak Bottom, but they closed due to downed power lines. This was just a couple of miles away, so no biggie. 

When we pulled in to the campground, there was almost no one else there. Almost. Just behind our site, I could see someone was lying on the ground, surrounded by plastic bags and various pieces of clothes and things strewn about. He was talking to someone, which was confusing since there was no cell service. We also noticed he had something plugged in to a power pole located a few yards behind our site. Benefit of the doubt said he had a power booster or satellite system, but other signs indicated he was simply talking to someone who wasn’t there. We unhitched and got set up as per usual, but I had in the back of my mind that we might be leaving, depending on how our friend seemed. I saw him start to pick up his things and put them in bags. By the time we were set up, he was carrying all the bags and walking out of the site. He gave a friendly, “Hi, how are you?” and followed with “Did you have any trouble backing in?” Casual, not hostile in any way. We greeted him back. And with the expected social interaction completed, he closed with, “Bye.” He walked over to another site and carried on the conversation with his invisible companions. Sometimes he gestured wildly, or clapped, or waved his arms. I decided he seemed harmless, just in his own world.

Richard rode into “town” to get all the info while I watched our friend. I was alert, but not afraid. I did activate “bear protocol,” just in case, with all the windows fully closed and door locked. When Richard returned, he said he spoke at length with one of the locals, and apparently there are lots of these guys around these parts, harmless she says. Our friend stayed in his area the entire time we were there. He seemed to have food and a sleeping bag of some kind. It wasn’t too cold at night or I would have been worried about him. It must be a hard life, just finding food and shelter. Maybe people mess with him, maybe people are kind. It’s a whole lot of small close knit communities out there, so I imagine people kind of take care of each other. That’s what I hope anyway.

After a very nice dinner of seared pork with grape agrodulce, we drove out to a small store in Somes Bar called Salmon River Outfitter. And really, the “town” of Somes Bar is just that store. It is a great store though! We need to remember to time our visits in the future to line up with doughnut days. We just missed this one, which happens every Wednesday morning. The owner bakes a whole bunch of delights and they sell out immediately. They had everything we could have needed and they have free wifi. We got our fill of outside world news and went to look at Oak Bottom campground, just to see what that would have been like. There was nothing particularly special about that place vs Pearch Creek, except that it is right on Salmon River Road, which was our planned ride for the next day. To do again, I’d be fine staying in either place. Forest Service campgrounds are only $10 a night, usually with no services and no dump. Some are reservable and some are first come first serve. Both Pearch Creek and Oak Bottom were reservable.

The next morning, we drove into Orleans to gas up before our bike ride. In areas with no service, we quickly find out where all the wifi is. The Mid Klamath Watershed Council building has fast wifi, but you have to go inside to get the password and they close at 6. Once you have the password, it works 24/7. We chatted with a guy who works there who has done all the bike rides around. He gave us some good intel for the next couple of days.

We parked the car at the first turnout on Salmon River Road and started from there. This is a glorious bike ride to Forks of Salmon and back. Twenty years ago, we considered taking this route from Etna and wow. I would have been very challenged by the lack of any services whatsoever for that whole 57 mile stretch. I guess our plan would have been to do the whole thing and land in Somes Bar or Orleans where we could have gotten food. We were pulling 80-90 mile days on that trip though, so I suppose it would have been doable. In a car, I’m not sure how well I’d do. There are a lot of places that are super narrow, with hundreds of feet of dropoff on your left or right. I don’t think there was anything that would have caused an outright panic attack, but I would be very tense the whole drive. On bikes is definitely the better way to go.

The first seven miles is a normal two lane road, with the river running to your right. The road rises and falls gently, following the flow of Salmon River. Eventually, you cross the river and come to a place with a sign saying the road will be narrow and winding for the next 35 miles. It’s not kidding. It also warns against trailers and I whole heartedly agree. Someone painted “Begin Freeway” on a rock wall just before a particularly deathy part. I think if this was a one way only road, I could do it, maybe even with Dory, but the thought of having to squeeze past someone when up on those hight points makes me panicky. There are certainly sections of maybe up to a quarter mile where one of you would have to back up to get to a pull out. No thank you.

Once you get to the Nordheimer Campground, the road calms the hell down all the way to Forks of Salmon. And since that is the big metropolis of the area, the road is marked with a “Congested Area” sign. This is funny. There is an elementary school and a post office and a tiny little park with a vault toilet and some mining equipment on display. The population in 2020 was 118 and we didn’t see any of them. Not sure what children are going to that school, but there was a crosswalk. I wonder if they have a crossing guard. Maybe that person is also the teacher. So many questions.

Forks of Salmon is so named because of the literal forks in the Salmon River that divide there. From that intersection, you can get back to the Highway 3 area either through Sawyer’s Bar to Etna, or through Cecilville to Calahan. Any way you go, it’s going to be a narrow edgy road experience. Our ride took us 17 miles from Highway 96, and we just turned around and rode it back. I made it all the way on one battery, but again, was glad to have a spare strapped on my bike rack.

We celebrated tackling this once pondered, never taken, road by going back to Salmon River Outfitters to get a treat. Finding their ice cream coffin selections to not quite hit the spot, we drove instead to the market in Orleans, so named the Orleans Market. They had Haagen Dazs, and that was just perfect.

Dinner was a saffron chicken with kale rice and aioli. While cooking, we ran an extension cord from the power pole behind our site so I could properly charge up the bike battery. When using the generator, we try not to let it charge until the light on the charger turns green. For some reason, this seems to trip the fuse and the generator shuts off. We’ve had that happen twice now. Instead, we wait until the light on the battery itself turns blue, time 45 min, and then unplug. It reads 100% when you put it on the bike, but I do notice that it drops from 100% faster than when it charges all the way to green. Either way, having two batteries and a generator for times when we don’t have hookups works just fine. Too bad I couldn’t have bike toured this way. But then again, touring with a Dory is worlds better than actual tent camping. *shudder* Life is good. This has been an excellent do over so far.

Total miles from Sue Meg: 98.9, 16.7 mpg, 5 hours 1 min. No hookups. No cell. No dump. Water spigots and vault toilet. Site 1. Little tiny bits of solar. Electric pole behind site has 110 outlets. Ran extension cord from pole to Dory to charge bike battery.