AARoads Forum

I figured that I would just start a catch all thread in each region I travel in so I can just dump stuff in this thread rather than creating others....

Anyways, this weekend I'm traveling from my Father In-Law's house in Fresno via route of; Lake Tahoe, Virginia City, and maybe just maybe Sherman Pass....I say maybe for a reason.

So this fine day started out with the slog on CA 99.  Thankfully it's not as bad as coming from Bakersfield and things really cleared up past CA 152:

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I don't know why but I always seem to encounter left lane bandits on 99 and it drives me up the wall, today was no exception.  Regardless I was done with 99 by Merced and made my way through the city on CA 140/59 before cutting north on CA 59 towards Snelling.  I was able to clear the school buses somehow before they started all stopping at the railroad tracks:

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Of course as most of us Californian Road Geeks are fully aware CA 59 becomes J59 north of Snelling.  My understanding is that the terminus of CA 59 has something to do with the implied path that would have connected the segments of CA 65.  Regardless J59 is a quality route and I took it all the way to to CA 108/120 but I made a quick side stop trip on CA 132 to La Grange to check out the Old La Grange Bridge.  Now I haven't done my research on J59 as through as I would like but it sure looks like the Old La Grange Bridge and Old La Grange Road are the original J59?  Regardless it's a really cool steel truss bridge over the Tuolumme River:

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At the northern terminus I took CA 108/120 north to Obyrnes Ferry Road/E15 to Copperopolis.  I'm always pretty damn impressed how well the truckers make it down E15 and the Tulloch Reservoir.  There was some rock trucks in a convoy today and they were flying through the entire route....either stupid or really impressive.  Regardless I stopped in Old Copperopolis to take in some old mining era buildings.  Copperopolis was one of the few copper towns during the Gold Rush era, the only other I recall off hand that was notable was Telegraph City.  Either way it's weird how full on yuppie the modern town has become and really how far it is from the old downtown:

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Coming out of Copperopolis I took CA 4 to Pool Station Road...mostly because I was curious to what was on it....apparently a tailing pond.  I took CA 49 north to Jackson where I got some gas for the car...which will be notable later...and cut east on CA 88 to Carson Pass...I did pass through Volcano before getting little too far up the pass:

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Having driven 88 a couple times it's pretty obvious to me why this was the preferred route during the gold rush.  88 is pretty much a placid gradual climb up the Sierras and never really has the crazy high grades that CA 108/Sonora Pass and CA 4/Ebbetts Pass do.  There was some nice scenic overlooks amid some of the inactive construction near Carson Pass:

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The reason I mentioned gas that I got in Jackson was due to the fact that somewhere around Carson Pass I noticed a solid check engine light.  Usually something solid means an OBII Sensor trip or bad gas, the only reason I looked is because I felt the knock coming down hill.  I should note that my wife is with me on this trip since it involved Reno and gambling.  I didn't think much of the light and didn't mention it to her until South Lake Tahoe.  Either way there was a big construction wriggamoral around CA 89 where I cut north.  There was also some big huge thing that CHP was doing west of me that had the flagman delayed for about 20 minutes:

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US 50 around Lake Tahoe....just plain sucks.  I've never once gone through the area where it was an easy drive, even in the off season.  There was heavy construction on the Nevada side at Cave Rock Tunnel.  Interestingly enough there is a big ass Agriculture Inspection Station sign on the California side...I completely forgot they actually check even on US 50...what a waste of money to stop non-commercial traffic.  I did stop on a vista to get a decent panoramic of the tunnel and lake.  The wife was freaking out about the check engine light since I made a surprise stop for 89 Octane gas...didn't clear the light on the first drive cycle:

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I ended up following NV 28 up to NV 431 which of course is the Mount Rose Highway.    For some reason highway patrol was out in full force on NV 28, I think that I saw half a dozen troopers....worst part was that I had a "safety fiend" driving a Volvo in front of me.  The pollution level today really obstructed the views of Tahoe and Reno on NV 431.  The good news was that on my third drive cycle the 89 octane cleared out the check engine light.  If I recall correctly NV 431 was NV 27 from 1941 to 1976 and still is the highest all-year Sierra Pass at 8,911 feet at Mount Rose Summit.  Really smooth road though, the grade is really gradual for something that gains and loses elevation so quickly:

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I don't gamble...I think it's a waste of money and we changed plans from Lassen Peak so the wife could go do her thing.  So that being the case I insisted on the Geiger Grade/NV 341 which of course leads to Virginia City.  For some reason 341 was filled with a crap ton of Storrey County Sheriffs today, I haven't ever seen then anywhere but the station before today.  The great thing about mining towns like Virginia City asides from the old buildings and infrastructure is the ice cream....they ALWAYS have ice cream.  I took NV 342 as a quick pass through Gold Hill and Silver City to check out some more mines, it was the only time that I had to use some engine braking.  It's amusing to think of pre-war cars and stage wagons trying to make it uphill along what is now 342 when it hits the 15% grade just north of Gold Hill.  After rejoining NV 341 I took US 50 to US 395/I-580 and Reno....surprisingly I have now clinched I-580:

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And really that's it for today for road observations.  Currently having a beer and watching the Breakfast Club, it will be an early night since some notables like US 395, CA 270, and CA 203 are tomorrow. 

Thanks for sharing your journey!

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 19, 2016, 11:14:43 PM
US 50 around Lake Tahoe....just plain sucks.  I've never once gone through the area where it was an easy drive, even in the off season.  There was heavy construction on the Nevada side at Cave Rock Tunnel.  Interestingly enough there is a big ass Agriculture Inspection Station sign on the California side...I completely forgot they actually check even on US 50...what a waste of money to stop non-commercial traffic.  I did stop on a vista to get a decent panoramic of the tunnel and lake.  The wife was freaking out about the check engine light since I made a surprise stop for 89 Octane gas...didn't clear the light on the first drive cycle:

There is a project proposed to reroute or otherwise mitigate some of the congestion issues on US 50 at Stateline/South Lake Tahoe. It's been discussed in this thread (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=9728).

The project at Cave Rock is primarily to build a rock fall shelter over the westbound lanes in front of the existing (original) tunnel–this project was prompted by a large rock fall in February 2015. They're also making safety and aesthetic improvements to both tunnels (installing lighting, bike/ice warning systems, etc.) and doing drainage improvements in the vicinity.

Quote
I ended up following NV 28 up to NV 431 which of course is the Mount Rose Highway. For some reason highway patrol was out in full force on NV 28, I think that I saw half a dozen troopers....worst part was that I had a "safety fiend" driving a Volvo in front of me.  The pollution level today really obstructed the views of Tahoe and Reno on NV 431.  The good news was that on my third drive cycle the 89 octane cleared out the check engine light.  If I recall correctly NV 431 was NV 27 from 1941 to 1976 and still is the highest all-year Sierra Pass at 8,911 feet at Mount Rose Summit.  Really smooth road though, the grade is really gradual for something that gains and loses elevation so quickly:

You are correct in your recollections.

Quote
I don't gamble...I think it's a waste of money and we changed plans from Lassen Peak so the wife could go do her thing.  So that being the case I insisted on the Geiger Grade/NV 341 which of course leads to Virginia City.  For some reason 341 was filled with a crap ton of Storrey County Sheriffs today, I haven't ever seen then anywhere but the station before today.  The great thing about mining towns like Virginia City asides from the old buildings and infrastructure is the ice cream....they ALWAYS have ice cream.  I took NV 342 as a quick pass through Gold Hill and Silver City to check out some more mines, it was the only time that I had to use some engine braking.  It's amusing to think of pre-war cars and stage wagons trying to make it uphill along what is now 342 when it hits the 15% grade just north of Gold Hill.  After rejoining NV 341 I took US 50 to US 395/I-580 and Reno....surprisingly I have now clinched I-580:

I'd like to imagine what it was like for old trucks to drive on what's now 342, before the "truck route" bypass part of what's now 341 was built in the late 1930's.

PS: We Nevadans would appreciate if you'd change your tune on gambling...please convey our thanks to your wife for supporting our economy  ;-)

Quote from: roadfro on August 20, 2016, 11:56:57 AM
PS: We Nevadans would appreciate if you'd change your tune on gambling...please convey our thanks to your wife for supporting our economy  ;-)

As someone who makes at least two trips per year to Nevada, the above underlined statement makes me want to...  :rofl:

Nice one roadfro... nice one!

Totally agree with you about Carson Pass/CA 88.  Always my preferred route across the Sierras; beats the slog along US 50 by a mile!  However, it seems in recent years that others besides myself (and you, of course) have discovered this route; every time I use it (got a bunch of friends in the Gardnerville/Minden area) there seems to be more and more traffic volume -- and proportionally more idiots!  I fully expect to hear a traffic report about a multi-vehicle blockage of the road in the near future (grit your teeth -- Ebbets, here I come!. :wow:)

Alright today's update....kind of a rough one but not because of the car at least.

Started the day with something simple, a side trip over to Genoa to see the first settled town in Nevada.  Basically you just jump off US 395 over on NV 206.  Apparently Genoa dates back to the Utah Territory days and was founded in 1851 and apparently was the Nevada Territorial Capital for one year in 1861.  Genoa was a stop on the California Trail during the Gold Rush and apparently was a major stopping point before the Sierras.

Regardless before I get too far off track, okay where the hell does US 395/50 actually run in Carson City?  US 395 obviously follows the I-580 freeway and it appears US 50 jumps off Williams onto I-580 as well.  However with all that said there was TO US 50/395 reassurance signage on I-580 south of Williams which became regular good old US 50/US 395 on Fairview when the freeway ended.  I'm assuming the "TO" is a mistake or something that has to do with the temporary route on Fairview which will be corrected once the I-580 freeway is finished.  For now though I've actually personally clinched all that is built of I-580 along with US 395 from the Oregon State line all the way through California, Nevada, and then California down to I-15.

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I think that freaked out the Agriculture Inspection guy at US 395/Topaz Lake entering California.  Before he had to chance to say anything I said "negative fruits and veggies ghost rider" and he didn't know how to respond to that.  :rolleyes:  You'd think with the Marine Corp Station just to the south and on CA 108/Sonora Pass the guy would have gotten the joke...guess not.  Anyways US 395....why the hell do so many people think an Interstate improvement is needed up there in the mountains?...really?  The road is adequate as is and freaking beautiful even after it blows out to an expressway south of Lee Vining:

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So with all I just said....the real highlight of the day was Bodie.  I got up to the town a couple minutes before 9 AM and was able to drive right in as one of the first couple people.  I did find a nice relic ACSC sign from nearby Cottonwood Canyon in a barn which I thought was pretty cool.  I was able to get some nice pano shots of Bodie before there was too many people mucking things up which made me happy.  There was some neat car bodies that hadn't found before out in the weeds that I grabbed some pictures of.

As for Bodie Road, CA 270, and NV 3C I was able to draw some interesting observations or just find out some information that I was looking for.  First off....why the hell does CA 270 stop three miles from the State Park entrance?  It always seemed like that most of the California state parks at least had a highway run right up to the boundary.  I'm assuming that it has something to do with the whole ambiance of getting to Bodie...but since that three miles where 270 ends technically isn't State Park or Caltrans held land doesn't basically make accessible to the general public regardless?  I mean hell there is just a sign at the gate to Bodie basically just asking "pretty please don't go in before 9 AM."  The current agreement between Caltrans and the State Parks for the 3 something miles of dirt dates back to 1983 according to cahighways.  Apparently LRN 270 popped up on Bodie Road back in 1959 so it's one of the late to the party routes.  Either way the start 270 sign is weird, it doesn't have "California" in the spade.  The State Park actually had a grading machine on site but I took pictures of the dirt section to show how wonky it really is....smooth up to 15 MPH and no more.

Speaking of Old Nevada 3C, you CAN drive through the State Park and continue to Nevada via Bodie Road so say the Park Rangers.  Apparently the third bridge north to Aurora is out but the wash out can be crossed with standard clearance 4WD.  So basically if you got the guts a trip from Bodie, Aurora, to Hawthorne is still very possible.  For those not in the know NV 3C was one of the pre-1976 state highways that really didn't get much in the way of state maintenance given that it was completely dirt.  Apparently 3C hung on actually until 1982 until was decommissioned but by then it was about 10 miles short of the state line...at least that's what the word on the streets is....

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Coming out of CA 270 you can see Mono Lake to the south on a clear day.  There is actually a pretty clean overlook on US 395 that lets you see whole lake:

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So something was up along Mono Lake just north of Lee Vining, it looked like a landslide.  There was a 20 minute delay VMS warning sign but it took a lot longer because CHP had something going on just a couple miles north that had ambulances running north like crazy.  If anything with the four lane downhill south to Lee Vining and the expressway starting south of said town maybe it's time to upgrade this to a four lane section along the lake as well.  Regardless I decided to take a side trip down CA 158 on the June Lake Loop Road.  I was actually pretty surprised how much there really was to see since it doesn't look like much from US 395.  Apparently CA 158 was LRN 111 all the way back to 1933 and got the CA 158 signs put up in 1963:

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So....here is where the shit hit the fan...Mammoth and the friggin Devils Postpile which just so happens to be the last National Monument in California that I had to see.  I ended up taking the Mammoth Scenic Loop into the Mammoth Mountain Ski area...which seemed excessively slow for the sake of being excessively slow.  Anyways getting to Minerat Summit was no problem at all, plenty of parking.  But I knew if I wanted to see the Postpile......ugh...I would have to take the shuttle.  So basically to give an accurate assessment of how far the D Lot is from the Shuttle Terminal at the Mammoth Ski Resort my wife and I changed to running clothes to do just that...  The shuttle ride is a complete and total miserable abortion, I want to say that we actually viewed the Postpile for about 25 minutes and spent about another 90 waiting for or being dragged around by those stupid shuttle buses.  Seriously...this some remote ass territory, how in the hell is Mammoth so popular in the summer?  Anyways...good thing that I planned for the worst because that's what we got.  I've gotten through some of the largest National Parks in the Country in less than four hours....this is absurd for something so small.  Cool fact though; apparently the Devils Postpile is in Madera County and not Inyo...who knew?  I'd say it's worth seeing...just find that happy gap on a weekday between the end of the summer season and the start of ski season before the monument is shut down for winter.

Now with CA 203...where the hell does it actually begin?  I didn't see any 203 signs until I was well east of the ski resort.  According cahighways it seems that the Forest Service booth near Minerat Summit is the actually western terminus and not the Summit itself....but other sources insist it's the actual summit.  :eyebrow:  Apparently 203 was LRN 112 back in 1933 and didn't get signs until 1964:

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The day ended here in Bishop.  I don't know why but I've been craving Vons/Safeway chicken strips all week and finally had about a pounds worth given the unexpected 3 something miles of running 7,500 foot plus today.  I took the almost required US 6 end photo on the way in....it seems rather than Sherman Pass we'll be doubling back a little over CA 120/Tioga Pass instead.  I have a National Parks pass and the car has been a little wonky with the left front rotor and the check engine soon light yesterday.  I'm thinking that Sherman might have to wait until I get new tires and get that rotor machined.  Anyways I'm thinking of heading through Benton and Benton Hot Springs so I can clinch CA 120...more so not double back the way I came on US 395....would have stayed in Mammoth...but it's Mammoth with Mammoth hotel prices.  X-(

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Alright time for replies....

Roadfro

-  Good god they need to get that 1.1 mile realignment of US 50 going.  Anything is better than the current slog through the South Tahoe area.
-  I suppose 15% isn't really all that bad in the 1930s when you consider how often 20% plus was common in those days.  I'm sure going across country or even a 20 mile drive in anything was pretty much a hellish experience regardless of what you were driving.  A lot of those older vehicles were solid axle and meant for a pounding that a lot of modern non-commercial vehicles wouldn't take today.
-  Gambling....well I guess that I just got bored with it over the years.  I used to work a lot of Vegas and Laughlin years ago and the former really burned me out on it with how expensive things could get just to play a single game.  I always like Laughlin in that regard, cheap entry for any game you want.....even if that's just the penny slots.  I always liked throwing $20 dollars into the machines at the Casinos that had a car as the jackpot in Laughlin...usually I came away with a couple bucks.  Vegas is better for people watching given that they lose their minds on Las Vegas Blvd.  I always stayed off-strip at one of the chain hotels...or the Stratosphere....why waste the money when you can get a view?  It was always fun picking up police reports in Old Town Vegas...funny to think that I remember the Pawn Stars pawn shop before it was on TV.

Myosh_Tino

-  Hey I love Nevada....my kind of state.  I was supporting the local economy, I brought my wife and she didn't win a damn thing again.  :-D  At least I got her off those Power Ball tickets...  :rolleyes:

Sparker

-  Actually I'm fairly certain that blockage happened right behind me as I was approaching CA 89 and the construction flag-man.  There was way WAY WAY too many CHP officers heading west for it to be anything but an accident.  The good news was that it didn't involve me and I was early enough that I didn't have to pass anyone in the 2-lane sections.  Speaking of Ebbetts and Sonora...I would like to try both in my Challenger.  I figure the more power I can get the better with the 20% grade sections...although Ebbetts concerns me given how narrow it can get.  But hey, anything seems wide after Colony Mill and Mineral King Road these days....all a matter of finding a decent place to stay the night in Sonora to make it happen.

One more thing...when my wife found about the check engine light and didn't want to believe in my method of repair I told her the following:



She did look at the manual....but can't stand when I make fun of her with old Youtube Memes.  There was this whole big thing with my old Camaro when it went over 9,000 miles that took her weeks to figure out.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 20, 2016, 10:42:58 PM
Regardless before I get too far off track, okay where the hell does US 395/50 actually run in Carson City?  US 395 obviously follows the I-580 freeway and it appears US 50 jumps off Williams onto I-580 as well.  However with all that said there was TO US 50/395 reassurance signage on I-580 south of Williams which became regular good old US 50/US 395 on Fairview when the freeway ended.  I'm assuming the "TO" is a mistake or something that has to do with the temporary route on Fairview which will be corrected once the I-580 freeway is finished.  For now though I've actually personally clinched all that is built of I-580 along with US 395 from the Oregon State line all the way through California, Nevada, and then California down to I-15.

The answer to this is a little complicated...

I-580 currently officially ends at the junction of US 50/William Street (the end is not signed, but I-580 shields are not currently present south of this point).

When the Carson City Freeway was opened between William Street and Fairview Drive in 2009, US 50/395 were rerouted onto the new freeway. To make the connection back to original US 50/395 alignment, AASHTO approved a TEMP US 50/395 designation along Fairview Drive and along South Carson Street from Fairview south to the junction where they split.

Reassurance signs on the freeway portion are regular "US 50/395" shields. At the southbound off ramp to Fairview Drive, a reassurance assembly currently states "TO US 50/395". When the freeway section first opened, *all* the reassurance signs along Fariview Drive also used the "TO" banner. If you look closely at all the reassurance assemblies, notice that the shields are not currently mounted to align with the top of the support post–this is because the "TO" banner was previously at the top. (I'm not sure when the "TO" placards were removed, but I'm reasonably certain they were gone by fall 2010–they were definitely removed when Street View went through in September 2011.) I'm still not sure why "TO" banners were used–"TEMP" banners would have been much more appropriate.

Note that the original alignment on South Carson Street is included in the Temporary designation approved by AASHTO. I believe business route designations along the original alignments of both routes were established at the same time (BUS US 50 is not signed). However, in the field, South Carson Street is still signed as mainline US 50/395.


Another wrinkle to complicate matters: If you go by NDOT's "State Maintained Highways" book, US 50/395 have been aligned on the Carson City Freeway since 1994, a decade before construction on any part of the freeway began. SR 529 and SR 530 were created in 1994 along Carson St and William St, respectively to keep the open routes of US 395 and US 50 on the state highway system–the shields were never changed and the state routes were never signed. (Most of SR 529 and all of SR 530 have since been relinquished to Carson City's control.)

Funny, I was wondering what happened to the I-580 signs south of Williams and now I know.  Well that would explain why there are some "to" signs and why the others look weird.  So another question though, why all of the sudden in the last few years signing "I-580" when US 395 was sufficient for so many years?  Wouldn't it not be more simple just to keep a single route signed on the freeway?....or at least keep US 395 on the surface alignments that are US 395A.  I suppose now with all those relinquishments in Carson City the latter would be an impossibility now.

Anyways, so I ended up taking Tioga Pass back to Fresno.  I wasn't exactly trusting the car given that I got a bad tank of gas and thought Sherman Pass might be a little too much...turns out I was right but I'll get to that shortly.  The day started out with this nice guide sign for the start of US 6 north of Bishop:

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One of these days it's going to be really tempting to do a cross-country US 6 tour.  I figure that I'll need to knock out the remaining 15 National Parks that I have first and all the old alignments of US 66 east of Santa Fe (already documented the rest in road trips) to Chicago Roamin Rich style first.  I was actually a member of the US Route 6 Tour Association for a couple years so the route is obviously one of my favorites.

Anyways, I took CA 120 to reach Lee Vining from US 6 rather than taking US 395.  I hate back tracking and it gave me an opportunity to check out some of the back story of Bodie; namely some of the stops on the Bodie & Benton Railway.  First up you got the modern town of Benton at the intersection of US 6 and CA 120.  I saw modern because Benton Hot Springs which is 5 miles west on CA 120 is the original Benton town site and is sometimes referred to as "Old Benton."  Basically Old Benton was founded in early 1850s due to the local hot springs and to service travelers heading into Southern California.  Basically at the time were talking wagons and such....so really a town in the side of a hill with hot springs was a big draw point.  Apparently there was even mining activity in the area from the 1860s until late 1880s.  Things really change though for Old Benton when the Carson & Colorado Railroad was completed in 1883.  The Carson and & Colorado ran on the alignment which US 6 runs on which in turn led to "Benton Station" being founded which became simply "Benton" probably in the early 1890s while Old Benton became "Benton Hot Springs."  Basically Old Benton is just a ghost town now with most of the buildings being obviously abandoned or falling apart:

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Anyways, the Carson and Colorado Railroad is an interesting topic.  This particular line ran from 1880 to 1960 and was narrow gauge.  The line was originally intended to reach the Colorado River but never made it past Keeler, California with the northern terminus being Mound House, NV.  Basically the C&C ran close to what is US 50, US 95A, US 95, NV 360, US 6, east of US 395, and CA 136.  The old rail depot at Laws just north of Bishop has a nice museum dedicated to the railroad and there seems to be some restoration work for new tracks in the area.  The museum has a lot of ASAC road signage in addition to all the rail stuff.

Back to 120...it was in another thread that Sparker mentioned that 120 had a forest south of Mono Lake and shut down in the winter.  Given that there was a mill the forest obviously is a thing and so is the 8,100 something foot pass that 120 runs over.  I'd say looking at the route though it probably lack of traffic that gets 120 shut down east of US 395 more than anything else, not one single car was seen until Mono Mills.

So Mono Mills apparently was the lumber supply town set up for Bodie by the Bodie Railway and Lumber company in 1880.  Basically the lumber yards in Mono Mills supplied Bodie with the majority of materials used to build the structures in town which means probably most of the buildings still standing in Bodie have an origin from this mill.  Apparently the narrow gauge line from Mono Mills to Benton was never completed as the name might imply.  The Bodie and Benton Railway ran on the east side of Mono Lake and up mostly Cottonwood Canyon (see the ASAC sign from yesterday)  The line is best viewed here on Abandoned Rails:

http://www.abandonedrails.com/Bodie_and_Benton_Railroad

Given that there is a grade on the east side of Mono Lake it's interesting that there was never a good paved road built out that way.  Not that there is any communities or anything but it would have been nice to have the option yesterday to bypass Lee Vining with that land slide disaster on US 395 that was on the western shore of Mono Lake.  Back on topic to Mono Mills, when Bodie started to die so did the former.  Mono Mills was shut down by 1917 even though Bodie wasn't totally abandoned until the early 1940s.  Regardless basically all that really is left of Mono Mills today is the mill site:

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The climb up Lee Vining Canyon wasn't too bad.  I've always found the eastern grade on 120 to be pretty gentle compared to other Sierra routes like Sonora/108 and Ebbetts/4.  At the Canyon overlook I took some pictures...it's funny, in another thread someone actually said in retrospect the Tioga Pass Road would have been considered "implausible" back in it's time....I guess they didn't count on mining toll roads:

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7% is one hell of an engineering feet for early 20th century road building.  Both Sonora and Ebbetts Pass excess 20% grades on the eastern slopes for comparison sake.  I think Tioga Pass gets kind of a infamous reputation since it peaks out at 9,945 feet but it really is by no measure a dangerous or wild road that people who've never been on it would lead you to believe.  Now the crappy thing is that after I was done taking my pictures of Lee Vining Canyon and that monument ANOTHER check engine light came on....so what the hell?  Anyways, there wasn't much point worrying since it was a solid light and I had a LONG way to name brand gas in Oakhurst.  This was probably the best of the batch of Lee Vining Canyon pictures I took:

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Thankfully I chose wisely route wise...nobody really comes over Tioga Road from the east.  That gave me some time to enjoy Tuolumme Meadows and the Olmstead overlook of Half Dome:

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I'm fairly certain the orange sign with green CA 140 spade was supplied by Caltrans.  Anyways the sign refers to the Ferguson Rock Slide...but I'll talk more about that later.  Anyways, Big Oak Flat Road was apparently completed as a wagon route all the way back in 1874.  Basically the implied route of CA 120 runs from Big Oak Flat Road to where it intersects Tioga Road which it turns east....there is no implied anything for Big Oak Flat Road descending into Yosemite Valley but still cool that the miners in Big Oak Flat wanted access to the Valley so badly even back in the olden days:

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(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FIMG_8662_zpsm1nuun42.jpg&hash=11f8cd5a23740ee03addd91680824462fcaa915e)

Down in Yosemite Valley the weird white spades continue throughout.  I didn't get a picture but there is some nameless green spades for CA 140/120 and a MUTCD compliant US 395 sign heading east on El Portal Road to Big Oak Flat Road.  I stopped at the tunnel view for a minute after turning onto Wawona Road:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FIMG_8670_zps2vsldcf6.jpg&hash=2018b4465cc6ba0c29bd0d6a3306af0fbf21bcdb)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FIMG_8671_zpsoo3mbxdb.jpg&hash=04e5111e817a75707aa0145f49321711ed3d2cc5)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FIMG_8673_zpscggkaaqb.jpg&hash=e2f44a3372f04e35c32a98acb97229fc928838cb)

Anyways before I hit on Wawona Road and CA 41...I'll refer to my old topic I posted about El Portal Road, CA 140, and the Yosemite Valley Railroad:

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=18387.msg2159388#msg2159388

With that in mind the Yosemite Valley Railway terminated in El Portal and you would have had to taken a wagon from the left in the first pic.  The second pic is about the best view I could find of the Merced River Gorge where CA 140 runs at the bottom:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FIMG_8680_zps9s3mhqcs.jpg&hash=cbb7a3e051e3e7fc278938b0ea01c5b3be7ec513)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FIMG_8681_zpskbwajmpx.jpg&hash=ace3d2fbc981d103cc6e3de40f5bb13d3a16e62f)

Okay, the Wawona Road has it's beginnings as an 1882 stage route built by the founders of the Wawona Hotel.  Technically part of the route existed back when the Hotel was built all the way back in 1876 but 1882 is when the stage route was extended to Yosemite Valley.  Apparently the stage route took a crap load of switch backs to reach the valley floor and probably was all sorts of miserable in a car before the Wawona Tunnel opened in 1933.  Basically this would be the most trafficked route from Yosemite due to it being a straight shot to Fresno via CA 41....and for some reason there is GREEN spades on a guide sign by Glacier Point Road...still look wrong to me:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FIMG_8683_zpsihkntygr.jpg&hash=d7f45d26534b7358401b0fb921d31946e7b92cb6)

Here is a good reference site for the Wawona Road and stage route:

http://www.undiscovered-yosemite.com/history-of-wawona.html

So...back at the In-Laws house....ran past the almost completed new passing lanes near CA 145 on the way down.  I'm not heading home until tomorrow...a fresh tank of gas didn't clear out the check engine light.  Way I see it I'll just do some one-stop shopping with new tires, oil, fresh transmission fluid, and if need be a brake rotor machining this week.  I need to get this car back up to spec for Utah in October...Sherman Pass is likely going to have to wait until get some confidence back in terms of mechanical reliability.  I guess that if anything if you have read this far I would impart some advice to you.  If you are in the sub-compact car market...pick the Fiesta over the Sonic and if you need gas on California 49 never EVER stop in Jackson to do it.

This is an A+ series of posts with so many great pix of scenery, signs and towns accompanying the writing of all that went on during this road trip.  Over 90% of the pix covered areas I have never seen before so it was extremely gratifying to see so much! 

A poster named Max giving us a max vicarious experience...wonderful!

Rick

Thanks, I just wish that I had found a way to link over photos sooner when I joined the site.  Really I wanted to get another look at Bodie, the area surrounding it, and knock out the Devils Postpile.  I'll have to try to get a ATV rental or something back up to Bodie next year so I can head out to Aurora on the Nevada side.  I'd like to add US 95 Nevada, NV 374, and Daylight Pass Road from earlier in the year when I get some time.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 21, 2016, 07:56:41 PM
Funny, I was wondering what happened to the I-580 signs south of Williams and now I know.  Well that would explain why there are some "to" signs and why the others look weird.  So another question though, why all of the sudden in the last few years signing "I-580" when US 395 was sufficient for so many years?  Wouldn't it not be more simple just to keep a single route signed on the freeway?....or at least keep US 395 on the surface alignments that are US 395A.  I suppose now with all those relinquishments in Carson City the latter would be an impossibility now.

NDOT has had AASHTO approval for the I-580 designation since 1978, but there hadn't been a real purpose for posting I-580 shields previously because it didn't really go anywhere. I-580 did appear on some maps in the early 1980's (and evidence exists that 580 shields were posted on some side streets as well), but it's been a mostly hidden designation for a while. With the freeway extension between Mt Rose Hwy and Bowers Mansion Road in 2012, there was finally continuous freeway between Reno and Carson City and 580 shields were posted almost immediately*.

This is conjecture on my part, but I believe part of the reason for moving US 395 to the new alignment** was to encourage through traffic to use the freeway as opposed to the old route through Pleasant Valley/Washoe City. That area has wanted to get speeds slowed and traffic volumes decreased along that stretch for a long time, and signing the old route as US 395 Alt may have helped with that. This rationale also helps explain the establishment of the business routes in Carson City. (Although additional reasoning there is likely that NDOT knew they'd be offloading the old routes to the city, so likely wanted to keep mainline US routes on state-maintained roadways–there is only one instance I know of where a portion of mainline US highway is not NDOT-maintained.)


*Note: Many US 395 shields on side street freeway entrance assemblies were replaced by I-580 shields while side street BGSs covered up the 395's with 580 patches (despite most of these having been designed to have a 580 added next to a the existing 395 shields). However, the two routes are posted side-by-side on the freeway itself. Contrast this to I-515 in Las Vegas, which is was signed alongside US 93 & US 95 at freeway assemblies and on the mainline when I-515 was first signed around 1994/95.

**Note 2: Looking at NDOT State Maintained Highways books since the mid/late 2000's, the highway signed as US 395 between Mt Rose Hwy and Bowers Mansion Road was maintained in the as (semi-)hidden SR 430, with the logs showing a technical gap in US 395 between these two points.

I guess that NDOT thinks there is some brand equity in having an Interstate 3d shield posted now?...after all this time?  I guess the real question is does it really add anything if you are going to keep posting US 395 shields along the route.  I would have to believe that if the I-580 stayed hidden and it was just US 395 signed for most of the freeway it would have accomplished the same desired affect on the old alignments if they had just NV Shields or hidden designations.  At minimum in Vegas you really don't see a lot in the way of US 93/95 reassurance signs along I-515. 

I don't know....I might be in the minority on this but to me a 3d Interstate should always be trumped in importance by US Route.  Not an exact comparison but I look at the US 60 Superstition Freeway in Arizona as example of how the US Route could be viable over throwing a 3d Interstate Route on it.  The US 60 designation largely goes hidden even on I-10 and I-17 but is definitely the highlighted route to head east out of the Valley.  Now say there was an I-310 on the Superstition Freeway....what does that really add when it would just dead end in Apache Junction and suddenly it becomes US 60?  Maybe that's a debate for another thread....personally I would love to see I-9 instead of I-580 so the number could be snatched away from all the CA 99 - I-9 supporters  :-D

Granted I know there was a huge advantage to get an early Interstate designation even one that was hidden when the Federal Highway Fund was more of a thing.

What is that section of US Route that isn't state maintained?

Also if I have this correct both NV 431 and NV 341 still terminate at Virginia Street correct?  Reason I ask like you said there has been some US 395 surface removals, I don't recall seeing this sign approaching the round about at Virginia:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.4015361,-119.7486516,3a,75y,90h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s1ZQ8LfRnWOA6BdcH85oBeA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

Also I completely forgot that I took a picture down Six Mile Canyon Road in Virginia City which would have been NV 79. 

Max, these are great photos. Way up at the top, you posted an E15 Calaveras County shield. There is a small white paddle just like a Caltrans postmile also visible in the picture. I think the route number on this paddle is 58. Years ago, back in the early 90s, when I first traversed this route, I thought E15 was old SR 48, until I discovered all the online resources about route numbering in California. Since then, I've concluded (without any research) that the 48 on that paddle must be part of the Calaveras County inventory system for its maintained roadways. But I can't say whether that's true or not since I've almost forgotten in the years since then. Thank you for posting these!

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 22, 2016, 07:16:47 AM
Also if I have this correct both NV 431 and NV 341 still terminate at Virginia Street correct?  Reason I ask like you said there has been some US 395 surface removals, I don't recall seeing this sign approaching the round about at Virginia:

This end shield assembly between the roundabout and Virginia Street indicates that SR 341 continues to end at Virginia Street, not the roundabout. Here is a link to that shield assembly (which includes an erroneous SR 395 shield per the GSV, which may have since been corrected):

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.4031435,-119.7442778,3a,75y,268.36h,94.3t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sBflu5wzNe8kQAC3TR5gfUA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

At the roundabout between SR 341 (Geiger Grade Road) and Veterans Parkway, there are small green guide signs that say SR 341 pointing west toward Virginia Street. Northern Nevada's roundabouts seem to prefer using the small green signs that say "SR xxx" rather than a shield assembly. I wonder if this is the best way to navigate through the roundabouts? I would prefer advance signage clearly showing how to navigate the roundabout for the through route, and in this case a shield for SR 341 is easier to spot than the small green guide that from a distance may look the same as the other two incoming roads, Whites Creek Lane and Veterans Parkway.

Speaking of Veterans Parkway, does anyone know how far north that roadway is expected to go? Or has it already reached its maximum intended distance at Meadows Parkway? It seems like a link to McCarran Blvd (SR 659) or one of its connecting streets to the north would be nice.

Veteran's Parkway will be extended north to Sparks Boulevard and Gregg Street in South Sparks.  Sparks Boulevard is a limited-access expressway between Gregg Street and I-80, which runs a half mile or so north of Gregg Street:

http://www.southeastconnector.com/interactive-maps/

Looks like the entire corridor will be a nice limited access expressway between 80 in Sparks and 395/580 near the Mount Rose cutoff. 

Sacramento is getting a Southeast Connector, why shoudn't Reno/Sparks !! 

Quote from: andy3175 on August 22, 2016, 12:44:58 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 22, 2016, 07:16:47 AM
Also if I have this correct both NV 431 and NV 341 still terminate at Virginia Street correct?  Reason I ask like you said there has been some US 395 surface removals, I don't recall seeing this sign approaching the round about at Virginia:

This end shield assembly between the roundabout and Virginia Street indicates that SR 341 continues to end at Virginia Street, not the roundabout. Here is a link to that shield assembly (which includes an erroneous SR 395 shield per the GSV, which may have since been corrected):

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.4031435,-119.7442778,3a,75y,268.36h,94.3t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sBflu5wzNe8kQAC3TR5gfUA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

At the roundabout between SR 341 (Geiger Grade Road) and Veterans Parkway, there are small green guide signs that say SR 341 pointing west toward Virginia Street. Northern Nevada's roundabouts seem to prefer using the small green signs that say "SR xxx" rather than a shield assembly. I wonder if this is the best way to navigate through the roundabouts? I would prefer advance signage clearly showing how to navigate the roundabout for the through route, and in this case a shield for SR 341 is easier to spot than the small green guide that from a distance may look the same as the other two incoming roads, Whites Creek Lane and Veterans Parkway.

Speaking of Veterans Parkway, does anyone know how far north that roadway is expected to go? Or has it already reached its maximum intended distance at Meadows Parkway? It seems like a link to McCarran Blvd (SR 659) or one of its connecting streets to the north would be nice.

I think that I answered my own question about US 395A actually through Virginia Street, the northern terminus appears appears to be at exit 61 which would make the whole current alignment 431/341 still make sense at Virginia. 

Quote from: andy3175 on August 22, 2016, 12:36:37 PM
Max, these are great photos. Way up at the top, you posted an E15 Calaveras County shield. There is a small white paddle just like a Caltrans postmile also visible in the picture. I think the route number on this paddle is 58. Years ago, back in the early 90s, when I first traversed this route, I thought E15 was old SR 48, until I discovered all the online resources about route numbering in California. Since then, I've concluded (without any research) that the 48 on that paddle must be part of the Calaveras County inventory system for its maintained roadways. But I can't say whether that's true or not since I've almost forgotten in the years since then. Thank you for posting these!

It has to be something in regards to county stock.  I don't think anything state highway wise ever ran south out of Copperopolis but I would need to look at a lot of old LRN maps to confirm that.  I wish that I had the presence in mind to check for route mileage markers on Pool Station since it carries a pretty substantial length between CA 4 and CA 49.

Alright, so as promised this would have been the western terminus of NV 79 at 6 Mile Canyon Road and NV 17 at C Street in Virginia City:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FNV79_zpsgwcsar6f.jpg&hash=25a5372230c93b5a4843e2e75636b2799019247f)

Basically NV 79 would have run the entire length of 6 Mile Canyon Road down hill to US 50 just east of Dayton.  I would imagine that the route was cut in 1976 during the renumbering and I don't have a date for when it was first signed.  This 1956 map shows the numbering scheme that includes 79 as described but yet to be paved:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~212115~5500230:Shell-Highway-Map-of-Nevada-?sort=pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date%2Cpub_date&qvq=q:nevada%2Bhighway%2Bmaps;sort:pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date%2Cpub_date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=5&trs=8

It would seem that all of 17 became the modern 341.  I'm still trying to figure out if the 51 was what is now is NV 342 or if it was the truck bypass of Gold Hill/Silver City that NV 341 now runs on.  I haven't found the best resources for the old Nevada route numbers other than maps.  The numbering scheme got confusing as all hell and it's no wonder it was renumbered like it was.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 22, 2016, 07:16:47 AM
I guess that NDOT thinks there is some brand equity in having an Interstate 3d shield posted now?...after all this time?  I guess the real question is does it really add anything if you are going to keep posting US 395 shields along the route.  I would have to believe that if the I-580 stayed hidden and it was just US 395 signed for most of the freeway it would have accomplished the same desired affect on the old alignments if they had just NV Shields or hidden designations.  At minimum in Vegas you really don't see a lot in the way of US 93/95 reassurance signs along I-515. 

The "brand equity" definitely was a factor—prior to posting I-580 shields, Carson City was one of only five state capitals not linked to the Interstate Highway System. But yes, had they not signed I-580, it wouldn't really have made that much difference with traffic.

I have to correct you with I-515. US 93/95 are *always* cosigned with I-515 shields on the freeway mainline and freeway entrance assemblies. Some newer lighted street name signs at ramp intersections may refer to I-515 only (older ones usually referred to US 95 only). In local parlance, referring to this section as I-515 has gained traction, but many long-time locals (myself included) still refer to that section as US 95.

QuoteWhat is that section of US Route that isn't state maintained?

A short section of US 93 Alt in West Wendover, the east-west segment along Wendover Blvd between the branches leading north and south out of town.


EDIT: Corrected "US 93" to "US 93 Alt" in last line.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 22, 2016, 10:20:23 PM

Quote from: andy3175 on August 22, 2016, 12:44:58 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 22, 2016, 07:16:47 AM
Also if I have this correct both NV 431 and NV 341 still terminate at Virginia Street correct?  Reason I ask like you said there has been some US 395 surface removals, I don't recall seeing this sign approaching the round about at Virginia:

This end shield assembly between the roundabout and Virginia Street indicates that SR 341 continues to end at Virginia Street, not the roundabout. Here is a link to that shield assembly (which includes an erroneous SR 395 shield per the GSV, which may have since been corrected):

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.4031435,-119.7442778,3a,75y,268.36h,94.3t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sBflu5wzNe8kQAC3TR5gfUA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

At the roundabout between SR 341 (Geiger Grade Road) and Veterans Parkway, there are small green guide signs that say SR 341 pointing west toward Virginia Street. Northern Nevada's roundabouts seem to prefer using the small green signs that say "SR xxx" rather than a shield assembly. I wonder if this is the best way to navigate through the roundabouts? I would prefer advance signage clearly showing how to navigate the roundabout for the through route, and in this case a shield for SR 341 is easier to spot than the small green guide that from a distance may look the same as the other two incoming roads, Whites Creek Lane and Veterans Parkway.

Speaking of Veterans Parkway, does anyone know how far north that roadway is expected to go? Or has it already reached its maximum intended distance at Meadows Parkway? It seems like a link to McCarran Blvd (SR 659) or one of its connecting streets to the north would be nice.

I think that I answered my own question about US 395A actually through Virginia Street, the northern terminus appears appears to be at exit 61 which would make the whole current alignment 431/341 still make sense at Virginia.

Max, I'm guessing that 395 shield on Mt Rose was removed at some point, but I'd have to look. Any time I'm down that way, I'm usually headed the opposite direction.

Andy, I'd never seen that error shield before–thanks for linking it. That's the first US/State shield mix-up I've ever seen in Nevada. I'll have to make a trip down that way just to see if it is still there...


When US 395A was created, NDOT basically applied that designation along the entirety of what was SR 429 (Bowers Mansion Road) and that segment of SR 430 (Carson-Reno Hwy & S Virginia St), which explains why the alternate route goes so far north (and technically overlaps part of the sparsely-signed US 395 Business route).

SR 431/341 still terminate at Virginia Street.

Washoe RTC has proposed a realignment of SR 341 to have it's northern end link to US 395A a little bit south of the SR 431 junction. I think the thought process here is to have Veterans Pkwy link directly to Virginia to make the Southeast Connector a bit more seamless.

Quote from: Concrete Bob on August 22, 2016, 09:23:20 PM
Veteran's Parkway will be extended north to Sparks Boulevard and Gregg Street in South Sparks.  Sparks Boulevard is a limited-access expressway between Gregg Street and I-80, which runs a half mile or so north of Gregg Street:

http://www.southeastconnector.com/interactive-maps/

Looks like the entire corridor will be a nice limited access expressway between 80 in Sparks and 395/580 near the Mount Rose cutoff. 

But yes, the Southeast Connector/Veterans Pkwy extension to Greg Street (one 'g') will be limited-access expressway for the portions currently under construction, as there will be no adjacent development (much of it goes through wetlands surrounding Steamboat Creek) and traffic signals at the major streets intersected. The residential access along the currently-extant sections of Veterans Pkwy will remain. (BTW: Sparks Blvd is a major arterial, not a limited-access expressway.)

This project has been planned for quite some time. With the potential alignment in mind, it explains why NDOT built the NB loop ramp to WB I-80 during the I-80 design-build project a few years ago.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 22, 2016, 10:20:23 PM
Alright, so as promised this would have been the western terminus of NV 79 at 6 Mile Canyon Road and NV 17 at C Street in Virginia City:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FNV79_zpsgwcsar6f.jpg&hash=25a5372230c93b5a4843e2e75636b2799019247f)

Basically NV 79 would have run the entire length of 6 Mile Canyon Road down hill to US 50 just east of Dayton.  I would imagine that the route was cut in 1976 during the renumbering and I don't have a date for when it was first signed.  This 1956 map shows the numbering scheme that includes 79 as described but yet to be paved:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~212115~5500230:Shell-Highway-Map-of-Nevada-?sort=pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date%2Cpub_date&qvq=q:nevada%2Bhighway%2Bmaps;sort:pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date%2Cpub_date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=5&trs=8

It would seem that all of 17 became the modern 341.  I'm still trying to figure out if the 51 was what is now is NV 342 or if it was the truck bypass of Gold Hill/Silver City that NV 341 now runs on.  I haven't found the best resources for the old Nevada route numbers other than maps.  The numbering scheme got confusing as all hell and it's no wonder it was renumbered like it was.

Six Mile Canyon Road was one of the legislated routes that was not maintained by NDOT, and removed with the 1976 renumbering.

NV 51 was located in northeast Nevada, connecting to ID 51. I'm assuming you mean NV 17? The truck bypass of Gold Hill/Silver City was renumbered to 17; the old route through the towns (current SR 342) had been rechristened as NV 80.


If you have access to old copies of state laws or Nevada Revised Statutes, that can be a good source of pre-1976 route information. However, many routes are described so generally that you have to supplement that research with maps.

The government document section of the UNR Knowledge Center (library) has a lot of old NDOT documents, including route logs and highway studies. When I found that a few years ago, it was like finding gold...but I haven't really had time lately to do much roadgeek research.

I had to figure it was either US 95A or US 93A somewhere, go figure it would be West Wendover.  I'm actually surprised that route still has stayed a US Route all these years with the large multiplex of I-80.  I was actually in Wendover last May but I honestly don't recall if there was US 93A signs on I-80 or not.  Which kind of figures considering how screwed up I had the signage on I-515.   The last time I was in Vegas was 2014 (May I want to say) which I took Tropicana to of US 95/93/I-515 was heading south to the Hoover Dam and Arizona.

Found this on Youtube today.  Apparently this is Bodie back in the 1950s right before the last 10 or so people left and it became a state park and before CA 270 was even an LRN.  The place looks completely the same today except for the bank building but damn the narrator almost sounds like he has contempt for the place.  :-D





Yeah look at the 1956 map, there is an arbitrary "51" right at the south end of NV 17 at US 50.  The way it's labeled would almost make you think that "51" was what went south out of Virginia City via Gold Hill and Silver City to US 50...could be a map error or me reading something wrong.  And you're right, most of the stuff that I do have on the pre-76 routes just mentions a lot of them but doesn't really give a ton of details leading to map hunting.  I have a pretty decent source for Nevada Road maps somewhere in my book marks that I'll have to dig up some time.  It's just funny that after all this time that 79 actually became a paved and somewhat reasonable road in comparison to some of the other non-state maintained ones like we discussed with 8A, 34, and 3C recently.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 23, 2016, 11:03:02 AM
I had to figure it was either US 95A or US 93A somewhere, go figure it would be West Wendover.  I'm actually surprised that route still has stayed a US Route all these years with the large multiplex of I-80.  I was actually in Wendover last May but I honestly don't recall if there was US 93A signs on I-80 or not.

US 93A has been a US route for a long time, with previous iterations as US 50A and US 50. It wouldn't get approved as an Alternate route today (and actually, it was approved as a *temporary* alternate in 1976...nothing like a 40-year temporary routing :-D ).

NDOT signs all the US route overlaps on I-80 pretty well, at least they were the last time I drove all the way across the state (fall 2013). They're generally good about signing the I/US overlaps, which makes the removal/covering of US 395 shields on most roadways intersecting I-580/US 395 all the more interesting...

Quote
Yeah look at the 1956 map, there is an arbitrary "51" right at the south end of NV 17 at US 50.  The way it's labeled would almost make you think that "51" was what went south out of Virginia City via Gold Hill and Silver City to US 50...could be a map error or me reading something wrong.  And you're right, most of the stuff that I do have on the pre-76 routes just mentions a lot of them but doesn't really give a ton of details leading to map hunting.  I have a pretty decent source for Nevada Road maps somewhere in my book marks that I'll have to dig up some time.  It's just funny that after all this time that 79 actually became a paved and somewhat reasonable road in comparison to some of the other non-state maintained ones like we discussed with 8A, 34, and 3C recently.

I totally missed that "51" on the map this morning. According to a collection of old state laws from 1958 (conveniently copied when I found them, for just this type of purpose), that NV 51 is legitimate. It is separate from what was NV 17 and NV 80. I forgot that the 51 designation was reassigned in the 1960s to what is now SR 225/Mountain City Hwy (previously a combination of parts of NV 11, 11A and 43) to match ID 51.

It makes sense that Six Mile Canyon Rd would eventually be paved, as it eliminates some backtracking between Virginia City and points east along US 50. Most of the other old routes we've discussed weren't really serving any useful population or purpose by renumbering time.

Figure I'll link over some of the other highways that I talked about or showed photos, maps, ect of this year::

Colony Mill Road, CA 198, and the Generals Highway

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=18518.0

-  Largely talk about the original entrance road to the Giant Forest, the replacement Generals Highway, and some history about CA 198

Mineral King Road/Proposed CA 276

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=18432.0

-  Discussion about Mineral King Road and the proposals that almost had it as a State Highway but ultimately played a factor in much of it being absorbed into Sequoia National Park

245 and Obscure California Highways

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=17893.0

-  Granted not all the discussion is mine and it covers a wide array of highways in the state.  I did post some photos and maps of the whole CA 245/CA 69/CA 65 wriggamoral from years past.  I also talked about CA 180 running on Dunlap Road before the modern alignment to Kings Canyon was built.



So with that in mind....I'll do the rest of the major road trips and route observations as I'm feeling up for it....at least for 2016.  So start things off, Bakersfield to Big Basin State Park back in early July.

The background here was that I noticed on my Cousin's social media profile that she along with her daughter and husband were in San Jose apparently for the Olympic Trails.  I called her and apparently she had no idea that I had been back in California for several years.  Apparently they had tickets to this thing for two years and never caught that I was in the general area.  So basically I figured since I had a free day that I ought to book it up to San Jose at least to have lunch...apparently they had no other plans to see anything but San Francisco.  I offered Yosemite or Big Sur....but these are Virginia folks who don't drive much which became apparent later in the day.

Anyways I had a long haul ahead of me so I figured the most direct route back and forth would be best....if I had time I was planning on taking CA 25...  This was the rough route up to San Jose and Big Basin that I took:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Bakersfield,+CA/Cupertino,+CA/Big+Basin+Redwoods+State+Park,+Big+Basin+Way,+Boulder+Creek,+CA/@35.5002477,-119.9370622,9z/data=!4m30!4m29!1m15!1m1!1s0x80ea6bc8b994cb0d:0x59360c0998fe74c8!2m2!1d-119.0187125!2d35.3732921!3m4!1m2!1d-119.5715009!2d35.6013495!3s0x80eb051c797b7c03:0x274977902b2b923f!3m4!1m2!1d-121.9405153!2d37.3038034!3s0x808e34d3758b4adf:0x62f8fa192555ad7c!1m5!1m1!1s0x808fb4571bd377ab:0x394d3fe1a3e178b4!2m2!1d-122.0321823!2d37.3229978!1m5!1m1!1s0x808e53c72994da41:0x8bf68e13f4014c2b!2m2!1d-122.222461!2d37.1722634!3e0?hl=en

-  CA 99 is...just boring so I took it up to CA 46 to over to I-5.  I don't particularly care for taking CA 58 around Bakersfield, maybe some day after the Western Parkway is finished.
-  I-5 from CA 46 to Los Banos ain't the most exciting of roads but it usually doesn't have much in the way of traffic asides from long haul freight and local truckers.  At least to this point things were going well...but I figured they would go to hell by Pacheco Pass and Gilroy.
-  CA 152 was a disaster like always.  The worst part was that there was a huge truck tire that ripped off a semi in front of me which I had to do a pretty quick swerve to avoid.  I noticed the new truck lane being built for Pacheco Pass but I was early enough to get over without much issue.  Once CA 152 went down to two-lanes however traffic got bad....like really bad...maybe 20 MPH snails pace.  The possibility of a toll road through here is highly intriguing, truckers be damned.  After slogging around I finally hit US 101.
-  I should clarify, my Cousin was staying in Cupertino to be exact.  I didn't want to go to downtown San Jose so I cut west on CA 85 and up CA 17 to I-280.  Traffic was really only kind of bogging down on CA 85, both CA 17 and I-280 was good shape.
-  I picked my Cousin and her family up and began the climb via Pierce Road to CA 9.  I kind of found CA 9 to be a little on the way too slow side and largely had local populace going way over the speed limit.  It was right about this time that my Cousin told me she wasn't expecting the road to be so twisty....bad omen of things to come.  :-D  Her husband wanted to stop and take pictures of the coastal mountains...which of course I took a couple too:

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Once I hit CA 236 things got interesting when the road narrowed to a lane and half.  Basically my Cousin is freaking out at this point and starts to ask me silly questions about elevation sickness (despite the peak elevation being 2,500 feet).  The worst was when a log truck was coming the other way I got an earful of "holy $%@ is that a log truck in my ear?"  So finally we arrive at Big Basin and I show them some of the Redwood Groves, they seemed to enjoy.  I took the first picture with the intent of mocking my Cousin's fear of the "oh so high mountain road:"

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Heading out of Big Basin I took the route all the way back to CA 9 but to Boulder Creek.  I wanted to cut north on CA 35 but my Cousin told me she was car sick along with her daughter.  So I ended up going back the same back down hill to Cupertino...kind of boring doubling back, at least in my opinion.  I got treated to lunch at some sort of Chinese place which was sufficient.  Afterwards I dropped the crew back at the hotel and headed back to US 101 via I-280.

US 101 and CA 152 turned out be a complete disaster.  I want to say it was 2:30 PM but the traffic was heavy and backing up severely.  The 511 service told me there was "congestion" which to me always means a cluster%#% of a traffic jam.  CA 152 in Gilroy was brutal and backed up all the way into town from Pacheco Pass.  Needless to say any delusion I had about taking CA 25 to CA 198 was crushed by traffic.  So I ended up cutting back over to CA 99 from I-5 via CA 198 and headed home.

So observation....if this wasn't a family affair falling into my lap I would have never taken the route that I did.  More than likely I would have taken a day and headed up CA 1 completely or used CA 25 as described before.  Apparently there was an encounter my Cousin had with Suicide 17 heading to Santa Cruz....the comment was "surprise sudden turn in the mountains."  :-D  I honestly don't think they'll be back, they did their San Francisco tourist obligation the next day and headed home content.  I told them to give me advanced notice next time...if there is a next time...because their trip won't include wimpy coastal mountains.  :rolleyes:

Also...it also reinforced why I picked Bakersfield over L.A., San Jose, and San Diego....same money and I've gotten way too old to tolerate the traffic everyday.

Quote from: roadfro on August 23, 2016, 10:15:51 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 23, 2016, 11:03:02 AM
I had to figure it was either US 95A or US 93A somewhere, go figure it would be West Wendover.  I'm actually surprised that route still has stayed a US Route all these years with the large multiplex of I-80.  I was actually in Wendover last May but I honestly don't recall if there was US 93A signs on I-80 or not.

US 93A has been a US route for a long time, with previous iterations as US 50A and US 50. It wouldn't get approved as an Alternate route today (and actually, it was approved as a *temporary* alternate in 1976...nothing like a 40-year temporary routing :-D ).

NDOT signs all the US route overlaps on I-80 pretty well, at least they were the last time I drove all the way across the state (fall 2013). They're generally good about signing the I/US overlaps, which makes the removal/covering of US 395 shields on most roadways intersecting I-580/US 395 all the more interesting...

Quote
Yeah look at the 1956 map, there is an arbitrary "51" right at the south end of NV 17 at US 50.  The way it's labeled would almost make you think that "51" was what went south out of Virginia City via Gold Hill and Silver City to US 50...could be a map error or me reading something wrong.  And you're right, most of the stuff that I do have on the pre-76 routes just mentions a lot of them but doesn't really give a ton of details leading to map hunting.  I have a pretty decent source for Nevada Road maps somewhere in my book marks that I'll have to dig up some time.  It's just funny that after all this time that 79 actually became a paved and somewhat reasonable road in comparison to some of the other non-state maintained ones like we discussed with 8A, 34, and 3C recently.

I totally missed that "51" on the map this morning. According to a collection of old state laws from 1958 (conveniently copied when I found them, for just this type of purpose), that NV 51 is legitimate. It is separate from what was NV 17 and NV 80. I forgot that the 51 designation was reassigned in the 1960s to what is now SR 225/Mountain City Hwy (previously a combination of parts of NV 11, 11A and 43) to match ID 51.

It makes sense that Six Mile Canyon Rd would eventually be paved, as it eliminates some backtracking between Virginia City and points east along US 50. Most of the other old routes we've discussed weren't really serving any useful population or purpose by renumbering time.

I honestly didn't look for the US 93A but I had to figure now that I thought about it that would make sense since NDOT seems to be more on the up and up with route marker maintenance.  At least they are consistent with co-signage in that it's placed everywhere to the same standard.  Out of the California side it gets way more wonky with multiplexes or "implied" ones that don't exist on paper like US 101 and CA 1.  But you're right with huge stance the AASHTO took against route suffixes and intrastate routes less than 300 miles they wouldn't stand a chance being approved today.  I would suspect US 89A would be forced into a 3d out in Arizona and Utah in the same vein if it was a modern request.

So where was that 50s NV 51 going if NV 17 and NV 80 were already in place?  In regards to Six Mile Canyon, any idea when it was actually paved?...or if it was Storrey County that did it?  I would have to think it was paved before the 76 renumbering?   But yes a lot of those eliminated routes basically served former communities or ghost towns, but by the time the legislative acts were enacted they probably did make more sense if not just slightly with trace populations.  With 3C I really don't know what they were going for.  Bodie was basically dead by 1940 and Aurora was done for good by the late 1910s.

Last one for the night....this was the Crater Lake trip back in May.

So basically this would have been one of the first road trips I posted about on the forum.  I had some time off in early May and wanted to clear off some stuff I hadn't seen yet in Northern California and Oregon.  Namely this would be the Trinity Mountains, Oregon Caves, and Lava Beds National Monument.  I had some friends recently move to Bend, OR and it was a good opportunity to meet up with them for a day at Crater Lake since it was along my route.  The only thing that I didn't get to do was the Oregon Caves...

So basically the first day started out with a quick early morning to get past Sacramento on CA 99, US 50/I-80 BL, and I-5.  I like I-5 north of Sacramento save for one thing....it really needs to be raised to 75-80 MPH at least until Redding.  I was hoping for better weather but Mount Shasta was pretty covered up:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F1Shasta_zpstnzdvspl.jpg&hash=dd35b913e83840d8d3026aadbf60ad4313257f2a)

Believe it or not that is Mount Shasta from I-5...you can see about 10,000 feet up on the mountain...good thing I had the full 14,179 feet back in 2014 from US 97:

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Speaking of US 97, I got off at Weed and noticed the ceiling was lifting in Oregon but was backing up on Mount Shasta.  Basically this mean possible snow given the elevation if not heavy rain so I booked it CA 161 on the Oregon State Line ASAP.  CA 161 is kind of weird given it straddles the state line and is mostly 65 MPH instead of 55 MPH.  The south side of the highway contains Lower Klamath Lake was connected to upper Klamath Lake prior to the Klamath Project:

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I cut south on Hill Road which becomes part of the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Highway which passes Tule Lake on the way to Lava Beds National Monument.  Basically this is another controlled natural lake and is very close to one of the Japanese interment camps that was on the east side of the lake near the town of Tule Lake.  Once I got to Lava Beds the rain started to come down hard which isn't what you want while trying to explore lava tubes. 

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After doing what I came for at Lava Beds I booked it back over the state line at Merill Road just off of CA 161 which apparently is one of the ways into the state with no Agriculture Station.  :awesomeface:  I spent a little too much time in Crater Lake the next day with my friends and never made it to the Oregon Caves.  I did stop by Jacksonville really quick though since it was one of the few Gold Rush era mining strikes in Oregon.

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I took US 199 back into California from Oregon. US 199 on the Oregon side is boring as sin but across the state line it's a completely bad ass time given it goes from sudden expressway to super narrow river road.  I'm actually kind of surprised that this hung on as a US Route given California's stance on them and how short this really is at 80 miles.  There is a huge Redwood Grove near Crescent City but I couldn't overt my eyes from the road enough to get a good look of a place to pull over.  Beautiful and fun road, but probably a lot more difficult than might be believed for a US Route.  I took US 101 into Crescent City to spend the night.  The next morning I headed down US 101 to Arcata to turn east on CA 299.  For some reason a lot of the park roads that were old alignments of US 101 were shut down so really the good Redwood Grove I was able to reach was Lady Bird Johnson.  I did stop on some of the beaches before cutting onto an old surface alignment of US 299 but I'll work on the Trinity Range tomorrow since it will take a lot longer to drum up a road report on.

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Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 23, 2016, 10:50:17 PM
So where was that 50s NV 51 going if NV 17 and NV 80 were already in place?

The first 51 iteration was just a short highway connecting from NV 17 near Silver City to NV 2A in Dayton. Nearest I can tell from the description, I think it is what Google marks as "Dayton Toll Road (https://www.google.com/maps/dir/39.2579808,-119.6354175/39.2462837,-119.5907577/@39.2498097,-119.6116434,15.5z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m5!3m4!1m2!1d-119.6090082!2d39.2463967!3s0x8099088698da45b9:0x50b7445d954452ee!1m0!3e0)".

Quote
In regards to Six Mile Canyon, any idea when it was actually paved?...or if it was Storrey County that did it?  I would have to think it was paved before the 76 renumbering?

After bedtime so I won't research it in detail, but did just take a quick look at the 1976-77 NDOT state map online. Six Mile Canyon Road is not yet paved on that map, so its paving was almost certainly a Storey County endeavor whenever it finally happened.

Quote from: roadfro on August 24, 2016, 03:31:22 AM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 23, 2016, 10:50:17 PM
So where was that 50s NV 51 going if NV 17 and NV 80 were already in place?

The first 51 iteration was just a short highway connecting from NV 17 near Silver City to NV 2A in Dayton. Nearest I can tell from the description, I think it is what Google marks as "Dayton Toll Road (https://www.google.com/maps/dir/39.2579808,-119.6354175/39.2462837,-119.5907577/@39.2498097,-119.6116434,15.5z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m5!3m4!1m2!1d-119.6090082!2d39.2463967!3s0x8099088698da45b9:0x50b7445d954452ee!1m0!3e0)".

Quote
In regards to Six Mile Canyon, any idea when it was actually paved?...or if it was Storrey County that did it?  I would have to think it was paved before the 76 renumbering?

After bedtime so I won't research it in detail, but did just take a quick look at the 1976-77 NDOT state map online. Six Mile Canyon Road is not yet paved on that map, so its paving was almost certainly a Storey County endeavor whenever it finally happened.

Yeah no wonder that one got dropped so soon, why not just make it an extension of 2A if it was such a big deal to have some extra derelict roads connect US 50 and Virginia City?  I mean it's pretty obvious that there was a huge problem with all these silly legislative numbers...it's amusing how Nevada probably went from one of the least organized highway systems to one of the best.  Even stranger....I just noticed that there was no state highway number on Silver Peak Road east of Silver Peak to US 95?....really there is a stubby 51 and some bat shit crazy routes like 3C but nothing for east of Silver Peak?  :rolleyes:

Kind of makes me wonder if 79 had been paved in the 50s or 60s if it would have been dropped or picked up for state maintenance?  That's a pretty handy little short cut if you are heading out towards Fallon rather than Carson City.

Alright let's see if I can get through CA 299 in the Trinity Range.

As I'm sure most of your are acutely aware, CA 299 was US Route 299 from 1934 to 1964.  Originally US 299 ran from US 101 in Arcata to US 395 in Alturas, so basically it was just slightly less than 300 mile intrastate which was probably the largest reason it bumped down to a state highway.  There seems to be some conflicting opinion on whether US 299 actually went to the Nevada state line and NV 8A.  According to cahighways the route always went to the state line but USends said it ended in Alturas for it's entire history.  I'm thinking that the stub on cahighways might be missing something or has a typo but the mystery of why US 299/CA 299 goes to the Nevada state line is a mystery I'll leave to you to discern for yourself:

http://www.cahighways.org/289-299.html
http://www.usends.com/90-99/299/299.html

Also, it seems US 299 was signed as CA 44 before the US Route designation.

Okay, so basically the Trinity Mountains is best known today as Bigfoot Country (which "apparently" the famous sighting happened somewhere on CA 96).  The Trinity Range was also the site of one of the more significant non-Sierra gold rush strikes with Weaverville largely being the hub of the activity.  Much like CA 49 there is a bunch of old mining communities and ghost towns.  Unlike CA 49 the terrain is much more difficult, especially between Blue Lake and Weaverville which largely follows the Trinity River.

Speaking of Blue Lake....why in the hell is there a 5 mile freeway from Arcata to Blue Lake?  I mean...that's a little on the excessive side even by California standards.  Apparently CA 200 is the original alignment of US 299/CA 299/CA 44 along with probably Glendale Road to Blue Lake.  I would speculate driving through Blue Lake that the old alignment probably ran along Railroad Avenue and Blue Lake Blvd. 

Blue Lake is kind of a strange town in of itself.  Apparently the town was actually three towns that were founded from the 1850s to the 1870s; Scottsville, Powersville, and Mad River which all consolidated to "Blue Lake" around 1910.  Supposedly the town name of Blue Lake comes from a lake that disappeared in the 1920s when the Mad River shifted course.  Blue Lake was also along the Arcata and Mad River Railroad which started as a narrow gauge logging route in the 1850s and actually stayed in operation until the 1990s.  Regardless something neat before starting up the mountains to Weaverville:

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East of Blue Lake CA 299 has a couple passing zones but they largely disappear pretty quickly which means you're on your own to pass on the side of the Trinity River on two-lane sections until Weaverville.  The road is a lot of fun because there is almost no traffic at all.  Basically it's about as fast as your can handle based off your own skill and capabilities of your car.  There are some nice views of the canyons just off of 299:

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About 15 miles west of Weaverville there is a ghost town called Helena just north of CA 299.  Apparently Helena was the site of a mining claim back in 1851 and went through the names; Bagdad, North Fork, and Cover before settling on the modern name.  Supposedly a post office opened up in the 1890s but I have no idea when it was shut down or the town was abandoned.  I would speculate it was a relatively modern abandonment given the good condition of the existing structures:

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Weaverville is kind of neat and definitely a welcome site after almost 90 miles of canyon driving from Blue Lake.  Like I said before Weaverville was the hub of the Trinity Range mining activity.  Apparently Weaverville was so friggin remote that it actually took a couple years into the 1850s to get a stage route running from Shasta.  When I was passing through this was during the whole landslide debacle north of Weaverville on CA 3....I want to say the dirt bypass wasn't opened up yet if I remember reading the VMS signs correct:

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I wish that I had taken a picture of the construction on CA 299 east of Weaverville.  The highway was down to dirt for some apparent passing lane expansion and it was highly amusing to see the general panicked driving patterns evident in the people who were traveling to Redding.  I'll give Caltrans credit though...no flag man which was just fine with me.  About 34 miles east of Weaverville there is another ghost town called Whiskeytown which is largely submerged beneath the lake created by the Whiskeytown Dam.  Apparently Whiskeytown was founded in 1849 and actually existed until sometime between 1960 to 1962 when the Whiskeytown Dam was being built.  The only building I could find was this one, apparently it used to say "Whiskeytown" on the structure but it's been removed:

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About 5 miles east of Whiskeytown you have Shasta which is actually now a State Park much like Bodie or Columbia and one of the cool ghost town sites in the state.  Shasta was founded possibly 1848 (I find that date somewhat questionable) and was largely used as a freight supply town for the mines around Weaverville.  The general stage routes out of Weaverville would largely become the alignment US 299/CA 299 ended up taking:

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Out of Shasta I cut east into Redding where I took CA 44 to I-5 to cut back to Sacramento.  I would probably rate CA 299 as one of my five favorite state highways simply for the Trinity section.  You could say that I'm a fan....

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Since I was staying the night in downtown Sacramento I was within running distance of Old Sacramento.  I won't waste my time with going through the history of the city all the way back to Sutter's Fort and the Gold Rush era but it's definitely neat to see something so old in the middle of a downtown area.  Sacramento doesn't appear to have been damaged anywhere near as bad as San Francisco during the 1906 Earthquake but my understanding always was that it was the fire that took most of San Fran's mining era buildings.  I wouldn't try parking or driving into Old Sac on the weekend....that looked ugly.  :-D

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Heading out of Sacramento I decided that I didn't want to take 99 all the way home.  So I cut off on CA 4 around Stockton and began cutting east.  I hit what was left of Telegraph City making the climb up to Copperopolis which I mentioned previously as one of the big Copper Claims during the Gold Rush era.  I want to say Telegraph City lasted sometime into the 20th century simply because Telegraph Road suspiciously looks like the original alignment of CA 4:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Telegraph+City,+CA+95228/@37.9344382,-120.7563996,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x8090f2f3bbcc2ca1:0x945176c38639a8e1!8m2!3d37.93444!4d-120.73889?hl=en

Anyways, not much to see but I would speculate the bricks used in this farm are possibly from building foundations:

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I cut down E15 to CA 108/120 and followed 120 towards Yosemite the Priest Grade....I had found out the day previously that Glacier Point had just opened.  I wish that I had stopped at the top to get a picture of both grades but I was battling a car going uphill on the New Grade which is 4% as opposed to the 17% Old Grade that most GPS units will take you down.  I did stop in Groveland/Big Oak Flat briefly and Clavery River.  Like I said earlier in the thread Big Oak Flat and Groveland were responsible for building the stage route to Tioga Pass which made it easy to connect the rest of the route that latter climb Lee Vining Canyon on CA 120:

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Since I already talked about all the roads in Yosemite I'll just say that I took Wawona/CA 41 out of the park after Glacier Point.  Glacier Point was just about perfect in early May...this might have been the best photo I've ever taken in 44 National Parks:

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Coming down into Fresno I cut east on Road 145 which heads east to Millerton Lake and the Friant Dam.  Ironically Road 145 matches the CA 145 that has an eastern terminus at it with CA 41.  I checked out the Millerton Courthouse which was part of the town of Millerton.  That's significant because Millerton was the first county seat of Fresno County in 1856 before it was switched to Fresno in 1874.  Millerton was drowned out by the Friant Dam being completed in 1944 and ironically the town would be located in Madera County today:

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From here it was a fast 65 MPH run on Friant Road (yes it's really split 65 MPH expressway for some reason) back to CA 41 and in turn boring ass CA 99 all the way home.

When I get some I'll get CA 180/Kings Canyon up.  There is some other stuff from this year but a lot of it would be repeats...so I need a little more time to whiddle out the clutter for 2016.

Just some thoughts about your trip to my neck of the woods...

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 23, 2016, 10:40:08 PM
-  CA 99 is...just boring so I took it up to CA 46 to over to I-5.  I don't particularly care for taking CA 58 around Bakersfield, maybe some day after the Western Parkway is finished.

Agreed.  When I make my trips to Las Vegas, I always use 46 to go between I-5 and 99. 

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 23, 2016, 10:40:08 PM
-  CA 152 was a disaster like always.  The worst part was that there was a huge truck tire that ripped off a semi in front of me which I had to do a pretty quick swerve to avoid.  I noticed the new truck lane being built for Pacheco Pass but I was early enough to get over without much issue.  Once CA 152 went down to two-lanes however traffic got bad....like really bad...maybe 20 MPH snails pace.  The possibility of a toll road through here is highly intriguing, truckers be damned.  After slogging around I finally hit US 101.

Out of curiosity, what was the time of day when you encountered the congestion on 152?  Also, I don't recall seeing any Caltrans projects for a new truck lane on 152.  Whereabouts was the construction?

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 23, 2016, 10:40:08 PM
-  I should clarify, my Cousin was staying in Cupertino to be exact.  I didn't want to go to downtown San Jose so I cut west on CA 85 and up CA 17 to I-280.  Traffic was really only kind of bogging down on CA 85, both CA 17 and I-280 was good shape.

Interesting... Generally, if north 85 is bogging down (which does happen during the morning commute), north 17 and north 280 would also be pretty congested.  As a local, I would have stayed on 85 to get to Cupertino using either the De Anza Blvd or Stevens Creek Blvd exits.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 23, 2016, 10:40:08 PM
-  I picked my Cousin and her family up and began the climb via Pierce Road to CA 9.  I kind of found CA 9 to be a little on the way too slow side and largely had local populace going way over the speed limit.

The speed limit on CA-9 was reduced a couple of years ago due to a higher-than-normal accident rate and to quell complaints from cyclists that the road is too dangerous.  Most locals tend to ignore the new lower limit.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 23, 2016, 10:40:08 PM
Heading out of Big Basin I took the route all the way back to CA 9 but to Boulder Creek.  I wanted to cut north on CA 35 but my Cousin told me she was car sick along with her daughter.  So I ended up going back the same back down hill to Cupertino...kind of boring doubling back, at least in my opinion.  I got treated to lunch at some sort of Chinese place which was sufficient.  Afterwards I dropped the crew back at the hotel and headed back to US 101 via I-280.

That was probably a good idea.  Had you headed north on 35, you're looking at a 35 mile drive back to Cupertino via 35, 84 and I-280.  Between highways 9 and 84, there are no really good ways to get down to the valley.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 23, 2016, 10:40:08 PM
US 101 and CA 152 turned out be a complete disaster.  I want to say it was 2:30 PM but the traffic was heavy and backing up severely.  The 511 service told me there was "congestion" which to me always means a cluster%#% of a traffic jam.  CA 152 in Gilroy was brutal and backed up all the way into town from Pacheco Pass.

If this was during the week, you're pretty much SOL as there are no alternate routes to avoid the commute traffic.  All freeways headed out of the valley are pretty much congested from 2:30 until 7.  Next time (if there is a "next time") you might want to try using Monterey Hwy between Bernal and Cochrane.  This used to be US 101 before the freeway was built.  Yes there are some signals and the speed limit is only 50 MPH but it might be better than the 4 lanes of stop-and-go traffic on 101.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 23, 2016, 10:40:08 PM
Apparently there was an encounter my Cousin had with Suicide 17 heading to Santa Cruz....the comment was "surprise sudden turn in the mountains."  :-D

While there are a couple of big sweeping curves on 17 headed to Santa Cruz, there is a notorious one headed north towards San Jose.  Just after going over the summit and passing Summit Road/CA-35, the first curve going downhill is called the "Valley Surprise".  It's a rather tight curve that has a decreasing radius, meaning you have to keep turning the steering wheel to the right to stay in your lane.  Many have been caught by surprise given the number of skid marks on the the pavement and paint marks on the concrete center median.

^^^

-  Given my location it's often easier and more laid back for me to take CA 178 to US 395 or all the way to Ridgecrest.  I tend to find a back way into Nevada usually via State Line Road or something...I can't stand I-15.  But yes, it has to be some pretty special circumstances for me to pick 58 or over 46 for the cut-over to I-5.  Even CA 198 is much more tolerable usually.
-  The congestion on CA 152 was at about 7:00 AM.  Basically if I was planning this all out I would have been up in San Jose probably for at least a day or two rather than the hoofing it back home.  The problem was that there was no notice and I had things to do that weekend...  I was going to stay a day if I could have talked my cousin into Big Sur or Yosemite for the morning but they wanted to slog into San Fran...I suppose that's the thing to do if you are an east coaster.
-  The hotel was just north of I-280 in Cupertino.  Really I was just trying to zig-zag around the traffic back ups hence why I dived on CA 17 when 85 started to stop at the interchange.  I know the main routes in the Bay Area but I'm not the most adept on the surface routes...most of my work used to be down in L.A. or San Diego prior to what I do now.
-  Yeah I noticed on 9 nobody was paying attention I thought it was way slower than what I remembered.  Regardless I would have liked to take CA 35/Skyline for awhile since I drove so far up there, I figured the scenic detour would be worth it.  Apparently I really freaked my Cousin and her kid out...what seems normal to me like 236 apparently ain't so to them.  I think they were a little afraid of what was waiting up 35.  :rolleyes:
-  Honestly I should have just chugged it down to CA 25 and made due with getting home a little later.  I was pretty up in arms with the traffic hence I why I decided the most direct route home.  In retrospect the slower scenic drive with no traffic and mountains would have been pretty nice. 
-  Yep and they were surprised by the Valley Surprised.  I knew exactly where they were by how they described it.  I really think they weren't prepared for this trip, why fly across the country and not do anything for three of the seven days you are there?...much less research where you are going.  But I digress, it was really nice to see some family out this way for a change and at minimum they seemed pretty happy to see me and my wife.  I suppose it's just habit for me to try to suggest the "best" roads possible or try to steer people away from cities to real "scenery."  I'm sure it drives most of my family up the wall, most of them are east coasters asides from my brother.

Back onto to US 299:

-  According to cahighways LRN 28 was the route between Alturas and the Nevada State line, it clear refers to US 299 running the entire distance post 1935:

http://www.cahighways.org/025-032.html

However the maps from 1963 and 1964 show a different story.  1963 still shows US 299 ending in Alturas while LRN 28 goes to the Nevada line, in 1964 it's all CA 299:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239528~5511852:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1963?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=54&trs=86

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239525~5511850:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1964?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=56&trs=86

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 24, 2016, 11:29:52 PM
Back onto to US 299:

-  According to cahighways LRN 28 was the route between Alturas and the Nevada State line, it clear refers to US 299 running the entire distance post 1935:

http://www.cahighways.org/025-032.html

However the maps from 1963 and 1964 show a different story.  1963 still shows US 299 ending in Alturas while LRN 28 goes to the Nevada line, in 1964 it's all CA 299:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239528~5511852:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1963?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=54&trs=86

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239525~5511850:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1964?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=56&trs=86

The map definition makes more sense to me. It's doubtful that AASHTO would have approved a US highway to end as a spur like this jutting off to a state line without purpose. And it's clear that US 299 was never signed in Nevada (and I can't recall ever seeing a Nevada map with US 299 close to the border).

I'm sure it's an error by cahighways but it's intriguing to think if there was some secret squirrel plan to extend US 299...or some hidden records that the AASHTO has showing a silent route at some point.  I know for me at least I've brought it up a lot in the fictional threads along with the Winnecucca-to-the-sea.

There is also a big difference between a Sign Route and a Legislative Route. LRN 23 was US 6... and US 395... and SR-89. LRN 4... wasn't all signed US 99. The route that present-day SR-299 follows WAS a State Highway along its entire length but wasn't all signed as such. All the descriptions of US 299 have given a US 101 to US 395 route, Eureka to Alturas, not the extension over the Warner Mountains.

Quote from: sdmichael on August 25, 2016, 12:57:54 PM
There is also a big difference between a Sign Route and a Legislative Route. LRN 23 was US 6... and US 395... and SR-89. LRN 4... wasn't all signed US 99. The route that present-day SR-299 follows WAS a State Highway along its entire length but wasn't all signed as such. All the descriptions of US 299 have given a US 101 to US 395 route, Eureka to Alturas, not the extension over the Warner Mountains.

True and the maps usually show the Signed Routes and LRNs pretty well which is why I'm think there is a goof on the cahighways page.  None of those pre-64 maps show US 299 going east of Alturas but a good deal show the LRN 28 instead.  The cahighways page on 299 is written in a way that insinuates 299 always went to the state line when I think they meant LRN 28.

Thanks for the great trip reports and photos!  I hope I'll be able to do another CA-NV road trip before too much longer.

I wonder if the freeway portion of 299 was a pilot project for making it a freeway from I-5 to 101.  The reason would have been:  Eureka and Arcata need big truck access for their fishing, industry, etc.  Richardson Grove and other bottlenecks along 101 are never going to allow big truck access.  Therefore the best way would be 299 to I-5.

California didn't keep 199 as a US route because they thought it was an especially high capacity road.  They kept it only because it crosses state lines and Oregon wasn't ready to convert it to state route.  California converted every US route to state route, except those that crossed state lines that the other state(s) didn't want to downgrade.  Remember, US routes have no particular standards for speed, passing opportunities, vertical clearance, weight, or anything really.  So California's thinking was there was no need to have US routes at all.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 24, 2016, 11:29:52 PM
-  The congestion on CA 152 was at about 7:00 AM.  Basically if I was planning this all out I would have been up in San Jose probably for at least a day or two rather than the hoofing it back home.

That makes sense then as there is quite a bit of commute traffic from Los Banos.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 24, 2016, 11:29:52 PM
-  The hotel was just north of I-280 in Cupertino.  Really I was just trying to zig-zag around the traffic back ups hence why I dived on CA 17 when 85 started to stop at the interchange.

That also makes sense as 85 does slow down at 17 and remains that way into Mountain View during the morning commute.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 24, 2016, 11:29:52 PM
Apparently I really freaked my Cousin and her kid out...what seems normal to me like 236 apparently ain't so to them.  I think they were a little afraid of what was waiting up 35.  :rolleyes:

Too bad, because 35 north of 9 is a really nice relatively wide two-lane highway with some sweeping curves and fantastic views if the fog hasn't rolled in.  Oddly enough, 35 south of 9 is very narrow road with many one-lane segments.

Quote from: kkt on August 25, 2016, 02:24:17 PM
I wonder if the freeway portion of 299 was a pilot project for making it a freeway from I-5 to 101.  The reason would have been:  Eureka and Arcata need big truck access for their fishing, industry, etc.  Richardson Grove and other bottlenecks along 101 are never going to allow big truck access.  Therefore the best way would be 299 to I-5.

As I recall, the long term plan was for all of 101 and 299 to become freeway/expressway in NorCal.  101 is doable.  299? Boy howdy, is there a lot of terrain taming to be done for that to happen!

Rick

Quote from: nexus73 on August 25, 2016, 07:15:56 PM

Quote from: kkt on August 25, 2016, 02:24:17 PM
I wonder if the freeway portion of 299 was a pilot project for making it a freeway from I-5 to 101.  The reason would have been:  Eureka and Arcata need big truck access for their fishing, industry, etc.  Richardson Grove and other bottlenecks along 101 are never going to allow big truck access.  Therefore the best way would be 299 to I-5.

As I recall, the long term plan was for all of 101 and 299 to become freeway/expressway in NorCal.  101 is doable.  299? Boy howdy, is there a lot of terrain taming to be done for that to happen!

And remember that timber was king of that region when 299 in Humboldt was built in 1965. And there was a large lumberyard in Blue Lake at the time.
299 overall is in the freeway and expressway system, and it was shown as a proposed freeway on early maps. But a lot of other roads were as well. If you think about it, if Redding and Eureka had both gained a significant amount of population and regional prominence (and Redding kinda did), then the two cities would need a freeway connection between them. Caltrans had planned for that possibility, but the decline of the lumber industry has likely doomed it. I don't think the Eureka area will be growing much more anytime soon (especially when pot becomes legal throughout the state).

KKT

-  You might be right in regards to the lumber with Blue Lake and Eureka once having a significant industry.  Nowadays it's rare to see any trucks on 299 from Eureka to Redding, I didn't see a single one on this trip.

I guess that I never found US 199 to be "high capacity."  The road is extremely remote and pretty damn treacherous even with the expressway portions which are basically glorified passing zones.  Personally I think if CA 62 got finished about 10 years early instead of the mid-70s when I-10 was fully functional US 60 would probably still be around in California:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239506~5511838:California-State-Highways,-December?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=68&trs=86


Myosh_Tino

-  Yeah the cards were basically 100% stacked not in my favor with things being a Friday and having to compete rush hour.  At least I had an educated assumption as to what I was in for...usually I hit the Bay Area on the weekend due to ease of transportation.  Had things been my way they would have been planned out much more.  I really would have liked to do more of 35...I guess that I'll wait until winter hits and the Sierras aren't largely available. 

Nexus73 and coatimundi

-  Basically it just goes back to the lumber industry largely shuttering around Eureka and Blue Lake.  Like I said, not one single truck over that entire distance of travel...either direction.  Seems like the entire area is way past it's prime except with in regards to tourism.  The terrain of 299 is way too difficult to make for a viable expressway probably even with a strong lumber industry. 

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 25, 2016, 10:55:59 PM
KKT

-  You might be right in regards to the lumber with Blue Lake and Eureka once having a significant industry.  Nowadays it's rare to see any trucks on 299 from Eureka to Redding, I didn't see a single one on this trip.

Yes, Caltrans ended up doing a lot of improvements to 101 so it's a pretty good truck route now, except for Richardson Grove.  So 299 never got upgrades that would make it a good truck route, aside from the Arcata to Blue Lake section.

Quote
I guess that I never found US 199 to be "high capacity."

Yeah, it's not high capacity at all.  California kept it as a US route only because it also passes through Oregon, same as the other US routes that California kept in 1964.

One thing that keeps more industry from coming to Eureka and Arcata is the not so good truck access.  101 still has the size limitation at Richardson Grove.  Of course, some who live on the north coast are happy that there's limited industry there, while others are not.

Today's road adventure was FINALLY the Parkfield Grade.  For those who are familiar with some of my posts on the Pacific Southwest Board I've been talking about the Parkfield Grade for a long time.  Well today was the day...and it was worth the trip.  First though I headed out of Bakersfield north on CA 99 and cut over CA 198 before heading up CA 41 for the night.  Since I had some time to kill I decided to see if my route research on the pre-1964 CA 198 expressway held true with the older surface alignment in Kings County:

-  First I flipped around on 7th Avenue east of Hanford near the expressway extension to Goshen and CA 99.  Basically there is a cut-off stub of Old CA 198 that starts here at East Lacey Blvd, you can see it on the right in this photo:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FIMG_8723_zpsztyelim1.jpg&hash=a3dcbbf1e9f295db15f15bcaa296056bf917a6f1)

-  Continuing west on East Lacey I crossed CA 43 which would have been routed here in 1963 when the route of LRN was completed.  CA 43 always appeared to use this bypass route of Hanford and never 10th Avenue which seems like LRN 135 was being built towards initially:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FIMG_8725_zpskf5gjuly.jpg&hash=074f2682ff2f307ee376e0d7f7e0b5b998688ade)

-  Old CA 198 picks up a Business Route sign in the above photo...or did since it seems to have been displaced by construction.  Old CA 198 would have followed 7th Street in the first picture below, I initially thought that it might have cut south on Douty on the second picture but that turns out not to be the case:

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-  Old CA 198 would have cut across 11th Avenue and jogged to the right in the first pic on Garner Avenue before swinging left on West Lacey Blvd in the second pic.  I would speculate that there was a traffic light here in the past:

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-  Old CA 198 would have cut west on West Lacey to 14th Avenue and cut south where I am in the first pic to Armona.  In Armona the route would have cut west first on Front Street in the second pic (right turn) and merge into Hanford-Armona Road which can be seen on the left in the third pic:

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-  Old CA 198 followed Hanford-Armona until what was 19th 1/2 Avenue which is largely absorbed by the CA 41 expressway in the first pic.  Turning south Old CA 198 followed CA 41 where it turned west on Jackson Avenue in the second pic which would be a right hand turn.  Old CA 198 would have followed two bridges over the Kings River one of which is in the third pic and was roughly cut off by the new expressway in the forth pic...the old alignment heads straight towards the power lines:

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Anyways before I get too ahead of myself here at the maps I used to find the Pre-Expressway alignement:

1960 Highway Map:
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239537~5511858:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1960?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=48&trs=86
1961 Highway Map: 
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239534~5511856:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1961?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=50&trs=86
1962 Highway Map
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239531~5511854:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1962?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=52&trs=86
1963 Highway Map
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239528~5511852:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1963?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=54&trs=86
1964 Highway Map:
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239525~5511850:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1964?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=56&trs=86
1965 Highway Map:
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239522~5511848:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1965?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=58&trs=86
1966 Highway Map:
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239519~5511846:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1966?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=60&trs=86

^^^ kkt

-  Yeah I really don't think there was a stones chance in hell of much beyond a bunch of passing lanes on 299 between Redding and Arcata.  The terrain gets a lot better east of Weaverville but around the Trinity River Canyon it's pretty tight and would require excessive blasting.
-  Even still, it's kind of silly that US 199 stuck around when there wasn't much regard about punting US 60 and US 66 out of state while they were still in Arizona.  That route is one of the primary reasons I don't like the farce that happened post 1964 in regards to US Routes being devalued so much in California. 

Onward....

Anyways  CA 198 which quickly descends down to a two-lane highway west of Avenal Cutoff Road. I should note that I spent the night in Fresno last night at the Father-In-Laws...he didn't want to go on today's ride but god did it lighten the load today on distance.  :-D  :-D :-D  I headed back down CA 41 and cut back west on CA 198 towards the Diablo Range.  I stopped to take a picture of this CA 269 Shield....well because when else will I ever get another chance?...and headed south via the CA 33/CA 198 multiplex to Coalinga:

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I followed CA 198 through Coalinga and headed into the Diablo Range.  Despite the warnings about 30 foot or longer length trucks they are a pretty common sight from the valley and I ran into this one about 3 miles west of Coalinga.  I managed to make a pass and turned south on the Parkfield Grade about 9 miles west of Coalinga:

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The Parkfield Grade is about 19 miles long and runs from CA 198 in Fresno County to the village of Parkfield in Monterrey County.  The Grade was constructed by the local ranchers in the 1890s and it's actually pretty well inhabited.  The Grade starts out at about 1,200 feet at CA 198 and ascends up to about 3,600 at the Monterrey County line where the pavement ends.  The road on the Fresno County side is very good for how rural it is, I would say it's mostly two-lane with maybe some lane and half sections.  I wasn't worried about having to get by someone all the way to the top, the only thing that was questionable was some flood prone washes and substantial uncleared rock slides.  It's very apparent that the Parkfield Grade is very lightly used:

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Crossing into Monterrey County the Parkfield Grade becomes known as Parkfield-Coalinga Road.  The road isn't paved for about 4 miles heading down from 3,600 feet to 1,800.  I found myself using 1st gear quite a bit on the first mile and half then largely 2nd until I was at the bottom where the pavement resumed.  I would speculate that the road grade is 15% or more in places heading down to Parkfield.  There is some really narrow stretches that were at best 10 feet wide especially near the county line:

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In reference to the third picture above, the mileage panels were blank.  I honest have no idea if Monterrey ever had a route number for Parkfield-Coalinga Road.

My understanding that the stream under the two bridges below is the San Andreas Fault as it runs through the village of Parkfield.  Parkfield is an interesting place; apparently it was founded in 1854 as a ranching town called Russelville but was renamed to "Parkfield" when the old name was rejected by the Postal Service.  Sometime in the late 1800s there was silver and coal mining claims opened which led to the population peaking out at about 900.  Apparently the coal mine flooded and Parkfield became most a derelict.  The modern population is mainly due to the almost perfect run of 22 year intervals of 6.0 magnitude or greater earthquakes that happen in the village.  My understanding most of the residents are from the USGS and the bulk of the buildings are 1980s flair....although I'm not sure if I believe even 18 people live there now.  I did see some evidence on the second bridge of seismic shifting but it really wasn't large enough to be worth taking a picture of:

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So for what it's worth this was a fun as hell road and probably my new secret squirrel route to take family on when they need a good scare during visits.  :-D  I saw a grand total of ONE vehicle the entire time I was on the Parkfield Grade/Parkfield-Coalinga Road.  To give some comparison Mineral King Road I want to say that I passed about 25 cars on the way back down....a little excess given the condition of the road.  I would speculate that even the dirt section is passable in wet weather...at least going down the hill, it's pretty unexpectedly good.  Anyways I'll wrap this up in a third post but for now here is some reference material on the Parkfield Grade and Parkfield:

http://www.trails.com/tcatalog_trail.aspx?trailid=BGS130-047
http://www.motorcycleroads.us/roads/ca_pg.html
http://www.schweich.com/camonpkfldcoalardA.html
http://www.schweich.com/imagehtml/IMG10488sm.html
http://parkfield.com/about_parkfield.php

Final post for this excursion.

Oddly, I've never been to Soda Lake or the Carrizo Plain National Monument...even though I've driven by it.  I've been to about 50 National Monuments so I figured that it was high time to check them out on the way home.  Coming out Parkfield I ht Cholame Road for about 14 miles which became questionable in quality upon San Luis Obispo County picking up maintenance.  I made a quick jog on CA 46/41 to Bitterwater road passing the James Dean Memorial in the process:

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Bitterwater Road is interesting.  The first section from CA 46/41 is in bad shape with no center stripe.  I would speculate that's because it dips briefly into Kern County before hitting San Luis Obispo again heading south.  There was some really beat up sections at times but the road flattened out by the time I hit CA 58.  I took CA 58 over to Soda Lake Road and down to said lake and Carrizo Plain National Monument.  Apparently the Carrizo Plain is basically a small desert at 15x50 miles in size since it gets less than 10 inches of rain a year.  Soda Lake was apparently formed when the San Andreas Fault cut off the streams supplying it with water.  The mountains in the background at the Temblor Range:

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Can anyone tell me what the hell is up with California Valley?  It seems like the whole thing was WAY over planned as a community.  There are literally road signs to roads that don't exist or were long overgrown was dead grass.  Who would want to live out in that plain anyways?...tis a mystery to me how the place is even a thing.  Regardless I took CA 58 all the way back home.  Mckittrick is always interesting to pass through with the oil fields...I'm fairly certain it's what inspired Little Boston in There Will be Blood.  CA 58 always surprises people with all the sudden 90 degree turns and fairly decently high grades heading west.  I'll have to go out and try to do something Sunday, I have new tires coming next week and about 1,500 miles before I have to change the transmission fluid....might as well get my money's worth:

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Found this on Youtube. 

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 26, 2016, 09:28:56 PM
Can anyone tell me what the hell is up with California Valley?  It seems like the whole thing was WAY over planned as a community.  There are literally road signs to roads that don't exist or were long overgrown was dead grass.  Who would want to live out in that plain anyways?...tis a mystery to me how the place is even a thing.

The wikipedia article on the community brings up briefly how land speculation led to the town's existence:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Valley,_California

Well hell...I suppose that explains the derelict and abandoned ranch houses.  If they thought Soda Lake was going to be reformed no wonder there was a land grab.  It's weird though, there is an actually street grid laid out....even if it is just weathered dirt or gravel roadway. 

I had (I never threw it away but I can't find it now) Southern California DeLorme atlas that showed all the streets of California Valley laid out but indicated that there was no population. Always intrigued me. Before GSV, I finally took a trip out there to see it, and it's pretty weird. I believe most of it's part of Carrizo Plain National Monument now.
Kind of the California version of Florida's Golden Gate Estates: "It's land... in Cali-for-nye-ay; the land of milk and honey. Improvements? You don't need improvements! Water? It comes from the mountains, magically!"

Apparently that was thing, there was supposed to be water via the California State Water Project but the planned aquaduct was routed to the north closer to Cholame.  According to the BLM most of the Monument is still south of the planned development of California Valley and often follows the borders of it almost exactly:

http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/prog/nlcs/Carrizo_Plain_NM.html

At Golden Gate Estates has some development the closer you are to I-75.  There was another place called Wedgefield east of Orlando that was like California Valley and even had an abandoned segment of FL 13 running through it.

Quote from: roadfro on August 23, 2016, 10:15:51 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 23, 2016, 11:03:02 AM
Yeah look at the 1956 map, there is an arbitrary "51" right at the south end of NV 17 at US 50.  The way it's labeled would almost make you think that "51" was what went south out of Virginia City via Gold Hill and Silver City to US 50...could be a map error or me reading something wrong.  And you're right, most of the stuff that I do have on the pre-76 routes just mentions a lot of them but doesn't really give a ton of details leading to map hunting.  I have a pretty decent source for Nevada Road maps somewhere in my book marks that I'll have to dig up some time.  It's just funny that after all this time that 79 actually became a paved and somewhat reasonable road in comparison to some of the other non-state maintained ones like we discussed with 8A, 34, and 3C recently.

I totally missed that "51" on the map this morning. According to a collection of old state laws from 1958 (conveniently copied when I found them, for just this type of purpose), that NV 51 is legitimate. It is separate from what was NV 17 and NV 80. I forgot that the 51 designation was reassigned in the 1960s to what is now SR 225/Mountain City Hwy (previously a combination of parts of NV 11, 11A and 43) to match ID 51.

It makes sense that Six Mile Canyon Rd would eventually be paved, as it eliminates some backtracking between Virginia City and points east along US 50. Most of the other old routes we've discussed weren't really serving any useful population or purpose by renumbering time.

Revisiting briefly the discussion on Six Mile Canyon Road. I just came across this blog post which talks a little about the history surrounding this road: http://backyardtraveler.blogspot.com/2009/03/nevadas-roots-found-in-six-mile-canyon.html

The post describes the road as converting to a maintained dirt road once exiting Virginia City. If that post is accurate as written in 2009, then this route (or at least Storey County's section of it) has only recently been paved within the last ~7 years. I've never driven the route myself, so cannot confirm–however, the author has written articles for Nevada Magazine and has published some Nevada travel books, so I have no reason to doubt the information.

Quote from: coatimundi on August 27, 2016, 10:58:36 PM

Kind of the California version of Florida's Golden Gate Estates: "It's land... in Cali-for-nye-ay; the land of milk and honey. Improvements? You don't need improvements! Water? It comes from the mountains, magically!"

So I looked up Golden Gate Estates and found this recent (April 2016) article on the community:

http://archive.naplesnews.com/news/local/from-scam-to-plan-golden-gate-estates-growth-to-get-collier-county-update-3001ae82-0866-5197-e053-01-375956461.html

Quote from: TheStranger on August 28, 2016, 01:24:15 AM

Quote from: coatimundi on August 27, 2016, 10:58:36 PM

Kind of the California version of Florida's Golden Gate Estates: "It's land... in Cali-for-nye-ay; the land of milk and honey. Improvements? You don't need improvements! Water? It comes from the mountains, magically!"

So I looked up Golden Gate Estates and found this recent (April 2016) article on the community:

http://archive.naplesnews.com/news/local/from-scam-to-plan-golden-gate-estates-growth-to-get-collier-county-update-3001ae82-0866-5197-e053-01-375956461.html

It got some revival during the last housing boom as well. It's close enough to an existing metro area to be a potentially viable development. Some of it has been swallowed up by the Florida Panther protection area, so any push to develop it on a large scale would meet push back from those trying to keep a buffer for the panther. The legacy of the overdevelopment of the Everglades is not so quickly forgotten.
I think people just know its history and know what's there, and see potential automatically. The history has kept it mostly off-limits thus far.

Back on topic, California Valley I believe is mostly in the developer-unfriendly coastal counties, so I don't know that there's much future there. SLO County is a bit more open to developers than we are here, but there's still quite a bit of skepticism regarding water dedication among locals, just as there is here. It's so heavily ag that any new water allocation scares the rich Northeasterner vineyard owners about their water being taken. And it's somewhat justified: look up the very recent story of Justin Vineyards after Fiji Water bought them.

Really there has a been a huge push back in favor of the Everglades since the end of WWII.  First you had Henry Flaggler scouting out what is now the Ingraham Highway for the Overseas Railroad.   It's an interesting read up to see how much the Park Service worked to push people out of Flamingo after Everglades National Park was founded in 1947.  You had the whole saga of the Everglades Jetport in the late 60s which led to the now virtually derelict Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport sitting in the middle of the Everglades.  Basically they started building a giant airport out in the middle of the Everglades which was meant to be the largest airport in the world.  One runway got completed and then the project stalled as it became really apparent that the Big Cypress National Preserve was going to become a thing....which it did in 1974.  Funny, back in the early days of American Florida all anyone wanted to do was drained the Everglades and now they are shutting down sugar cane to save it.

Even still, the whole California Valley thing appears to be a flight of full on fantasy.  Did they really truly believe that that the aquaduct wouldn't follow major roadways instead of being out of the middle of a barren empty plain?  It's like you said, some of the intrigue probably came from San Luis Obispo County being more friendly to development....suppose inland it's out of sight, out of mind.

Okay...today's adventure was Kaiser Pass Road and the saga of the western alignment of CA 168.  I only did the first 8 miles of Kaiser Pass road given that I'm still kind of questioning the car, there was a lot of people due to the weekend, and that the overlook I wanted was only a 2.5 mile round trip run.  SOOOOOooooo....starting from the top since I didn't really stop to take too many pictures, figured that would be something for heading back down.  I started out by heading up the modern CA 168 alignment (which I'll touch on substantially in a bit) and pulled off onto Kaiser Pass Road.  I've been to Huntington Lake before...so I was thinking that this might be a Challenger day.  Six miles into Kaiser Pass Road I was thinking the same thing until I hit the final two before the pass....holy crap that got narrow, but I'll touch on that shortly.  Pictures start from the end of CA 168 West and Kaiser Pass:

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Supposedly the first 6 miles of Kaiser Pass Road is 8% grade which isn't all that bad considering it is definitely two-lane.  Once the One/One and one-half lane section starts the road up to Kaiser Pass was definitely over 10% if not as high as 20% in places.  Basically my objective was the White Bark Vista which overlooks the high Sierras, the other Big Creek Hydroelectric Project Lakes west of Huntington, and is at an elevation of 9,551 feet above sea level.  I took the Dusy-Ershim Trail to reach the White Bark Vista:

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White Bark is really a pretty vista and gives you some decent looks at Edison and Florence Lake.  Somewhere down in that valley below me is Mono Hot Springs which I would like to visit...maybe during the end of the summer season right before the first snow if I can work it?  For what it's worth the Dusy-Ershim Trail had me thinking it was good enough for a car a little into my run but it has some decent sized rock crops.  I think that a 2WD truck or SUV wouldn't have a problem at all navigating the trail, I took my pictures heading down hill from here on out.  The second picture is turn off to another decent overlook:

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After checking out the second vista I resumed my run back down my trail to the Sonic.  It was completely silent out and a car was heading north, I didn't hear anything heading south so it was time to bail back down to Huntington Lake:

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And with good reason, no engine noise meant nobody was coming which was HUGELY critical for the first half mile down from Kaiser Pass.  The road is really, really, REALLY bad here at maybe 7-8 feet wide with a big drop off on the western flank of the road.  Someone is going to have to back up if you encounter a car here and given how I was heading downhill I didn't want that to be me.  Usually in this situation I roll the windows down so I can hear what's coming, I got lucky and met the first driver heading the other way when the road widened briefly after the first large bend.  I'm in first gear at this point given the huge grade...I'm really glad I decided against the Challenger given it has 8 gears and it's as wide as a half-ton pickup truck.  The next 1.5 miles aren't so bad heading down hill as there is plenty of room to get past people if you take it slow which is something I had to do three times.  Kaiser Pass Road widened back out to a full two-lane at the gate:

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After Kaiser Pass Road widened I stopped on a turnout overlooking Huntington Lake and got a picture.  I didn't see any assurance markers where CA 168 starts but it's important to keep in mind something about that intersection in the second picture:

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So with that in mind CA 168 is a very old route and was among the first in the state to become signed in 1934.  The LRN was envisioned as a trans-Sierra route to Nevada all the way back when it received LRN 76 back in 1931.  While there doesn't appear to have been ever an official adopted alignment across the Sierras I would speculate that it would have had to include Kaiser Pass Road all the way to Edison Lake.  Kaiser Pass Road was likely built during the Second Phase of the Big Creek Hydroelectric Project which began in 1921.  The reason I say this is that the First Phase created Huntington Lake between 1913-1914 which means that the road to Kaiser Pass existed even back in the 1910s.  Florence Lake is the eastern most lake of the Big Creek project and was opened in 1926 upon completion of the dam bearing the name of the lake.  It would seem logical that that a one-lane road to the lakes where the dams were being built would be totally sufficient which in this case would likely mean this is where Kaiser Pass Road comes from.  Apparently there was a dog sled route up Kaiser Pass in 1920...I don't know the back story but it would seem that it might have been to scout routes out? 

Interesting fact about the second picture above; CA 168 used to start to the right and follow Huntington Lake across the north shore all the way to the village of Shaver Lake.  Apparently this alignment was replaced by 1956 and for anyone who has been on it....well you understand why since it has sections that are fairly similar to the narrow portions of Kaiser Pass Road:

1954 Highway Map
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239555~5511870:Road-Map-of-the-State-of-California?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=36&trs=86

1956 Highway Map
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239549~5511866:Road-Map-of-the-State-of-California?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=40&trs=86

So heading towards Shaver Lake the first reassurance marker for CA 168 is pretty close to the China Peak Ski Resort.  I stopped by Shaver Lake since it had some restroom and to check out the dam site.  Apparently Shaver Lake was also part of the Second Phase of the Big Creek Project being completed in 1927.  I passed through the village of Shaver Lake which is a little too artsy fartsy for my tastes.  By now the weekend warrior crowd is in full force and basically riding bumper to bumper.  I have zero intention on joining them down the modern expressway and stopped at a general store just past the intersection with Tollhouse Road:

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The reason I turned onto Tollhouse Road was simply due to the fact that it's the 1934-1973 alignment of CA 168.  Prior to 1974 CA 168 would have cut east from it's current alignment to Humphrey's Station, north to Tollhouse, and up the big grade to Shaver Lake.  The grade used by Tollhouse Road to Tollhouse was built in the 1860s for the lumber industry which was present at the time roughly where Shaver Lake is now.  Basically you gain go from 1,900 to 4,500 feet above sea level in about 5 miles, so it's a fast climb.  The road is beautiful though with lots of nice vistas of the mountains and surrounding valleys.  In the fourth picture the modern CA 168 climbs on the rock face as an expressway all the way to the extreme right:

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For what it's worth I could only find a couple highway maps showing the progression of the replacement of Tollhouse Road but couldn't find 1974:

1966 Highway Map
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239519~5511846:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1966?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=60&trs=86

1970 Highway Map
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239509~5511840:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1970?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=66&trs=86

1975 Highway Map
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239506~5511838:California-State-Highways,-December?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=68&trs=86

Interestingly as I entered Tollhouse there was actually a button-copy sign which seems to be a relic of the old CA 168 alignment.  From Humphrey's Station you would hang a right to follow the old alignment of CA 168 to where it meets the modern one which will take you back to Clovis.  I also took a picture of this CA 168 shield out in the open...cause why not?  I also passed the Academy ghost town and took a picture of the marker.  It tells an interesting tale which ties in with the village of Tollhouse and lumber industry:

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One more note on CA 168s alignment.  Prior to 2001 the western segment of CA 168 would have followed Tollhouse Road southwest into Clovis, west on 3rd Street, south on Clovis Avenue, and west on Shaw Avenue to Fresno and CA 41.  Off-hand I don't recall when the CA 41 freeway was built but the old surface route was at Blackstone.  Strange to thing that the route doesn't even connect to CA 41 anymore.

But think about....that original 1934 route and the hellish trip you would have to take up to Huntington Lake.  Back in those days you'd have to contend with all those uber high-grade roads, with pre-war technology, on top of poor surface quality.  Basically a trip up CA 168 would have been a one-way trip for sure at least overnight, you'd have to stop repeatedly just to cool your brakes.  Strange to think that anyone really thought it was feasible for the two CA 168s ever to connect in retrospect, especially considering how crazy things get on Kaiser Pass Road even until today.

But the good news today is that I have a new goal to reach Florence Lake at some point...maybe 2017.  It seems that running a couple fresh tanks of gas has relieved the issue I was having up in Nevada....so with tires being installed Wednesday it seems everything will be sorted out.  I have about 1,000 miles to go until my transmission fluid needs to be changed....Sherman Pass seems realistic maybe now for Labor Day.  At this rate I might sneak Ebbetts and Sonora Pass in at this rate before Utah in October....might as well get as much out of summer as possible.

These were the best youtube videos of Kaiser Pass Road I could find:




Why does everyone always pick slow oldies for driving videos?  That works now and then if the video is edited well but does everyone have to do the same thing? 

Great thread! As an insulator collector, a couple of times, I've taken the side road to Big Creek and the enormous Southern California Edison hydroelectric project built there about a hundred years ago to furnish electricity to Los Angeles.

Quote from: hm insulators on September 01, 2016, 06:33:14 PM
Great thread! As an insulator collector, a couple of times, I've taken the side road to Big Creek and the enormous Southern California Edison hydroelectric project built there about a hundred years ago to furnish electricity to Los Angeles.

Thanks, yeah next year when I'm a little more confident in the condition of my car I'll give the northern Huntington Lake Road a go if not all the way to Edison Lake.  Of course this will be a weekday presumably since it was a getting a little nerve wracking seeing how many cars were trying to reach Mono Hot Springs on Kaiser Pass Road.  I might want to try to the Climb to Kaiser Bike race maybe next year which would largely follow the older alignments of 168 like Tollhouse Road if I'm to understand correctly.

Finally got some down time I'm hoping to get something up today about CA 180.

All right finally got motivated to do a write up on CA 180 east of Fresno to Kings Canyon.  First off if you are going to understand CA 180 east of Fresno you need to get familiar with the intersection of current CA 245 and Dunlap Road north of Badger:

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This seemingly obscure intersection with a local road has carried no less than FOUR different numbered California state highways into the foreground from where I'm taking the picture of the CA 245 sign. 

From 1934 to either 1941 or 1942 CA 180 would have used Dunlap Road on the right before it was moved north to the Kings Canyon Highway and continue into the foreground northward while CA 65 would have approached from the left and terminated:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239585~5511890:Road-Map-of-the-State-of-California?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=16&trs=86

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239582~5511888:Road-Map-of-the-State-of-California?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=18&trs=86

Of course once CA 180 was moved north so was the terminus of CA 65 as well.  Dunlap Road really just became a locally used road.  From driving Dunlap back to modern CA 180 it's pretty obvious why the route was selected to reach Kings Canyon....low grades that seemed to have natural cuts into the mountainside.

Back in 1965 the route on the left became CA 69 when the planned extension through the low Sierra Foot Hills was planned.  Basically this is how the two segments of CA 65 came to be and why CA 59 suddenly ends in Snelling...because it was meant to terminate at CA 69!

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239522~5511848:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1965?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=58&trs=86

Of course with a number like 69 and the remoteness of the terrain this of course led to rumored signage theft.  Sparker actually went into considerable detail about a friend he knew who apparently stole CA 69 signs frequently.  I would suspect that it was more than one individual who was probably stealing 69 signs....  So in 1972 the route you see on the left became the CA 245 we know it to be today:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239506~5511838:California-State-Highways,-December?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=68&trs=86

So with that in mind...CA 180 and Kings Canyon.  All the way back to 1934 there appears to have been a CA 180 reaching as far as Kings Canyon along the route I described above.  Interestingly it appears that CA 180 and LRN 263 were originally meant to be a Trans-Sierra Highway reaching US 395:

-  From cahighways.org:  "In 1934, Route 180 was (to be) signed along the route from Jct Route 25 at Pacines to Jct. Route 7 (US 395) at Independence, via Fresno. Oddly, it was part of LRN 263, defined in 1959, and does not appear to have been part of the state highway system between 1933 and 1959. The routing was only "proposed" in 1963, and likely corresponds to a county route.:

Of course reading that definition above and looking at most post-1964 California Highway maps it's pretty easy to infer that that J1 in Fresno County was meant to be part of CA 180 reaching a western terminus at CA 25....but how the hell was there even a notion of reaching US 395?  I'm not sure which idea is more absurd; CA 168 reaching US 395 or CA 180...nonetheless still very much an intriguing proposition.  You can actually see a large inferred route for CA 180 on the 1934 Highway Map:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239594~5511896:Road-Map-of-the-State-of-California?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=10&trs=86

Of course the story gets stranger with General Grant National Park being present all the way back to 1890.  Kings Canyon National Park was formed in 1940 which included Grant Grove into it's jurisdiction effectively killing any notion of CA 180 reaching US 395.  So with that in mind....what's to see on CA 180 from Grant Grove to Kings Canyon?...quite a bit actually.  These pictures are from April and May during various degrees of opening of CA 180 heading down into Kings Canyon Proper.  Starting off with Grant Grove:

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Photo 1 is from Grant Grove proper with the Redwood Sequoias which of course are the largest trees in the world.  The General Grant Tree is currently the second largest tree in the world after General Sherman in the Giant Forest to the South in Sequoia National Park.  Photo 2 is from the Wilsonia historic district of cabins that were largely present before Kings Canyon National Park, Giant Sequoia National Monument, and Sequoia National Park gobbled up most of the land that was in private hands.  Photo 3 is a ridge coming down from Grant Grove that has some obvious signs of a fairly recent burn...this will be notable later.  Grant Grove is roughly 6,500 feet above sea level and it's all down hill for CA 180 all the way to Kings Canyon proper.  Of course the Kings Canyon National Park boundary is split by a considerable distance from Grant Grove to Kings Canyon itself and is gapped by Sequoia National Forest:

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.7611678,-118.829615,12z?hl=en
https://www.nps.gov/seki/planyourvisit/maps.htm

This was actually a really fun drive, I would suspect that was one of the first people down to Kings Canyon this year given that I didn't see a single vehicle from the top, to the bottom, back to the top of the Canyon.  The views of the canyon from high up on CA 180 are pretty damn awesome but you really don't get too good a view of the South and Middle Forks of the Kings River until the Junction View above the Kings Canyon Lodge:

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Speaking of Kings Canyon Lodge and the ruins I check them out on the way down...I say ruins because the Lodge burned down in a wildfire back in August last year.  Kind of sad considering that the Lodge dated back to 1937 before the Kings Canyon National Park consolidation.  The Lodge itself is at an elevation of 3,750 feet:

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Of course the road gets much more narrow you get to the bottom of CA 180 and South Fork Kings River.  Actually I had to get out of the car twice to clear rock falls that were blocking the road...good thing nobody else was around because I had to park it in the middle of the highway.  I'm to understand that the confluence of the Middle and South Forks of the Kings River is at 2,257 feet above sea level...or something like that since there is a lot of claims about Kings Canyon.  Kings Canyon itself is the "deepest" (I say that with quotations because claims on what the depth is are a little all over the place) canyon in the U.S with depths listed somewhere between 7,900 to 8,200 feet.  That claim is largely made possible due to the fact that the high Sierra is on one end of the canyon with Spanish Peak specifically.  Anyways here is what the bottom of Kings Canyon looks like with another view of the confluence on the way back up:

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Of course CA 180 continues all the way to Cedar Grove where it terminates at the Kings Canyon National Park Boundary.  I'm not very clear on one thing though, does CA 180 technically exist within Grant Grove?  It seems that it is the case given the signage at the intersection of the Generals Highway says "CA 180" with no "To" markers whereas CA 198 is clearly marked as "to" along the Generals Highway through Sequoia National Park:

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.7243766,-118.9553096,3a,90y,90h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sCtXGA5G1OkLkIzP4ufTdKA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.7242019,-118.9554303,3a,37.5y,90h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sjPj0SB4Dbhgrzm_iG6etWg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

Of course the history on the Generals Highway is much more clearly outlined by the Park Services as evidenced by how much data I found for the Colony Mill Road and Generals Highway Thread.  Back on the way up I did stop by Hume Lake to check out the dam...oddly I found some of the views along Hume Lake Road to be just as good as CA 180 in regards to seeing Kings Canyon.  I would just take some caution trying to get views since the road is a very narrow two lane with NO pull-offs from scenic views.  Regardless, I'm to understand that Hume Lake Dam was the world's first completed concrete arch dam being finished back in 1908.  Hume Lake Dam is at an elevation of 5,200 feet and impounds Ten Mile Creek which has a road that will take you all the way down to the Generals Highway roughly following it:

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I'm planning on paying J1/Panoche Road/Little Panoche Road a visit in the next couple weeks in conjunction with Mount Hamilton.  I'm actually hoping that if the snow holds out most of October that I can get Sherman, Ebbetts, and Senora Passes in before they close for winter.  I still need to cover some of my photos from Old US 66, Big Sur, Donnor Pass, US 95 in Nevada, NV 374, CA 178, CA 190, AND the one I really want to go through but will take me a long time CA 49 with the mining districts.

Also, given I've been in the Sequoia/Kings Canyon area so much this year I've had an opportunity to drive all of CA 216, CA 201, and CA 63.  Out of the three CA 63 north of Visalia is the most viable but really all three routes out to be on the short list for relinquishment to Tulare County.  All three take crazy 90 degree turns or illogical directional shifts for through highways.  Tulare County already has several county routes that are a higher quality like Road 80 from Visalia to Dinuba.  Anyways I know one frequent poster on the Pacific Board and disagreed greatly on the routes....so yeah, I've driven them all and that's my two-cents.

Don't know where you get the Kings Canyon info as being deepest, but Hells Canyon is generally considered the deepest.

Quote from: Rothman on September 02, 2016, 01:05:45 AM
Don't know where you get the Kings Canyon info as being deepest, but Hells Canyon is generally considered the deepest.

Hence why I put it in quotations, sometimes publications like this pop up claiming 8,200 feet deep for Kings Canyon:

http://www.myyosemitepark.com/kings-canyon/

But for the record the Park Service has this:

https://www.nps.gov/seki/learn/nature/geology_overview.htm

Edit:  Just caught the proof reading error I made above with the 10,000 foot thing which was meant as a reference to Spanish Peak and not the maximum depth of the canyon itself.  Highway 49 is going to be a complete cluster $@*$ abortion of obscure or claimed settlement dates with the mine districts or worse....peak populations since the data on both is wonky or unreliable.  Ironically I kind of hit on something like that with Bodie already but I think a better job at putting disclaimers up about apparent factoids that may or may not be totally accurate from the source.  There is one that I neglected to mention (at least I think that I did without re-reading the whole thread again) about the peak population being about 10,000 instead something like 8,000.  Mostly those claims come up from sources who say that migrant mine workers weren't accounted for accurately.  In those instances it's basically impossible to tell for certain what's fact or if absolute certainty can be established at all anymore. 

Yeah, I thought you were going to go with the NPS saying "arguably" the deepest.

USFS argues back. (http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/wallowa-whitman/recreation/?cid=stelprdb5238987) :D

Yeah I would probably go with whatever the Forest Service says is the official depth.  I've been trying to find Sequoia National Forest's take on the depth of Kings Canyon but I ran out of time....I got to run out the door soon for a car detail, I'll try to find it while I'm there.

Edit:  Unless I'm missing something that I didn't see it seems Sequoia National Forest is mum on the topic about Kings Canyon despite the lowest part being in their jurisdiction:

http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprd3801985.pdf

Also I should note that the Park Service has the bottom of Kings Canyon at an official 2,260 feet at the South/Middle Fork Kings River Confluence and Spanish Peak being the top at 10,051. 

Alright, this was a March trip up the Golden Chain Highway (CA 49), over I-80 to the Lake Tahoe area and back down to Death Valley to see the "super bloom."  Basically CA 49 is going to occupy a crap ton of this road report because of how much history is on the route with mining districts.  I'll try to notate as many route realignments as possible...but there is a lot even for a California state highway.  So as usual....99 out of Bakersfield up 41 where I turned onto CA 49 at the now southern terminus.

I say NOW because originally CA 49 originally terminated at CA 140 in Mariposa in 1934.  According to cahighways the road from Oakhurst to Mariposa was proposed back in 1959 as an extension of LRN 65, this is reflective on the 1960 Highway Map.  Of course this road would later become CA 49 but it still wasn't completed for several more years..possibly 1967....despite being reassigned as LRN 49 during the 1964 Highway renumbering

1960 Highway Map

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239537~5511858:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1960?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=48&trs=86

1964 Highway Map

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239525~5511850:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1964?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=56&trs=86

1967 Highway Map

So with all that in mind this was the original southern starting point for CA 49 on the outskirts of Mariposa:

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I don't really care for Oakhurst all that much...  It's gotten way too much of tourist vibe being the main gateway to Yosemite via CA 41 and the Wawona Road.  Oakhurst wasn't really part of the 1849 Gold Rush era and was founded later in the 1870s.  Fun fact about Oakhurst though, Sierra Online used to be based out of the city when they were cranking out Kings Quest, Police Quest, and Space Quest Games.  Making my way up on CA 49 into Mariposa County I noticed there wasn't really much of note that was worth stopping to see.  Supposedly Mormon Bar has some Gold Rush era structures but I've never noticed any, but I am aware that the California State Mining and Mineral Museum is located there.


Personally I kind of find Mariposa to be something of a more fitting terminus for CA 49 since it seems to be the last really significant 1849 era Gold Rush town.  It seems Mariposa was originally founded in 1849 or 1850 originally a couple miles west of the current town site which was settled in 1854.  The original Mariposa County Court House is still in use today and apparently is the oldest continuously used county court house in the state.  The other picture is from downtown where CA 140 and CA 49 are multiplexed before CA 140 heads towards Yosemite via the Merced River Gorge:

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Heading north of Mariposa on CA 49 there are two more ghost towns but they really aren't worth stopping at since there isn't much left; Mt Bullion and Mt Ophir.  Really the next notable site is Bear Valley at the junction of CA 49 and J16.  Apparently Bear Valley was originally known as Haydenville back in 1851 and made the name change to Bear Valley in something like 1858.  Bear Valley is claimed to have peaked out at about 3,000 people before the mines shut down but now there is not much left but a couple crumbling buildings.

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North of Bear Valley is one of the few really heavy mountain grade sections of CA 49.  The elevation gains fast and there is plenty of twisties.  I forget if the elevation goes above 4,000 feet but it dips back down to under 1,000 feet Lake McClure, The Merced River, and Bagby Ghost Town.  Bagby was founded in the 1890s and was a stop on the Yosemite Valley Railroad from 1907 to 1945.  Bagby pretty much died out when the Yosemite Valley Railroad shut down but it wasn't until 1967 when the New Exchequer Dam was completed and in turn flooded the town site when Lake McClure was raised.  Given how much Lake McClure has dropped you can see ruins of Bagby along the Merced River Bed along with the ROW of the Yosemite Valley Railroad:

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North of Bagby on CA 49 at the junction with CA 132 is Coulterville.  Supposedly Coulterville was called Maxwell's Creek from 1850 to 1853 when it was changed to the modern name.  Rumor is that Coulterville had 3,000 to 5,000 residents at it's peak but now it has less than 200.  There are some neat ruins, a cool steam train, in addition to a Gold Rush era Jefferies Hotel.

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A couple miles north of Coulterville on CA 49 takes you into Tuolumne County.

Continuing on with CA 49 in Tuolumne County....

Just over the Tuolumne County Line CA 49 multiplexes with CA 120 near the Don Pedro Reservoir.  The weird thing is that this largely a 65 MPH zone for whatever reason instead of the standard 55 MPH two-lane highways you usually see in California.  This kind of reminds me of other highways like CA 62 east of 29 Palms....I would speculate that for some reason wide should width yields that extra 10 MPH bump to 65 for whatever reason.  Continuing east would get up you either your choice of the New Priest Grade or Old Priest Grade...but I've talked about those.

At the bottom of the Don Pedro Reservoir there was once a town called Jacksonville.  Apparently Jacksonville was founded in 1849 but I'm not exactly sure when it died out.  I do know the area was flooded over in 1923 when the Don Pedro Dam was finished and even more so in 1971 when reservoir was raised.  Unlike Bagby ain't much to see here:

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Continuing north on CA 49 I came to Chinese Camp where CA 120 split east and CA 49 continued north.  Chinese Camp apparently had no people of ethnic Chinese descent on the last census which is ironic considering the town may have had as many 5,000 during the height of the Gold Rush.  Apparently Chinese Camp was founded in 1849, not much left today

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Heading up north on CA 49 takes you to another multiplex this time with CA 108, both enter Jamestown.  Jamestown is apparently named after the Colonel who founded Sonora with the former coming to fruition sometimes in the 1850s.  Oddly Jamestown is only a CDP despite actually have a town or city feel to it....I guess Sonora is the only incorporated city in Tuolumne County.  It would seem that Main Street is the original alignment of CA 49 as the modern highway seems to bypass downtown.  There is also a neat museum called the 1897 Railroad Museum here:

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Continuing north to Sonora CA 108 breaks east to Sonora pass while CA 49 takes what appears to be a bypass.  I'm fairly certain CA 49 would have continued east to Washington Street and cut north through more of Sonora proper.  Sonora was founded in the 1850s by miners hailing for the Mexican State of the same name.  Oddly Sonora really hasn't tapered off very much and seems to be one of the "trendy" places to be now...lots of artsy fartsy hipster-esc type shops occupying the buildings along CA 49.  Neat town but there is definitely where traffic picked up from the tourism brigade:

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From here I took a slight detour off of CA 49 to Columbia.  I guess Columbia technically "isn't" a ghost town given that the area surrounding it is occupied but the downtown section certainly is....and ironically is a California State Park.  Apparently Columbia was founded in 1850 and was at some point possibly the second biggest city in California.  Rumor is that by the 1860s Columbia was largely abandoned with some of the last mine shafts even being dug under the downtown area:

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Back on CA 49 I came across a historic marker for Tuttletown.  Apparently Tuttletown was a site founded by Mormon Miners in 1848 and was occupied by Mark Twain in the 1860s:

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From here CA 49 continues north via bridge into Calaveras County over the New Melones Lake.

Calaveras County...and yes if you aren't from California or not familiar with it this really keeps going and going on CA 49. 

So....New Melones Lake is named after the town of Melones which would have been located at the bottom of said lake.  Apparently the name is recycled from what Carson Hill was originally called and was founded in 1879.  I'm to understand that there was a Wild West movie studio here in the 1920s which lasted possibly until the town was drowned out by the lake in 1944.  I probably could have gotten a better picture but I got stuck at a flagman that was giving me the stink eye and there was a CHP officer within sight....so I had to take a moving picture.  Too bad since I'm told you can see the ruins of Melones now that the lake level is so low:

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Speaking of Carson Hill it's located directly north of New Melones Lake on CA 49.  Carson Hill was founded in 1854 as Melones but was renamed...not after Kit Carson but a US Army sergeant.  The town of Carson Hill died out in the 1930s but the mine is still active...so yes there is still plenty of gold in California:

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North of Carson Hill you come to Angels Camp where you can take CA 4 to the dreaded Ebbetts Pass.  Angels Camp was founded in 1851 as Carson Creek but changed to the modern name by 1853.  Angels Camp actually became an incorporated city in 1912 and largely absorbed the neighboring town of Attaville.  I would speculate that CA 4 used to use what is now CA 4 business and would have multiplex CA 49 through downtown Angels Camp:

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Speaking of Attaville, it was founded in 1852.  Despite being part of Angels Camp now the old 1858 school is still standing....and I managed to grab a stray CA 4 shield without intending to:

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Continuing north to on CA 49 you'll enter San Andreas which is the Calaveras County seat.  Apparently San Andreas was founded by Mexican miners back 1848.  I'm to understand twice the town was destroyed by fire in 1858 and 1866 before it became the county seat in 1866.  CA 49 apparently used to travel down Main Street in the picture and up Gold Strike Road north back to the modern highway:

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This is roughly where I popped out on Pool Station Road a couple weeks back heading to Carson Pass.  Heading up to Mokelumne Hill there is junctions with CA 26 and CA 12...apparently CA 26 was CA 8 before I-8 was a thing, I'm sure that's easily reseahttp://i1255.photobucket.com/albums/hh630/MadMaxRockatansky73/9SanAndreas_zps2srcix2p.jpgrched on cahighways.  Mokelumne Hill was founded in 1848 and had a claimed 15,000 residents "supposedly" by 1850.  Mokelumne Hill was the original county seat of Calaveras County until it was moved to Sonora.  CA 49 appears to have used Main Street and Center Street before being realigned on a bypass.  If I remember correctly there is even a Historic CA 49 signed completed with a shield.  After leaving Mokelumne Hill CA 49 quickly enters Amador County:

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CA 49 takes a dip under 1,000 feet as it crosses the North Fork Mokelumne River into Amador County.  There is actually a couple truck lanes on the uphill grade heading north to Jackson.  At the top of the hill is the ruins of Butte City and the Butte Store.  Apparently Butte City was a short lived town site founded in the 1850s and the Butte Store was built in 1857.  I don't know much more beyond that but it's pretty jarring to see an almost 150 year old structure almost immediately have a huge uphill grade:

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Jackson was founded in 1848 at the start of the California Gold Rush.  After Amador County split off from Calaveras County Jackson would become the county seat which it remains today.  Jackson actually had an active mine until WWII when the Kennedy Mine shut down.  Modern CA 49 is an obvious bypass and it appears the original alignment was through downtown Jackson on Broadway, Water Street, Main Street, and Jackson Gate Road.  This is also where CA 88 breaks west to Nevada via Carson Pass....just don't get gas here if you can help it....turned into a wriggamoral with check engine lights a couple weeks back:

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CA 49 multiplexes CA 88 out of Jackson and cuts north to Sutter Creek.  Sutter Creek's downtown is located just north of CA 104 on the aptly named "Old CA 49."  :-D  Apparently Sutter Creek was scouted out for timber interests a couple years prior to the Gold Rush but had a post office by 1852.  Apparently Sutter Creek incorporated twice in 1854 and 1912.  Basically both Jackson and Sutter Creek feel more like suburbs of Sacramento with all the modern businesses along the newer CA 49 bypasses...CA 88 being such a good all-year pass can likely be thanked for that:

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Two miles north on Old CA 49 is Amador City.  Amador City is weird since it is still technically incorporated despite only about 150 residents.  Amador City was founded back in 1863 and the incorporation dates back to 1915:

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Following Old CA 49 out of Amador City takes you back to the modern CA 49 which eventually enters Drytown.  Apparently Drytown was a tongue and cheek attempt at humor given that it had over 20 saloons in it's heyday.  Apparently Drytown was founded in the 1850s but most of it burned down in 1860s which led to it really lacking in mining era buildings:

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North of Drytown you'll find Plymouth located at the junction of CA 49 and Old Sacramento Road.  Given that you pass CA 16 a little bit south of Plymouth I would assume that Old Sacramento Road is the old alignment of the highway?  Apparently Plymouth was founded alongside another town called Pokerville in the 1850s and both would eventually merge.  Apparently the incorporation of Plymouth dates back to 1917 and there is a winery that has origins in 1856:

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A couple miles north of Plymouth CA 49 enters El Dorado County....

All right El Dorado County was last segment of CA 49 I hit before jumping on I-80 towards Nevada.

So....El Dorado and Diamond Springs apparently are one and the same nowadays.  Diamond Springs was founded in 1848 and El Dorado followed some time in the 1850s.  Not much is left of the original buildings from either town site and really they are just outskirts of Sacramento:

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CA 49 kind of gets twisted up again north of El Dorado/Diamond Springs heading to Placerville.  Placerville was one of the big dogs of the Gold Rush era given how close it was located to Coloma where gold was discovered.  "Supposedly" Placerville was first known as Hangtown in 1848 before taking the modern name in 1850.  I know for certain if that's true but with over a dozen places being called "Dog Town" around the same time it wouldn't surprise me.  Placerville incorporated in 1854 and became the El Dorado County seat in 1857.  Granted I never actually went and researched this but it would seem the pre-expressway alignment of US 50 through Placerville followed Broadway, Main Street, and Placerville Drive heading east to west. 

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CA 49 crosses the US 50 expressway and basically follows the crazed alignment of Coloma Road down to Coloma itself.  Of course Coloma was where gold was discovered in 1848 (funny they call it the 1849 Gold Rush) at Sutter's Mill on the South Fork of the American River.  Coloma was established as a mill back in the 1830s and was the original county seat of El Dorado County.  Coloma had dropped to about 200 residents by about 1870 and largely is a ghost town now...save for the status of being a state park.  There is some neat stuff to see in Coloma be it old buildings, bridges, or probably the strangest state highway in the state in CA 153 which is only half a mile long.  CA 153 extends from CA 49 to James Marshall's grave site...who is the guy who found the gold I mentioned above.  I honestly don't think that I can find a more obscure California State Highway to reference other than CA 153....too bad I didn't get a sign picture:

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Leaving Coloma the terrain levels out a little bit on the way to Auburn...by that I mean that it isn't anywhere near as narrow as the route gets north of Placerville.  There was one more ghost town to see before hitting I-80 with Pilot Hill.  Apparently Pilot Hill dates back to 1849 and had a post office by 1854.  Beyond that....who knows?...I can't find anything else on the topic despite the rather large high rise building that remains.  I did pass the CA 193 junction in "Cool" but didn't see anything too captivating to catch the eye:

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Basically from here I just went to Auburn to I-80 since it was getting late in the day and I was kind of tired.  CA 49 of course heads north even more so all the way up to CA 70 which would have been US 40A from 1954 to 1964.

Of course I-80 is the main route over the Sierras and basically follows closely to the former path US 40 took over Donner Pass via the slightly higher Donner Summit which is 7,227 feet opposed to Donner Pass being 7,056.  I did get some photos of Donner Pass and Donner Lake before heading down to Truckee:

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From Truckee I took CA 267 down to Lake Tahoe and CA 28 which of course becomes NV 28.  Basically if you're wondering why I wanted to take I-80 instead of US 50/Echo there are two reasons; weekend traffic in Tahoe, and I just wanted to see Coloma.  Regardless I've covered Tahoe already so I'll just post a picture or two:

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Basically from here it was a simple jog east to Carson City via US 50 and then the multiplex with US 395.  I stayed in downtown Carson City and I kind of regret it.  It was almost impossible to get anywhere for food with all the construction that was going on.  Thankfully it wasn't present in such a large form when I was back last month.

And thus the slog to Death Valley begun.

I made my way up to William Street and followed it until US 50 got picked up eastbound.  I stopped by old downtown Dayton on the way to US 95A.  Dayton apparently dates back to 1850 but really picked up importance after the Comstock Lode was found up in Storey County.  There are a couple older buildings and hotels just off modern US 50 that are worth the short detour to go see.  Apparently US 50 used Pike Street south to Main Street and probably River Street back to the modern highway:

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I cut south on US 95A to avoid Fallon....boy did this go to shit.  There was someone in a Buick who insisted on driving 18 MPH through US 95A in Yerington.  Basically I had people piling behind me so I had to pull the illegal pass..thankfully nobody was really around to see it.  US 95A cuts the edge of the Walker Reservation before hooking back up with US 95 proper just north of Walker Lake.  Speaking of Walker Lake...made a pit stop given I was about hit the dual 94 miles without service past Hawthorne:

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US 95 is one of my favorite two-lane highways in the country.  Basically it's almost all 70 MPH zones with little to no people around to bother you.  There is truckers but even they are few and far between...usually hauling a land train which would be 2 or 3 trailers long.  Passing them is easier all dirt because of the remoteness of the Great Basin Region in general.  I would speculate if you took Clark County out of the equation that it would have a population density similar to Alaska....and so many people think I-11 ought to go through here.

After Hawthorne there is a couple towns on the 94 miles between Tonopah...only thing is that they are ghost towns at best and really don't offer services.  Of course NV 359 will take you back to California via CA 167 north of Mono Lake, Bodie is nearby as well.  I would suspect getting assigned to the Hawthrone Army Depot basically is a career killer but it's funny to think that there was a real consideration of Japanese invasion of the west coast that led to it being placed east of the Sierras.  Of course you have NV 361 if you want to head back up to US 50 for whatever reason...first town up will be Mina which ironically have a rest area.  I didn't see a soul in Luning despite a census claim of 87 people back in 2005:

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South of Luning you got Mina which had a claimed population of 150 something a couple years back in 2010 on a census.  Basically I'm not seeing where these people might be other than off somewhere on a ranch in the general area.  There was a lot more abandoned businesses in Mina than in Luning.  I should mention that Dayton was in Lyon County while both Mina and Luning are in Mineral....kinda of dig the Bate's Motel theme going on here:

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Following US 95 south if you were so inclined you could take NV 360 which follows the old Carson and Colorado Railroad as a short cut to US 6.  At the US 95 and US 6 junction you'll find what's left of Coaldale which is in Esmeralda County.  Apparently this place was an open service station until 1993 when the EPA shut it down:

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Continuing east on US 95 you enter Nye County and really one of the few traces of civilization out in the Great Basin past Hawthorne in Tonopah.  You need to stop in Tonopah....because if you are heading to Vegas unless you want to stop in Beatty you won't have another opportunity.  Tonopah opened up as a mine town in 1900 but that had really dropped off the map by the 1920s.  Basically Tonopah is heavily reliant on the Tonopah Test Range which is part of the whole Nellis/Nevada Test Site complex:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Wfm_area51_map_en.png/1024px-Wfm_area51_map_en.png)

But being a turn of the century mining town Tonopah has some unique structures:

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I noticed something weird heading south to Goldfield on US 95...what's up with the closure that's supposed to end next month on Silverpeak Road?  You can take NV 265 to Silverpeak and the mines but even that had major construction signs.  Is Silverpeak Road being paved?...how big is that mine operation anyways?  That's fascinating to me considering Silverpeak Road near Goldfield wasn't even worthy of a pre-1976 Nevada Highway designation...and they were not stingy handing those out to questionable dirt roads.  Of course...you could always take US 6 to Ely...166 miles with no service that way.

Anyways...US 95 re-enters Esmeralda County and runs through Goldfield.  Before I get into the saga that is Goldfield I'll qualify something for you the reader.  Esmeralda County has a population of 783 as of the 2010 census...but has a total area of 3,589 square miles.  So picture an area comparable in size to Rhode Island and Delaware combined...then remove almost all the nearly 2 million people...THAT'S Esmeralda County.  Basically it's post apocalyptic...but with 1920s flair thanks to Goldfield.

Which brings me to Goldfield itself which is the county seat of Esmeralda County despite being technically a CDP.  Goldfield probably is one of the last great mining towns of the west being established in 1902.  Legend has it that Goldfield was once the largest city in Nevada by 1906 with 20,000 people but I can't say for certain given that accuracy with population figures wasn't exactly organized thing back in the early 20th century.  The Earp family even had a presence in Goldfield from 1904 to 1905.  Goldfield mostly declined in the 1910s with one of the final blows coming in 1923 when most of the city burned down.  Basically the city is a landscape of early 20th century wreckage and would definitely recommend it as a stop worth seeing:

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Leaving Tonopah I forgot to mention that you start another 94 segment of US 95 without gas which includes Goldfield.  Beatty is at the end of that segment but really isn't anything special aside from being the northern gateway to Death Valley via NV 374.  I stopped in Ryolite first before heading back into California.  Rhyolite is located in Nye County and is basically what Goldfield will probably look like in 50 years.  Rhyolite was founded in 1905 after gold was discovered in the Bull Frog Hills.  Apparently Rhyolite at 5,000 residents by 1908 but that dropped off below 1,000 around 1910.  Power was shut off for good in 1919 and the last people left Rhyolite in 1920.  The rail depot was the last inhabited building which operated as a casino from the 1930s to the 1970s.  Basically there isn't much left of the town unless you really know what to discern from rubble strap pieces. 

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One last post on with Death Valley.  Coming into California NV 374 terminates and basically becomes Daylight Pass Road.  I stopped at the top to have a look at Death Valley from Hells Gate.  There was plenty of yellow flowers out in bloom but it brought a pretty nasty glut of urbanized traffic.  X-( I took Beatty Road down down to CA 190 and down to Badwater Road to check out the basin:

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Coming out of Death Valley I headed west on CA 190 out of Death Valley National Park.  Descending down into Panamint Valley I warped my left front rotor slightly which was NOT what you want happening on an 8% downhill grade with a 60 MPH speed limit.  Basically this is what stopped me from getting more pictures the rest of the day, I was to pissed off.  Anyways Panamint Valley is kind of neat given how much you can really see heading down CA 190...there are some large dunes at the north end.  I cut south on Panamint Valley Road and then on Trona-Wildrose Road.  Trona-Wildrose was reduced to dirt due to construction but it was the good kind that didn't include wash boarding.  Really if you want my opinion rather than this whole crazy notion of crossing the Panamint Range CA 178 should have been planned from the outset to take Trona-Wildrose Road.  Anyways after climbing out of Panamint Valley I entered Trona which basically might be the closest thing to hell that the United States has being a salt mining town in Searles Valley.  I should have stopped to take pictures because I'm not even sure there are many people left around those salt mines.  CA 178 starts just south of Trona which I took into Ridgecrest for the night.

The next morning was a pretty simple drive, basically CA 178 down Walker Pass and Kern River Canyon all the way home to Bakersfield.  In Ridgecrest CA 178 multiplexes a lot of the US 395 BL which if I recall correctly is the old alignment of US 395.  I picked up CA 14 (Old US 6) for a couple miles and dipped down towards Lake Isabella via Walker Pass.  Walker Pass is one of the lower Sierra passes at 5,250 and honestly I would take CA 178 over CA 58 any day of the week if I didn't usually have to go so far out of my way just to avoid traffic.  Kern River Canyon is a 1,500 to 2,000 foot deep canyon that basically runs from the expressway near Lake Isabella west to the Bakersfield city limit.  The road is a lot of fun but apparently it's pretty upsetting to Bakersfield PD given the weekend bikers or crazed drivers love it...DON'T SPEED EXITING THE CANYON...they will get you.  Apparently Kern Canyon is up for consideration on a bypass route for a full four-lane expressway to Lake Isabella.  I haven't heard much about the idea but I suspect I'd be long gone from Bakersfield by the time it ever gets started:

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So with that in mind I only have three more road trips to catch up on for 2016 to call this thing current.  Given that two of them were largely involving Old US 66 it will be easy to condense.  Thankfully I had my trip notes handy....that was a lot of work putting together all that stuff for my private CA 49 album.  Good news for me that a Rocky marathon is on which is making this long weekend kind of tolerable.  I'm not usually one for the holiday weekend crowds and even the wife doesn't really want to go out to do something either.

"Fallout New Vegas" anyone?  Back in the Sixties my future stepmother and her husband used to go antique hunting in deserted Nevada towns, then sell their finds at a small shack on US 101 north of North Bend.  I wonder how much is left to discover?

Once again thank you for the great pix!

Rick

Funny I actually picked up a copy of that game a couple years back, that's actually one of my favorites due to the obscure real world desert locations.  I would suspect that I-11 ever really did become a thing between Vegas and Reno then there is going to be an open season on Goldfield, Mina, and Luning when they die out for good.  There was a lot of interesting scrap pieces in Rhyolite but given that's BLM land I just assumed it wasn't okay to take.  I've found some decent treasures out on older abandoned sections of US Highways though; even 66 had some decent oil can finds or car parts. 

Gold was discovered in March of 1848, but there wasn't even telegraph in California then.  News didn't reach the eastern cities until September.  The 49ers were bright enough not to start a transcontinental journey in late fall, so the rush was in '49.

Thanks for the photos!  How busy is CA 49 these days?  Does traffic move at the limit most of the time?

Quote from: kkt on September 03, 2016, 12:13:34 AM
Gold was discovered in March of 1848, but there wasn't even telegraph in California then.  News didn't reach the eastern cities until September.  The 49ers were bright enough not to start a transcontinental journey in late fall, so the rush was in '49.

Thanks for the photos!  How busy is CA 49 these days?  Does traffic move at the limit most of the time?

Pretty much except from Jackson past Sutter Creek.  It's actually a really peaceful little jaunt north-bound even on the older alignments of 49.  If I have the time I definitely prefer it to CA 99 given there is much more to explore on CA 49.  It was relatively busy that weekend in terms of tourism to the mountains but I kept moving usually 5-7 MPH above the limit.  I'm hoping that I might be able to make a Ebbetts/Sonora Pass trip here the first week of October which is going to include a bunch of CA 49.

Funny though, CahighwaysGuy posted a link showing lane departure rumble strips were installed in Calaveras County.  That was one of the easier sections of 49 in general which kind of got a laugh out of me.  I couldn't fathom someone picking that route through the night or heavy volumes of traffic...so what's the purpose?

Even still it's pretty interesting to see how many of those towns actually popped up in 1848 in anticipation of the population boom.  Funny to think how many pieces were already in place that made modern California like San Francisco and Sacramento (Sutter's Fort and New Helvetia) already being present by influence of the Spanish or Mexicans.  Even Los Angeles dates back to the 1780s. 

It's pretty interesting to look at the contrast as to why people stayed in California but left Nevada.  At the root of it all it really comes down to is water.  California might not have much rain but it has rain shadowing from the Sierras which led to huge public works projects, fertile valleys, and agriculture that really kept the state going while Nevada basically just died post mining until the Hoover Dam project.

Max, thanks for sharing your photos and trip experience.

You captured some pics of thing along US 95 in Nevada that I've never really noticed before, in the roughly 15 years I've done drives between Reno and Vegas. I might need to get out of the car more on those trips!

Quote from: roadfro on September 03, 2016, 03:38:27 PM
Max, thanks for sharing your photos and trip experience.

You captured some pics of thing along US 95 in Nevada that I've never really noticed before, in the roughly 15 years I've done drives between Reno and Vegas. I might need to get out of the car more on those trips!

Sparker actually mentioned in the old alignment thread that there a couple older alignments of US 95 off in the brush between Hawthorne and Beatty that lead back to possibly some mining districts.  I'll have to check into sometime and really see what's back there, might be a service station or two crumbling that's worth a look next time through.  Mid October I'll actually be down in the Vegas area via Pahrump, I'll be mostly on the outlying roads by Red Rock Canyon and Lake Mead. 

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 02, 2016, 10:19:18 PMApparently Kern Canyon is up for consideration on a bypass route for a full four-lane expressway to Lake Isabella.  I haven't heard much about the idea but I suspect I'd be long gone from Bakersfield by the time it ever gets started:

There are local maps showing the supposed Kern Canyon bypass going back decades. It was a pipe dream then, it's a pipe dream now.

Quote from: BakoCondors on September 03, 2016, 11:49:30 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 02, 2016, 10:19:18 PMApparently Kern Canyon is up for consideration on a bypass route for a full four-lane expressway to Lake Isabella.  I haven't heard much about the idea but I suspect I'd be long gone from Bakersfield by the time it ever gets started:

There are local maps showing the supposed Kern Canyon bypass going back decades. It was a pipe dream then, it's a pipe dream now.

I'll believe it when the CA 178 freeway connects to 99....  :rolleyes:  CA 204 always adequate for that task....granted I say the former statement with a lot of sarcasm.  Granted it would be interesting in the winter to head back up to Lake Isabella to see what road ruins can be found on the lake bottom given how low it is right now.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 03, 2016, 11:56:32 PMI'll believe it when the CA 178 freeway connects to 99....  :rolleyes:  CA 204 always adequate for that task....granted I say the former statement with a lot of sarcasm.  Granted it would be interesting in the winter to head back up to Lake Isabella to see what road ruins can be found on the lake bottom given how low it is right now.

A friend of mine already did when the lake was lower and took photos - http://socalregion.com/out-of-the-lake-old-highway-178-and-the-town-of-isabella/ (http://socalregion.com/out-of-the-lake-old-highway-178-and-the-town-of-isabella/)

Yes, it's water... agriculture, gardens.  Also California having ports and a more pleasant climate.

Nevada still has some mineral wealth, even though they've gotten what can be got cheaply and easily.  Nevada should have wanted the nuclear waste depository, that would be a source of decent jobs forever that don't depend on tourists or being the only place with gambling and prostitution.

Quote from: sdmichael on September 04, 2016, 12:08:27 AM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 03, 2016, 11:56:32 PMI'll believe it when the CA 178 freeway connects to 99....  :rolleyes:  CA 204 always adequate for that task....granted I say the former statement with a lot of sarcasm.  Granted it would be interesting in the winter to head back up to Lake Isabella to see what road ruins can be found on the lake bottom given how low it is right now.

A friend of mine already did when the lake was lower and took photos - http://socalregion.com/out-of-the-lake-old-highway-178-and-the-town-of-isabella/ (http://socalregion.com/out-of-the-lake-old-highway-178-and-the-town-of-isabella/)

Well that was a bookmark right there, sure will make things easier whenever I decide to check it out.  :)

Quote from: kkt on September 04, 2016, 12:12:28 AM
Yes, it's water... agriculture, gardens.  Also California having ports and a more pleasant climate.

Nevada still has some mineral wealth, even though they've gotten what can be got cheaply and easily.  Nevada should have wanted the nuclear waste depository, that would be a source of decent jobs forever that don't depend on tourists or being the only place with gambling and prostitution.

Funny...with the Nevada Test Site and all those nukes that were detonated that pretty already is a thing....at least from the military's perspective.  That's the one big huge economy driver in that empty swath of land between Tonopah and Vegas...military R&D at Nellis and the Test Site.  Even the Navy has a bunch of squadrons that train up in Fallon and some agriculture in the area as well along the Carson River.  Mining is still a thing in Ely especially with the copper boom.  I'm actually surprised with the advances in mining techniques that the industry hasn't rebounded as much state side since WWII when the non-essential mines got shut down....the EPA Act probably can be thanked for that.  The towns on I-80 survived fairly well post US 40...well because they are really the only places to stop.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 04, 2016, 10:20:57 AM
Even the Navy has a bunch of squadrons that train up in Fallon and some agriculture in the area as well along the Carson River. 

Hey, the Navy has squadrons in an agricultural part of California too (Lemoore, near Hanford)! :D

Quote from: TheStranger on September 04, 2016, 09:43:47 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 04, 2016, 10:20:57 AM
Even the Navy has a bunch of squadrons that train up in Fallon and some agriculture in the area as well along the Carson River. 

Hey, the Navy has squadrons in an agricultural part of California too (Lemoore, near Hanford)! :D

Heh...don't think TOPGUN would have had the same impact rolling out of Fallon and Lemoore instead of that Miramar Beach backdrop.  :rolleyes:

QuoteIn Ridgecrest CA 178 multiplexes a lot of the US 395 BL which if I recall correctly is the old alignment of US 395.

From what I know, US 395 used to follow Brown Rd through Inyokern before it was relocated onto the Super Two expressway that runs midway between Inyokern and Ridgecrest. I do not believe US 395 ever followed Business US 395 through Ridgecrest. SDMichael knows of this and can help me clarify.

^^^^

Yeah I didn't want to make it seem like I had actually researched where US 395 had gone, because that's not the case.  There is a lot of roads up to Lee Vining that appear to have some connection to US 395 prior to the expressway being built.  I'd be interested to know regardless where US 395 was around Ridgecrest.

Alright....so...found myself with nothing to do today so I decided to test out the new tires on the Sonic.  I headed up CA 65 to CA 198 before sunrise to Moro Rock in Sequoia National Park.  There wasn't anyone on the Generals Highway today roughly almost all the way to the Giant Forest.  A guy broke down with his truck and trailer...looked to have gotten he trailer stuck on a retaining wall, they ain't kidding about that 22 foot length limit for those switch backs. I won't touch on things that I've already talked about but I have pictures...lots of shields this go around starting with Moro Rock:

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I can't decide which is the better picture...  The pano that I started facing left is really dark while the one from the right is blurred out by sun glare.  Of course I had to take about a dozen each and pick out the best that I liked...or didn't.  Got a couple I did like as the sun was just about to come over the Western Divide:

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The good thing about being so early that even on Labor Day I was WAY ahead of the tourist crowd which allowed for a short mountain run through the Giant Forest near General Sherman:

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Looking at my park map the other day I found a road to an over look near Grant Grove in Kings Canyon National Park that overlooks the canyon itself.  One thing was very apparent on the way up the Generals Highway....holy shit what a difference new tires made.  There was virtually zero road noise and worlds more grip than I had the last time I was up here.  I would speculate that I was able to take turns 3-10 MPH faster than before.  Mind you....I replaced tires that had 6mm of tread left on them, so Chevy must have cheaped out with the OEM sets of Hancooks.

I want to say the road to Panoramic Point was called "Crystal Springs Road" but it may very well be unnamed.  The road up to Panoramic point is the right turn where you would normally turn left to Grant Grove heading northbound.  Basically the road to Panoramic Point begins behind the John Muir Lodge and it's about 4 miles long, but only about half that to the actually overlook:

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I thought it was kind of neat to have Hume Lake in the foreground of Kings Canyon.  Personally I like the Confluence Overlook better but definitely this is an infinite step up over the crappy Kings Canyon Overlook to the south on the Generals Highway.  For some reason traffic is forced into the parking lot whereas you used to be able to take a right and head south to the park fire watch tower.  I wasn't in the mood for a 4 mile round trip run/hike so I'll just illustrate that the GSV had been up there in the past to prove my point:

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Now the street view:

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.7359145,-118.943397,3a,75y,90h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s5W6JFj7w3ala_5SOuZHxHA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

Damn shame too, looks like a well graded dirt road to the fire watch.  I seemed to recall it being advertised so I wonder why there is no signage directing you up to Panoramic Point or the fire watch?  I would suspect it might have something to do with the lane and a half road since it's narrow and had a crap ton of fast switchbacks for something so short:

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Of course I went across the street to the Grant Grove.  By now I want to say it was about 9:30 AM so it's getting close to time to book out:

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Of course 90% of the traffic is likely to head back down to San Joaquin Valley via CA 180 because Fresno is a direct shot some fifty miles west of Kings Canyon.  I almost always use CA 245 since it has virtually no traffic and hundreds of curves to challenge:

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Which raises the question....how many curves ARE on CA 245?  I would have imagine it's pretty damn high since you really aren't going straight for much more than a quarter of a mile until you get down from 5,500 feet to about 1,200 feet.  I hadn't gotten a decent photo from the highway before aside from the CA 245 sign in front of Dunlap Road, so why not?  Funny thing though there was a guy in a Honda Accord that I ran into running southbound in front of me at about 1,500 was having a really difficult time getting down hill.  He kept swinging over to the other side of the highway to make turns and really wasn't gaining anything by doing so.  I suspect that a lot of people ended up on CA 245 this weekend simply because they were staying somewhere like Visalia.  I had another car cross over the median on a turn heading northbound and almost ran me off the road around Badger...  Still, I was able to establish that these mountain roads are going to require a lot less manhandling with new tires.  That bodes well for a Sherman Pass visit this Saturday, I need to get that done before snow hits.  This also puts Ebbetts and Sonora Passes back on the table for early October. 

SO, with that in mind...Sequoia and Kings Canyon Highway signage is leaps and bounds better than what is seen up in Yosemite.  First off, no White Spades on brown guide signs:

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So...a little mystery I touched on prior on in the thread.  Does CA 180 technically exist in the Grant Grove district of Kings Canyon National Park?  The signage around Grant Grove above and here seems to suggest that's a yes, the park map says no, and cahighways was vague on a verdict:

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CA 180 never has any "TO" signage on it's implied route while CA 198 does, in addition to these placards telling you that you are on the Generals Highway:

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Of course there is actually a couple CA 245 Shields in the Giant Sequoia National Monument:

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Grabbed a couple more CA 245s just so we don't have a shortage of them anymore on the forum...anyone know how to submit them for additions to the gallery?  That 30 foot advisory is no joke either:

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Some more rare bird shields:

-  CA 201 from the junction with CA 245
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-  A pair of CA 216s around Woodlake...one kind of looks weird.
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-  A not so rare CA 198 hiding behind the CA 245 END.
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-  CA 65 on a guide sign....still should be on what is now CA 245, but what do I know?....route gaps and forlorn planned extensions.  :banghead:
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-  CA 63, with photographic proof it really is signed for about a block on the CA 198 expressway.  And Scott wonders why I think the route ought to be relinquished completely and decommissioned:
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SO...major decision now that I'm confident in the new tires.  Do I try for Sherman Pass before my oil change or after?  I might want to lump Mount Hamilton/CA 130 into a Lassen Peak trip in November, so it might work out after all.  The question is do I head all the way to the Mojave on Nine Mile Canyon Road if I hit Sherman or do I double back to California Hot Springs or the western CA 190?

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 03, 2016, 11:56:32 PM

Quote from: BakoCondors on September 03, 2016, 11:49:30 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 02, 2016, 10:19:18 PMApparently Kern Canyon is up for consideration on a bypass route for a full four-lane expressway to Lake Isabella.  I haven't heard much about the idea but I suspect I'd be long gone from Bakersfield by the time it ever gets started:

There are local maps showing the supposed Kern Canyon bypass going back decades. It was a pipe dream then, it's a pipe dream now.

I'll believe it when the CA 178 freeway connects to 99....  :rolleyes: 

Yet another pipe dream. You can thank 50s-era Bako mayor Frank Sullivan for stopping the 178 project at M Street, and current Ward 2 city councilman Terry Maxwell for fighting tooth and nail in the courts to stop the current 23rd/24th Street (relinquished route 178) widening project.

Yeah but back in the 50s Bakersfield wasn't even 60,000 people yet.  I'm sure that fighting road expansion was a lot more viable considering that I bet nobody in those days would have ever thought the city would have almost 400,000 residents half a century later.  Personally I don't really have a dog in the fight...I'm just a passerby...at least I hope so, it's been about five years.  :-D

Found this on Youtube, someone posted a motorcycle ride up 245 north of Woodlake:

Quote from: andy3175 on September 05, 2016, 12:23:38 AM

QuoteIn Ridgecrest CA 178 multiplexes a lot of the US 395 BL which if I recall correctly is the old alignment of US 395.

From what I know, US 395 used to follow Brown Rd through Inyokern before it was relocated onto the Super Two expressway that runs midway between Inyokern and Ridgecrest. I do not believe US 395 ever followed Business US 395 through Ridgecrest. SDMichael knows of this and can help me clarify.

US 395 Business in Ridgecrest, CA was NEVER US 395. It was also never a State highway south of Ridgecrest Blvd.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 05, 2016, 08:04:26 PMI'm just a passerby...at least I hope so, it's been about five years.  :-D

Uh-oh...no one told you? Bakersfield is like the Hotel California. You can check out anytime you like (for road trips and stuff) but you can never leave.  :bigass:

BTW, great work on all the photo-journeys.  :thumbsup:

Quote from: BakoCondors on September 05, 2016, 08:38:58 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 05, 2016, 08:04:26 PMI'm just a passerby...at least I hope so, it's been about five years.  :-D

Uh-oh...no one told you? Bakersfield is like the Hotel California. You can check out anytime you like (for road trips and stuff) but you can never leave.  :bigass:

BTW, great work on all the photo-journeys.  :thumbsup:

Thanks, I figure this would be 600 pages long for Nevada and California if I went back and posted everything from my first two stints here with work.   For what it's worth it's been a lot better up here this go around than it was when I had to work in L.A. and San Diego....they couldn't drag me out of Phoenix if they tried back in those days.  :-D

Quote from: sdmichael on September 05, 2016, 08:17:18 PM

Quote from: andy3175 on September 05, 2016, 12:23:38 AM

QuoteIn Ridgecrest CA 178 multiplexes a lot of the US 395 BL which if I recall correctly is the old alignment of US 395.

From what I know, US 395 used to follow Brown Rd through Inyokern before it was relocated onto the Super Two expressway that runs midway between Inyokern and Ridgecrest. I do not believe US 395 ever followed Business US 395 through Ridgecrest. SDMichael knows of this and can help me clarify.

Was andy right about the original alignment?

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 05, 2016, 09:05:52 PM
Was andy right about the original alignment?

Yes, Andy was correct about the alignment of US 395. The pre-1957 and 1966 alignment of US 395 followed Brown Road prior to the current alignment.

Alright the obligatory CA 1/Big Sur/Pacific Coast Highway post.  I won't beat a dead horse with the highway history of CA 1 since it's one of the most documented out there of any road.  BUT with that in mind I will talk about observations and just stuff I saw in general.  Some background though, usually I do this road at least once a year in the off-season which is of course winter.  In this particular case this was late February and I had my wife with me.  She was actually looking for a place to spread ashes near San Simeon since her grandma was a big Hearst Castle fan.  I believe that I found a good place or two but nothing has happened as far as progress on that front due to random family members needing surgery or just not having the money right now to travel west...oh well, fun road regardless.

So basically getting up CA 1 I took CA 99 and CA 46 along to the coast near Cambria.  I turned south on CA 1 for about a mile to Harmony Valley Road and Old Creamery Road to the village of Harmony.  Apparently Harmony was around back in the 1860s when ranching and creameries in the area were big.  Word was that the name "Harmony" came about in 1907 and was actually somewhat viable to the 1950s.  I'm fairly certain that CA 1 or the road that became it ran through Harmony along Old Creamery Road but I haven't researched it all that much:

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Of course before joining CA 1 I had to take the obligatory shield picture:

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I took Main Street through Cambria because I really just felt like it and by the looks of things is an obviously older alignment of CA 1.  Didn't take too long to get to San Simeon, in fact we were way early even for Hearst Castle to open for the opening tour.  San Simeon has been around since 1797 when it was established as a mission.  Basically it even had a substantial port at one point and really has declined despite it becoming much more known since Hearst Castle.  I thought that the overlook in the first picture might be good for ash spreading since I didn't really think the state park or the Hearst estate would be up for that thing:

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Of course Hearst Castle...is really just, well Hearst Castle.  It's not really my bag to look at the things that rich hoarders kept just for themselves.  The history of the place is pretty well documented so if you're interested I would suggest looking up some independent articles and maybe watch Citizen Kane since Xanadu and Charles Foster Kane are representations of Hearst Castle in addition to William Randolph Hearst.  Great movie though...especially when you understand the context of the time and who it was "really" about.  Anyways Hearst Castle Road is interesting since it splits off in one-way alignments and has various ruins from the Hearst Estate on it.  But for what's worth the Castle was above the cloud line....apparently you can spread ashes via plane drop right over the coast.....for some reason that got a laugh out of me.  I can just picture some rinky dink plane dropping ashes like some sort of cluster bomb.  :-D

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Of course had to take some pictures of the coastal animals.  It was actually kind of fun being able to drive as close to 55 MPH as possible almost the way to the Bixby Bridge.  Things really don't slow down all that much until Big Sur proper up in Monterrey County.

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Of course I had to stop at the Bixby Bridge since nobody was really around.  It seems that somewhere to the south someone had driven over the edge of the road.  There was at least twelve emergency vehicles that passed me headed south, probably just got through in the nic of time.  Regardless the Bixby Bridge is pretty damn beautiful when it isn't covered in tourists:

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Anyways spent the night in Monterrey visiting some friends.  The next day we took CA 156, CA 152 over Pacheco Pass, I-5, CA 46, and CA 99 back home...nothing special.  If I don't sound like I don't have my usual "oomph" for this trip it's because I wanted to take the Challenger and didn't get to.  Worse I had to stop at a lot of tourist traps that I don't like either...but I've spent much worse times on lesser roads.  I'm hoping to go back in December to document some older alignments and things that interest me more so.

All right final road report before I'm caught up for 2016.  I'm going to do a little cheating on this one since there is some stuff from Arizona.  I don't plan on opening a Mountain West Thread until next month and a lot of the trinkets I ran into had some origins in California...so yeah.  So with that mind I'm talking about Old US Route 66 back in February when I picked up my Challenger from my brother in Prescott after I got moved into my new new condo and back in January when I was returning from a work conference in Dallas.  In February I jumped up on a longer section of 66 starting in Ash Fork via AZ 89 and in January it was from CA 62 in addition to US 95.  The clearer skies are in February and the clouds are January...I'll try to say which is which.


SO!  With that in mind got a mid-day start out of my brothers from Prescott since I was only staying in Needles for the night.  A quick run up AZ 89 and I found myself in Ash Fork:

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Of course you can't take 66 west out of Ash Fork anymore and you have to jump on I-40 at exit 144.  66 is behind a gas station on the south side of the ramp and there is a bridge with a tree growing through it that's worth seeing...but I wasn't stuffing the Challenger down it given the bad condition of the road.  I jumped back onto 66 west at I-40 exit 139 and basically stayed on it to the state line.  There is an old bridge over the railroad tracks where the town of Crockton was.  I always though that the grade north of 66 was an old alignment but it turns out that it's an abandoned Santa Fe Rail Grade which you might be able to see in the left of the photo:

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Of course heading west you run into Seligman.  Almost every building has some sort of Route 66 theme to it, although it's not as walking friendly as Oatman or hell...even Hackberry.  Wasn't the easiest thing getting back up to that US 66 sign with weekend traffic:

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Somewhere just prior to the Yavapai County/Mohave County line is the "technical" start of AZ 66.  My understanding always has been that it has something to do with part of the highway being turned over to Yavapai County or ADOT having a policy against a route terminating at the same place...in this case it would have been I-40 in Kingman and Seligman.  There is another ghost town south of 66 and the railroad tracks that has some nice old buildings...not something that I would take the Challenger down a dirt road to go see.  I did stop at Grand Canyon Caverns to take pictures of the dinosaurs before blowing past Peach Springs.  You really don't want to mess around in Peach Springs given that it's on a reservation, too bad since there is a nice old alignment behind a fence line east of town:

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Besides Truxton and Valentine have more vintage 66 ruination to check out on the side of the road:

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West of Valentine you'll come across Hackberry and the Hackberry General Store.  Basically this place was really the last relic of the town of Hackberry after I-40 bypassed what was US 66.  Hackberry was basically totally abandoned until a new owner bought the General Store and did a huge 66 roadside theme with it.  There is all sorts of good stuff here; 66 signs from all over the country, gas pumps, Burma Shave signs, engines, and all sorts of other things.  My personal favorite is the huge California Spec US 66 cut-out in the General Store itself.  Basically there is all sorts of road porn wherever you look...usually there is a C1 Corvette at the gas pumps:

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Of course AZ 66 ends at I-40 in Kingman but I took Andy Devine through the city to the Powerhouse Museum.  The wimpy way to California is the post 1953 route through Yucca which follows I-40, the real 66 is on the Oatman Highway:

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What I didn't expect was that most of the Oatman Highway was recently repaved.  Before heading up Sitgreaves Pass I stopped in the rebuilt Cool Springs Station:

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The Oatman Highway over Sitgreaves Pass is a pretty bad ass little road.  I would speculate that the road is about 16 feet wide at best on average and can kind of get nuts on the western side around the Gold Road Mine and ghost town.  The reason US 66 went through Oatman originally was likely due to the substantial gold mines that were in the area until they were shut down in WWII due to being non-essential metals.  There used to be an ice cream shop at the top of the pass roughly from where I'm taking pictures.  The speed limit is low but basically I just usually ignore it...in this instance this was the first REAL mountain road for the Challenger and it handled way better than I expected.  I wasn't sure how much the road surface had to do with it since it was new...almost a shame to see the rotted out asphalt go...incidentally the Oatman Highway is actually Mohave County Route 10:

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Of course I wasn't going to try to wedge the Challenger in some dirt lot or narrow road in Oatman that has about a billion donkeys on it:

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Although Oatman was around for awhile it was the site of one of the more recent mining town booms in the 1910s.  Most of the older part of the town burned in 1921.  Of course given it's status as a mine town with a peak population at 3,500 it's pretty easy to see why US 66 took the road to Oatman given that Yucca wasn't much of a destination despite the much easier terrain.  The mines were shut down in 1941 and the Burros that the miners had were cut loose.  Basically the wild burros wandering the town today come from the pack animals the miners had.  There is a lot of choice signage on some of the shops that are most of the tourist variety.  There is some interesting antique shops with real 66 signs near the Oatman Hotel...I seem to recall a very ornate button-copy 24x24 for sale running about $2,000 dollars:

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Heading out of Oatman you run through the ghost town of Old Trails.  Taking the Oatman Highway Old 66 passes the Boundary Cone and the town of Topock.  I WOULD have gotten a picture of the Boundary Cone but someone in a Fusion didn't think 55 MPH was fast enough and diverted my attention until I got rid of him.  After the Topock Marsh you have to jump onto I-40 exit 1 and head west into California.  The original bridge US 66 was the Colorado River Arch Bridge which is in the background of this picture....the replacement would have been next to the rail tracks:

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And I'll continue with California and the Mojave in the next post.

To get the last photo I had in the previous post requires you to jump off of I-40 exit 153 around Park Mobai.  You have to turn east on National Old Trails Highway which will take you to the Colorado River Arch Bridge.  If you try to continue west from Park Mobai you run into a heavy washout where US 66 was ripped up at the crossing of I-40.  I've gotten past it in an ATV but it's not something a car could ever do.  Nice section of road to explore if you can get to it though...could always try on foot.  :eyebrow:  Anyways I jumped off on US 66 at exit 148 which would have multiplexed US 95 into Needles.  I actually found a reasonably priced Chevron where the Basha's used to be on Broadway.  Seems that a lot of price gouging stations have gone under while the name brand ones have stayed.  I was trailed by a Needles PD Officer down Broadway until I cut up to the El Garces Hotel which looks to almost completely renovated at this point:

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The next morning I jumped onto I-40 and got off at US 95 which would have been the pre-1931 alignment of US 66.  There is a naming theme with the towns along this section of the Mojave when they were railroad sidings; Amboy, Bristol, Cadiz, Danby, Essex, Fenner, Goffs, Homer, Ibis, Jaba, and Kleinfelter.  Really the only trace of anything east of Goffs is Kleinfelter here on US 95:

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As pre-1931 US 66 breaks away west of US 95 you'll eventually come to the railroad tracks and Goffs.  Goffs plain and simple is just a straight ghost town.  There is a railroad museum here but the hours are wonky at best.  The General Store is a complete wreck but has plenty to see:

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As you travel west on Old US 66 you'll come to Fenner at I-40 exit 107.  Basically this place is infamous for it's high gas prices but if I recall correctly they operate an RV park and might not be totally connected to the power grid?  Anyways I took this photo back in January from the actually ramp on I-40:

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Speaking of Fenner...love the review write-ups on Google:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hi+Sahara+Oasis,+Inc./@34.8158312,-115.1958426,14z/data=!4m7!3m6!1s0x0:0x9b0857fbe0b3cef6!8m2!3d34.8172782!4d-115.1830781!9m1!1b1!6m1!1e1?hl=en

Something must have happened to the Goffs Bypass alignment of US 66 since it's blocked off.  I would speculate there is a wash out of something down the road or San Bernardino County just doesn't want to maintain it anymore.  The pre-1931 alignment of US 66 is actually signed as part of CR 66 and seemed to have some pretty new pavement.  The post-1931 alignment was a straighter route and obviously didn't go to Goffs but also; Fenner, Homer, Ibis, Jaba, or Kleinfelter and would have gone to where exit 115 on I-40 is today.  This stretch of road was open just a few years ago, I don't know exactly what happened.

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Essex is interesting....apparently this was one of the last places in the lower 48 states to get cable TV and was even featured on the Tonight Show in 1977.  Apparently there is only 8 to 10 people left on the 2013 census, I would say it might be just a handful at this point.  I'd be careful here since there ARE attack dogs behind some of the fenced yards:

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Basically the reason this stretch of US 66 is dead is because I-40 turns directly west through the Bristol Mountains while the former went around them near the railroad tracks.  Basically this would be one of the examples where the Interstate really and truly killed off some section of small town America.  Fun part is though that the Bristols are so remote that nuclear bombs were considered as an excavation tool.  :-D

Of course San Bernardino has gotten a lot better with the CR 66 signs above.  West of Essex is Danby (pic from January)....which I guess grew from the tracks up to the highway as time went by.  There is actually a crap ton of guard dogs here so the buildings are maintained by something, but they aren't worth really seeing anyways.  The low weight limits on the bridges are interesting...too bad I didn't take a pic of them:

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Now west of Danby US 66 took Cadiz Summit while actual townsite is located below near the rail tracks south of Chambless.  Cadiz Summit used to have a gas station and motel which is what the ruins consist of.  The story is best told on DesertUSA:

http://www.desertusa.com/dusablog/cadiz-summit-yesterday-and-today.html

Basically the mostly intact structure is the garage, you can see the mounts for the pumps, parts of the foundation of the motel/cafe.

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Of course I really dig the "REPENT NOW" and creeper chair that mysterious popped up...makes you wonder who really passes by?  Anyways this was Cadiz Summit back in 1948:

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Of course this is probably a good opportunity to explain that the painted US 66 signs are apparently there due to sign theft along the route.  I got a better picture of the Cadiz Summit one back in January:

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Down the hill west of Cadiz Summit you'll find Chambless.  There isn't much signs of life along the road but there is evidence people still live in the buildings north of the Route 66 monument.  This is also where the ruins of Road Runner's Retreat is:

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Now according to everything I've read there must have been a town called Bristol along the rail tracks south of US 66 before Amboy.  However I have my own theory that there was never actually a town and the Bristol in question is simply Bristol Dry Lake which is a very obvious land feature.  Regardless you can bail out of this section of Old US 66 up Kelso Road to I-40 before Amboy....or Kelso Depot in the Mojave Preserve if you like.  But for what it's worth Amboy is pretty worth seeing and pretty much the only "somewhat" friendly place out in this stretch of the Mojave.  Amboy had 700 something people at it's peak and probably it's just the people working in Roy's Cafe who live there now.  Apparently the guy who owns Juan Pollo bought the whole town of Amboy back in 2005 and reopened Roy's.  Roy's Cafe doesn't really have food but they do have drinks, trinkets, bathrooms, and now all grades of gas.  You can wander the grounds at a whim too provided you don't try to jump the fence to the Amboy School:

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Now this is where I doubled back to I-40 on Kelso Road in February and where I continued west in January:

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West of Amboy and Amboy Road you'll come to the Amboy Crater which is an extinct volcanic cone.  My understanding is that some kids once set some tires on fire here to make people think that an eruption was happening.  :-D  Apparently there is also a fighter jet out there somewhere in the lava flow but I've never found it:

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This tree is where the town of Bagdad was.  Bagdad was apparently the setting for some movies and where the Bagdad Cafe in Newberry Springs gets it's name from.  Word is that the town site was demolished back in 1991:

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West of Bagdad is the rail siding of Siberia which can be seen near the tracks.  Really all that's left is one partially standing wall near the tracks.  I should elaborate on why the Challenger didn't go this way in February....this section of CR 66/US 66/Old 66 (getting tired of switching the names) is in really bad shape.  The pavement is rough and heavily pitted, so much so that's probably just easier to drive in the center of the road:

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In January I continued all the way to Ludlow which is where the first chain gas station west of Needles is.  Apparently Ludlow was one of the bigger rail sidings out in the Mojave at one point and actually had a downtown district as evidenced in the background of the photo.  Basically this place has been around since the 1880s:

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From here I jumped back on I-40 and headed home on CA 58.  You COULD pass under I-40 and bridge the cut portion of Old 66 and continue all the way to Dagget before you'd be forced onto I-40 because of the Marine Corps Station in Barstow.  Really I could have gone way more in depth about the alignment histories along with the townsites but it's really worth venturing out to 66 yourself.  I just wish the California side would get a little bit more friendly to tourism like Arizona is....not really anything else is keeping these places going.  But hey...big difference between hostile desert versus mild high desert to plateau.

Are there CR 10 signs along the route?  I would imagine that they didn't make it CR 66 as those signs would likely have been stolen.

Quote from: Avalanchez71 on September 09, 2016, 08:38:44 PM
Are there CR 10 signs along the route?  I would imagine that they didn't make it CR 66 as those signs would likely have been stolen.

I want to say there "was" CR 10s but I don't recall seeing them this time around.  I'll scan the GSV after dinner and see what I can find.  If they were ever there it was likely at Boundary Cone Road Road and Oatman Highway.

Edit:  Seems that recently this is what the GSV is seeing for route signage on the Oatman Highway:

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.1388262,-114.107956,3a,75y,270h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sZpl3kAsdF9eyuWEOqYLTDQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

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^^^

-  Seems the sign above matches the brown one I found in the window of the Hackberry Store.  Maybe I'm just remembering the other county routes since Mohave County usually seems to be pretty good at signing them....I could swear I've seen a CR 10 though.

Edit Again:

-  Look what's on eBay right now:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/REAL-AUTHENTIC-ARIZONA-24X24-HISTORIC-ROUTE-66-SIGN-HIGHWAY-SHIELD-ROAD-SIGN-/142112820904?&_trksid=p2056016.l4276

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 02, 2016, 05:25:37 PM
Continuing on with CA 49 in Tuolumne County....

Just over the Tuolumne County Line CA 49 multiplexes with CA 120 near the Don Pedro Reservoir.  The weird thing is that this largely a 65 MPH zone for whatever reason instead of the standard 55 MPH two-lane highways you usually see in California.  This kind of reminds me of other highways like CA 62 east of 29 Palms....I would speculate that for some reason wide should width yields that extra 10 MPH bump to 65 for whatever reason.  Continuing east would get up you either your choice of the New Priest Grade or Old Priest Grade...but I've talked about those.

The segment of CA-49 from Moccasin to Chinese Camp was supposed to be part of a 4-lane freeway/expressway facility on CA-120 from Oakdale to (I assume) somewhere near Groveland.  This would have included a replacement of New Priest Grade.  Because it's built to 2-lane expressway standards, the speed limit is higher.  The James Robert Bridge across Lake Don Pedro was built to accommodate 4 lanes.  You can see that the piers are wider than the structure itself with Y-shaped bent caps that only support one set of lanes..very odd looking. 


iPhone

I'm going through this chain looking for anything I missed for the next update before I do that last part of updates, and noticed this:

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 24, 2016, 11:29:52 PM
Back onto to US 299:

-  According to cahighways LRN 28 was the route between Alturas and the Nevada State line, it clear refers to US 299 running the entire distance post 1935:

http://www.cahighways.org/025-032.html

However the maps from 1963 and 1964 show a different story.  1963 still shows US 299 ending in Alturas while LRN 28 goes to the Nevada line, in 1964 it's all CA 299:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239528~5511852:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1963?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=54&trs=86

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239525~5511850:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1964?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=56&trs=86

Given that this might indicate an error on my pages, I looked at the link. Part of the problem is that I've never had a definitive list of what was signed post 1934. Although it is clear that LRN 28 was signed to the Nevada border, it is unclear what, if any signage was used on that route E of Alturas. On the Nevada side it is 8A and 34. None of the maps I could find easily in my file drawer show a sign number E of Alturas. So, for now, I'm going to conclude I've got an error and make the correction. I'll keep looking to see of LRN 28 had any signage E of Alturas.

Quote from: cahwyguy on September 10, 2016, 12:03:08 PM
I'm going through this chain looking for anything I missed for the next update before I do that last part of updates, and noticed this:

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 24, 2016, 11:29:52 PM
Back onto to US 299:

-  According to cahighways LRN 28 was the route between Alturas and the Nevada State line, it clear refers to US 299 running the entire distance post 1935:

http://www.cahighways.org/025-032.html

However the maps from 1963 and 1964 show a different story.  1963 still shows US 299 ending in Alturas while LRN 28 goes to the Nevada line, in 1964 it's all CA 299:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239528~5511852:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1963?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=54&trs=86

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239525~5511850:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1964?sort=Date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:Date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=56&trs=86

Given that this might indicate an error on my pages, I looked at the link. Part of the problem is that I've never had a definitive list of what was signed post 1934. Although it is clear that LRN 28 was signed to the Nevada border, it is unclear what, if any signage was used on that route E of Alturas. On the Nevada side it is 8A and 34. None of the maps I could find easily in my file drawer show a sign number E of Alturas. So, for now, I'm going to conclude I've got an error and make the correction. I'll keep looking to see of LRN 28 had any signage E of Alturas.

Nonetheless it's an intriguing thought to think that there may have been a tongue and cheek plan to extend US 299 at some point.  I'm half convinced there has to be some sort of AASHTO document showing a possible extension that has been lost time....or the internet at least.  Who know?...maybe something new will pop up one day?

Quote from: jrouse on September 10, 2016, 10:21:52 AM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 02, 2016, 05:25:37 PM
Continuing on with CA 49 in Tuolumne County....

Just over the Tuolumne County Line CA 49 multiplexes with CA 120 near the Don Pedro Reservoir.  The weird thing is that this largely a 65 MPH zone for whatever reason instead of the standard 55 MPH two-lane highways you usually see in California.  This kind of reminds me of other highways like CA 62 east of 29 Palms....I would speculate that for some reason wide should width yields that extra 10 MPH bump to 65 for whatever reason.  Continuing east would get up you either your choice of the New Priest Grade or Old Priest Grade...but I've talked about those.

The segment of CA-49 from Moccasin to Chinese Camp was supposed to be part of a 4-lane freeway/expressway facility on CA-120 from Oakdale to (I assume) somewhere near Groveland.  This would have included a replacement of New Priest Grade.  Because it's built to 2-lane expressway standards, the speed limit is higher.  The James Robert Bridge across Lake Don Pedro was built to accommodate 4 lanes.  You can see that the piers are wider than the structure itself with Y-shaped bent caps that only support one set of lanes..very odd looking. 


iPhone

Good to know...so that's why CA 14, US 395, CA 177 and CA 62 all have 65 MPH two-lane zones?  Does the same rules apply to the 60 MPH zones such that are seen on roads like CA 178 near Walker Pass or CA 62 east of CA 177?

Alright I got a treat for you guys today, FINALLY got my car sorted out the way I want and crossed Sherman Pass this morning.  I'm telling you the higher quality Goodyears have made a world of difference over the Hancooks that came with the Sonic.  Anyways my path over Sherman today was from CA 65 in Ducor to US 395 at the end of Nine Mile Canyon...so roughly about 115 miles across.

Since I'm familiar with how little vehicle traffic Sherman Pass gets I started out a little later than I normally do at about 6 AM with a quick shot up CA 65 to Ducor where I turned east on J22.  J22 eventually becomes Mountain Route 56 and climbs up to California Hot Springs. 

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California Hot Springs basically is a ghost town these days.  Apparently the place dates back to 1882 when it was used as a health spa.  Word is that it had a hotel and shopping plaza by the 1920s but they burned down two fires that happened in 1932 and 1968.  M56 is an okay road, it is actually pretty solid until it gets close to the 3,000 foot above sea level range within the vicinity of California Hot Springs.  I should note M56 is where I ran into 2 of the 3 cars that were heading eastward on this trip over the mountains.  Basically this is all Sequoia National Forest lands from here to Kennedy Meadows.  M56 dead ends where you can turn right for Pine Flat or left for Mountain Route 50:

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I'm not sure how long M50 has been around but it was at least 1935 since it played a hand in the sawmill at Johnsondale.  M50 briefly goes over 6,000 feet above sea level around what is apparently called (I think that I saw it on a road sign) Parker Pass.  M50 intersects M90 at about 5,500 feet which is called the Great Western Divide Highway and will take you past some Sequoia Groves northward to the western segment of CA 190:

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Directly east of the M50/M90 intersection is Johnsondale at about 4,700 feet.  As I was saying Johnsondale was set up by the Mount Whitney Lumber Company in 1935.  Apparently they used the same road that is now M50 from California Hot Springs to set up the original mill.  The Lumber Company build was is now M99 which connects Johnsondale to Road's End in 1937 which ironically is where the road really ended.  The original mill burned down in 1943 but was replaced a year later.  Lumber operations were shut down in Johnsondale in 1979 and the town was abandoned until it became a ranch resort in 1989:

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To get to Sherman Pass you need to take a right on M99 down into Upper Kern Canyon.  I don't know when the older Johnsondale Bridge at the Kern River was built but I do know it's an older alignment of M99 as the old road is still driveable.  I would speculate that the old bridge is from the original M99 construction back in 1937 but I can't prove it.  The replacement had a time stamp of 1983.  Just east of the Kern River is the turn off for Sherman Pass Road which is Forest Route 22S05.  I should mention that the elevation here is about 4,000 feet above sea level:

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I should note that there is another sign that says "next gas 75 miles" which is a total lie since there is regular unleaded for sale in Kennedy Meadows for $4.89 per gallon. 

Anyways...I remember ASACmapcollector once saying Sherman Pass Road was a dangerous road since it was listed on dangerousroads.org.  :rolleyes:  Sherman Pass Road is a perfectly good road and very well maintained considering it is a Forest Service Route.  The accent out of Upper Kern Canyon to Sherman Pass is very gentle and easy to maintain a good 35-40 MPH pace heading up hill without much engine strain.  At 8,000 feet there is a really huge overlook of Upper Kern Canyon with a snow cap.  At 9,200 feet you reach Sherman Pass and Mount Whitney in addition to Olancha Peak can be seen some 40 miles to the north.

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From Sherman Pass the terrain levels out on the Kern Plateau a lot but holy shit there is a crap load of rock fall on the eastbound lane.  I found what WOULD be a wonderful overlook at about 8,500 feet but alas.  Also found this sign showing the Forest Route number for Sherman Pass Road:

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Gradually Sherman Pass Road descends to about 6,400 feet in Kennedy Meadows.  The bridge over the South Fork Kern River was dated 1960.  Sherman Pass Road becomes J41/Nine Mile Canyon Road at about the Kennedy Meadows General Store but there isn't any County Route markers:

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Now the real highlight of this route for me is Nine Mile Canyon Road.  Basically for whatever reason once J41/Nine Mile becomes a thing, at least in Tulare County the maintenance sucks.  There is no center line on the roadway as it ascends up 7,300 feet for the drop into Nine Mile Canyon.  I can't find any history of Nine Mile Canyon for the life of me but the road is completely bad ass.  Basically you drop from that 7,300 feet to 2,600 feet in just a couple miles on a heavy downhill grade.  I usually use 2nd gear through here since the road gets really narrow and has monster drop offs.  There is a center line once Inyo County starts but it disappears in the narrow portions of the road which are about 14-16 feet wide.  The last vehicle I passed was here...guy with a trailer...that must have sucked.  There were also sky drivers that were landing in the side of the canyon, that must have been interesting trying to get down.  I used 2nd gear from about 6,500 to 3,000 feet before continuing on to US 395:

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I just wish that it was easier to upload photos here since I took a ton of Nine Mile Canyon heading down hill.  NOW...if someone wanted to call Nine Mile a dangerous road I'd probably be okay with that, but not Sherman Pass Road.  Totally worth the trip if you are looking for something a little more on the obscure side from Tioga, Sonora, Carson or Ebbets Pass for a weekend drive. 

Now regarding the issue of CA 190 which we all discussed awhile back in another thread...yes this route is maintained to a very similar level of a California State Highway.  The only part that would probably need a substantial upgrade is J41/Nine Mile in Tulare County...but even then it's only Ebbets Pass, CA 146, and CA 236 levels of bad maintenance.  I'm not saying Caltrans ought to pick up maintenance...but what I am saying is that maybe it's time to abandon Olancha Pass for good to connect the two segments.  Just because it wouldn't be a California State Highway doesn't mean that route continuity couldn't be maintained.  My idea is as follows:

1.  From CA 99 use the current western CA 190 to Camp Nelson.
2.  From Camp Nelson resign M90 as M190 and use actual signs.
3.  Co-sign M190 along with M50 to Johnsondale.
4.  Cut M99 back to Sherman Pass Road and have it re-signed as M190.
5.  Have Sherman Pass Road signed as FR 190.
6.  Have J41 re-signed as J190 to US 395.
7.  Co-sign CA 190 alongside US 395 to eastern CA 190.  Legislatively this would be US 395 of course.

Now I know that will never happen but it would be nice to have some route continuity and a completed Route 190.  Next post will be the voyage home...

Took a strange route home today.  I got over Sherman much sooner than I expected and I didn't want to be home before 3 PM.  So with that in mind I decided to jump onto Old US 6 and then CA 178 over Walker Pass.  I had to stop for a second to get the weekend brigade of bikers heading out of Ridgecrest off my ass...thankfully the Fremont Junction Ghost Town Site was available to wander for a couple minutes:

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I've always like Walker Pass over Tehachapi....a lot less traffic and honestly better scenery with the Kern River Valley.  Funny...my understanding is that Walker Pass is technically the end of the Mojave Desert despite Joshua Trees extending down into the Valley for a good distance:

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I was having a good time heading down CA 178 until I saw multiple cars flashing their headlights....of course me being a local, I know this means a weekend speed trap up ahead.  SURE ENOUGH....some Kern County Sheriff came blasting eastbound through traffic from Onyx a couple miles later in pursuit of someone.  Almost ran me and the other guy in the other lane off the road....note like I could get over anymore since there wasn't a should.  I'm sorry for the mini-rant but this is complete crap that there is so many speed traps on this route on the weekend.  The worst part is Kern River Canyon when Bakersfield PD and Kern County Sheriff LITERALLY wait for you at the canyon mount....total BS.  So with that in mind, I decided it was time for an even more scenic route with CA 155:

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I stopped at Isabella Dam for a decent photo of Isabella Lake.  Apparently back in something like 2006 the dam was found to be deficient and could only hold 60% of it's design capacity.  I figure it's probably the year to get up to Old Kernville while it's still above water...but that's a winter thing.  Old Kernville was discussed a couple replies up from this one....the old town site was flooded over in 1954 after the Isabella Dam was finished in 1953.  Basically the original town site was near Wofford Heights from 1858 to 1948-51ish.... 

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Swinging up to Greenhorn Summit there was ANOTHER Sheriff blasting eastbound....at least this one was more careful.  I stopped a little west of the summit where there was a recent forest fire.  CA 155 despite being near some major travel corridors doesn't get much traffic and has ton of twisties:

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Of course all things must come to an end...at least it was with a surprise button-copy CA 65 guide sign that I forgot about:

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Leave it to a cycling site to have the grade information I was looking for with Nine Mile Canyon:

http://www.pjammcycling.com/32.--nine-mile-canyon-road--ca.html

And I quote:

"The Nine Mile Canyon Road climb begins a bit west of Death Valley, and the temperatures during the summer can be stifling.  The average high temperature during July and August exceeds 100 degrees.  The scenery through the first 10 miles is high desert, stark and barren.   Miles 2-4 are 8.1%, mile 5 averages 8.9% while miles 8.2-9.2 spike to 10% average (very tough in 100 degree weather).  During the summer months, and even in cooler weather, this is a very challenging climb.


Traffic and Roadway report:  The roadway surface is good throughout the ride with two lanes divided by a center line for the first 10 miles.  There is minimal traffic along this route and the roadway has a safe feel to it."


They also had a write up on Sherman Pass Road:

http://www.pjammcycling.com/12.-sherman-pass-west--ca.html

"Sherman Pass is a challenging climb in a remote region of the southern Sierra Nevada mountain  range in the Sequoia National Forest.  As can be seen from the elevation profile below, unlike the  Central Sierra climbs (Owens Valley), the strong pitches are more evenly distributed throughout the ride (e.g., the violet [8-12%] segments appear intermittently from beginning to end).  The views  throughout the ride are initially of distant mountainous terrain as we are surrounded by an arid  landscape which gives way to a more alpine setting as we reach the 9-10 miles mark.  Sherman  Pass has been victim to forest fires that have destroyed much of the forest we would otherwise  enjoy through the climb, yet this is a wonderful and challenging ride that is a must on any  California climbing bucket list.   Beware that the heat during the summer can be stifling (the  temperatures when we first climbed Sherman in August, 2011 hit 106 at the bottom of the climb).


Traffic and Roadway report:  The roadway surface is rough, but major potholes and cracks had  been patched within a week of our climb in August, 2014.  Descend with caution as there is  gravel/dirt/sand in locations which create a real hazard for the unwary.  The road is narrow with no  shoulder, bike lane or center line, although the very few vehicles you will encounter along the way generally travel at  low speed."

-  I actually thought the road was in much better shape this go around than I remember it previously.  Even coming out of Upper Kern Canyon I didn't see much in the way of rocks.  Most of the fallen rocks were north of Sherman Pass.

Alrighty.....enough boring freeway, surface consistency, and taxes talk.  Took the scenic route home this morning from a work trip in up in Fresno. 

Started out taking CA 99 down to CA 137 since I've never taken the highway to CA 65 before:

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Figured I would try to get a CA 137....they all turned out crappy before sunrise and that was the best of all them.  Boring road to be sure...but the farm crowd was up and about.  Hit CA 65 for a couple miles and hit the expressway south from Lindsay:

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But I wasn't taking CA 65 back to Bakersfield....I was taking the "scenic route" and continuing the saga of CA 190...so I turned east on Avenue 196 in Strathmore.  Basically I'm to understand this is all part of CR J28 all the way east to CA 190...didn't see any shields.  Regardless got a pretty decent view of Tule River Canyon where CA 190 follows the Middle Fork Tule River to the top:

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Speaking of CA 190....shields abound:

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CA 190 east of Springville is almost....well paved too good for how narrow and winding it is.  A little over 2,000 feet there is a nice pipe bridge which apparently belongs to a power station in the nearby S-hairpins:

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Funny to see a chain control sign this early in the year.  There was decent views west into Tule River Canyon at about 3,000 and 4,000 feet before the main tree line hit:

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Of course the tree line is pretty heavy at 4,000 feet:

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So what's the story with the "Wellsville Saloon" near Camp Nelso?  I could never find any evidence that a Wellsville ever existed in the area...this place has always intrigued me.  Anyways Camp Nelson is lapping the 5,000 foot line:

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CA 190 rises to about 7,000 feet above sea level before it ends and the road becomes M107/The Great Western Divide Highway.  Someone jacked the shield that was above the "end" marker but the starting reassurance shield is still there.  Weird part is that both shields were in the westbound lane for some reason...a theme you see all the way up or at least past Camp Nelson:

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I should mention that everything east of Springville is technically within the southern segment of the Great Sequioa National Monument.  Basically CA 190 was intended to continue directly east from here via Olancha Pass....but that ain't ever happening.  Of course the road can be taken over Sherman Pass as can be plainly seen a couple posts before this one.  Apparently someone didn't like the control city sign, my destination was Kernville:

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A little affirmation of the height on M107/Western Divide Highway.  Incidentally...I think that I referred to this road as M90 for some reason when discussing Sherman Pass in case you read this far and got confused.  It was about 37F at this point:

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For whatever reason I couldn't find the pay station at the Trail of 100 Giants...so guess they didn't get my $5 dollars.  Disappointing since the campers walking by were completely useless pointing out a pay station.  There was a sign saying "pay the forest ranger" and there was none to be had the early hour.  I didn't feel like being cheap so I just continued on...got a decent view of the valley below M107 and Kern River Canyon off in the distance before said wriggamoral:

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This is where I intersected my Sherman Pass trip at M50.  I took M50 down to M99 but instead of heading up Sherman Pass Road I stayed on M99.  I was able to get better pictures of Kern River Canyon and M99....one shot is looking from the ridge M107 is on east to Kern River Canyon:

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Apparently M99 has a 35 MPH speed limit.  At least that's what I was led to believe when I saw a random "end 35 MPH" that I had never noticed before.  Regardless once you reach the Kern River Canyon Bridge the need for a slow speed limit really ends...I did 45-50 MPH no problem.  The bridge is also the end of the Giant Sequoia National Monument.

During my last trip I really started digging into the original town sites of Old Kernville and Isabella.  It doesn't seem that old CA 178 and Isabella are currently accessible but Old Kernville sure was.  At New Kernville M99 becomes Burlando Road as it approaches Wofford Heights.  Old Kernville can be accessed off of Old Cemetery Road and taking what appears to have been a boat landing down to the town site.  Kernville was originally founded in 1858 along the Kern River when gold was found at what would become the Big Blue Mine.  Of course from 1948-1951 the Old Kernville site was gradually moved to the new one during the Lake Isabella Project.  There is actually a crap ton of foundations actually left to find along with some traces of asphalt under the sand.  I would recommend parking at the bottom of the boat ramp since the terrain gets kind of rough and really sandy:

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Of course taking Burlando Road to Wofford Heights takes you to CA 155 and Lake Isabella.  I could have taken CA 178 home.......but:

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That would be just so damn passe given it's the weekend and there is a crap ton of cops waiting at the city line.  So I took Bodfish-Caliente/CR 483 instead.  Great views of Kern River Valley and Lake Isabella on the accent out of Bodfish:

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Of course I'm a sucker for hairpins:

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Basically this road was largely built in the 1860s and 1870s as a mining access road that intersects Walker Basin.  The first major site of interest was the Havilah. Havilah was the original Kern County seat when it split off Tulare and Los Angeles Counties in 1866.  Havilah hung onto the county seat until it was moved to Bakersfield in 1872.  The town was founded in 1864 when gold was found in a nearby creek.  Apparently the peak population was about 2,000 before the mines played out.  The courthouse and school house are apparently replicas:

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CR 483 despite being a two-lane road for it's duration is a pretty bad ass little road.  The surface is coming up really badly and at times it's extremely narrow.  There are a crap ton of hair pins between Havilah and Caliente....the road apparently rises to about 4,000 feet in places:

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Before cutting south on Bealville Road I passed Caliente.  Caliente is a town that was founded in the 1870s as a staging camp for the mines in Kern River Valley.  The town came into it's own in 1875 when the Southern Pacific built a railroad through town.  Caliente peaked out apparently at about 200 people but it doesn't appear to have changed much:

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I cut south on Bealville Road to the railroad tracks where the town of Bealville once was.  Apparently Bealville was founded in 1879 and only lasted for a couple years.  There aren't any traces but the town would have been at the railroad tracks.

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I headed east for a couple miles on CA 58 to finally knock out Cesar Chavez National Monument after all these years....that makes 49 or 124 for me:

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Coming back down to Bakersfield to the east I took pictures of shields for 223 and 204.  I missed 184/Weedpatch Highway because of a phone call.  At least I got a picture of the button copy stuff before CA 99:

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Anyways....fun day and knocked everything south of Yosemite Valley south in the Sierras for the summer season.  Looks like Hetch Hetchy is going to have to wait until later in the week but Ebbets and Sonora Pass should be on the menu shortly thereafter.  Scott...if you're reading this now you understand why I'm not in favor of this bullshit mileage tax your buddy Jerry Brown is after.  Sure would ruin a lot of weekend fun at least....



Mod Note: Fixed first image tag under the line "Speaking of CA 190....shields abound". –Roadfro

21:00 and after is Caliente-Bodfish Road:



This is from the same location as my second Old Kernville pic on apparently "Cow Road?"  Anyways it would seem that at some point there was some additional sand deposits between 2012 and today:

I always laughed at that road name, "Real Road."  Makes me wonder if there was a "Fake Road" somewhere.  I supposed it's actually Spanish for Royal Road.

Yeah suffice to say when I had moved out west after the military it was kind of an adjustment seeing those Spanish names.  I had taken Spanish in high school but retained almost none of it in the ensuing years until I ended up in Arizona.  I think that I learned more by pulling people over as a highway patrolman more than anything else, at least a basic understanding of what was being said to me.  That always gets a chuckle out of family though when they see the sign....or anything "El Camino" since they associate it with the car and mullet wearing vagabonds they see so often see driving them where they live.

Surprisingly though, there is HUGE concentration of "Fake Road, Drive, and Lane" back on the eastern seaboard for some reason.  Personally I think the name would be pretty apt for some of the heavy duty 4WD drive roads I know out in the deserts...cough....El Camino del Diablo I have you in mind.

Sword of Damocles day on the road...which can only mean one thing, the Challenger went up into the Sierras.  Too much power, too much of a color clash that makes one stand out....all a recipe for disaster or peril?  Turns out not so much despite the recent cold snap.

SOOOoooooo.....this past couple days there has been a huge temperature drop in Central California which means that winter is around the corner.  Luckily there wasn't much in the way of rain or snow so it gave me one last opportunity to get the Challenger out into the Sierras for the first time since I bought it (asides from Tehachpi or Lake Isabella).  Luckily I just so happen to be spending the weekend in Fresno for a work assignment so that left a good opportunity for a foray into Yosemite. 

So my route took me up CA 41, granted I have a crap ton of 41 Shield pics on this thread but I haven't snagged a CA 145 yet.  This was at the eastern terminus of CA 145 at CA 41:

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Given that I was taking 41 into Yosemite that meant I was taking Wawona Road into the Park.  Luckily it was smooth sailing and the park rangers confirmed my suspicions about there being no snow all the way to Glacier Point.  So some good 15 miles into Wawona Road I turned off onto Glacier Point Road.  I tried to get a good picture with the Challenger over the Merced River Gorge but it wasn't happening on the way up due to the sun not being up enough:

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The first ten miles of Glacier Point Road are in good shape but the last five are are rough as all hell.  The temperature dropped to 27F near 7,700 feet but there wasn't any trace of ice or any snow.  Begs the question....why the hell did 108 shut down over Sonora Pass?...did it really get snow?  Regardless made my way to Glacier Point just before the morning onslaught hit the park:

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I managed a respectable picture with the Challenger and Half-Dome in the background an overlook up Glacier Point Road:

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On the way back down I got a fairly decent shot of the Challenger at the Merced River Gorge:

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Making my way back down to Wawona I descended down into Yosemite Valley.  Luckily there was plenty of open parking on the south side of the road.  I had to ask an older couple to give me a minute to take pictures....they seemed confused as to why I would want to take pictures of a car in front of Yosemite Valley.  I guess if you aren't a car person you just won't understand:

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I did snag some pictures of the mutant CA 120/140 greenie shields and the MUTCD Compliant US 395s on El Portal Road and Big Oak Flat Road on my way up towards Hetch Hetchy:

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The interesting thing about the first pic above is that the 120 cut-out seems to have a blocked out "California" for some reason...weird.  :eyebrow:  Anyways leaving Yosemite I cut north on Evergreen Road.  Apparently the first couple miles of Evergreen Road is part of the original alignment of Big Oak Flat Road.  I'm fairly certain that the abandoned section by Carlon Campground is part of the original CA 120....but it could just be the old mine road to Yosemite and Tioga. 

Evergreen Road is weird....  The road is generally very wide but has blind hills and a really shitty surface.  The road narrows randomly before narrowing completely in Mather.  I turned right on Hetch Hetchy Road and northward towards the reservoir.  My understanding is that the Hetch Hetchy Railroad ran from Hetch Hetchy west along Hetch Hetchy Road, Mather Road, Cherry Lake Road, and parts of what is now CA 120 to Groveland/Big Oak Flat.  The Hetch Hetchy Rail Road operated from 1917 to 1949 which is surprising considering the expansion of the O'Shaughnessy Dam was completed in 1938.  Regardless it certainly explains why Hetch Hetchy Road is so narrow...albeit two-lane.

Interestingly it's actually kind of a shame to see all the water in Hetch Hetchy considering how many photos I looked at when it was just a granite glacial valley like Yosemite.  I guess the average depth of Hetch Hetchy before the O'Shaughnessy Dam built was 1,800 feet up to a max depth of 3,000 feet.  Even still....kind a nice off the grid little and dam to look at:

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Apparently a dam at Hetch Hetchy really got going after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.  Surprisingly it became a thing even though Hetch Hetchy even back then was part of Yosemite National Park.  The O'Shaughnessy Dam was opened in 1923 and expanded by 1938.  The project does generate water and electricity for San Francisco but I don't think it was near what they expected.  Regardless the Dam actually draws the bane of the tree hugger crowd almost as much as Glen Canyon Dam:

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Of course I had to get a picture of the Challenger on Hetch Hetchy Road heading back up to CA 120:

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Speaking of CA 120, I used Evergreen Road...  Apparently Mather Road and Cherry Creek Road are paved but given the dubious quality of what I already knew I didn't want to chance it:

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Something that didn't occur to me until yesterday, J132....I always thought it was J32 but it's an obvious continuation of CA 132 east of Coulterville:



Given that realization I had to see what the road was like.  And yeah....J132 ain't a bad road at all, nothing particularly special though.  Gave me a lot of breathing room away from all the traffic that was using CA 120 and likely the Priest Grades.  Snagged a CA 49 and CA 132 in downtown Coulterville:

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Of course this is one of the really good mountain grade portions of CA 49.  Snagged some pictures of the Challenger in Coulterville, the twisties near Bagby, and Bear Valley.  The first picture from Bear Valley even has a J16 shield in the background:

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Instead of back tracking all the way to CA 41 I took Mt Bullion Cutoff Road to CA 140 and Plainsburg Road to CA 99.  I took some pictures of CA 223 and CA 152 since I didn't have them on this thread yet:

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All and all fun as hell day.  I'll have to figure what the hell is going on with Sonora Pass next week....the 511 quick map says winter closure while the phone system says just a storm.  Regardless it looks like I was able to get a window in for the Challenger.  Once the tires warmed up it handled infinitely better than it was in the high 20s...felt like I was riding around on roller skates.

Speaking of shields not in this thread yet, this would be the CA 43 I took yesterday:

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Fixed img tag on second photo.  --Roadfro

Given that winter is fast approaching today was the big job before the season ends; Ebbetts Pass, Monitor Pass, and Sonora Pass.  Basically I clicked off all the passes exceeding 8,000 feet in the Sierras this year after today.  I decided Ebbetts would probably be the better bet so I headed there first.

At the risk of repeating myself I'll just say that I took CA 99 to G Street/Snelling Road, CA 59, J59, CA 108/120, and E15 to reach CA 4 at Copperopolis.  Given that I've talked about those routes substantially here is the signs...plus a bonus E16:

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For some reason there was a total roadway repaving project going on CA 4 west of Angels Camp that wasn't listed on the Quickmap.  I got kind of lucky considering I was only waiting for 15 minutes...but it wasn't even a one lane type of deal.  Had me worried Ebbetts might not be open but those worries were quickly dispelled:

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CA 4 really is a good road until the Mount Reba/Bear Valley Ski area.  The road is really nice and you rarely have to dip below 50 MPH, not for an area around 7,000 feet.  If nobody told you it would likely come as a huge shock how nuts the road gets:

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Of course this means that I got a picture of a rare bird in CA 207 near Bear Valley and the ski resort on Mount Reba.  I've never been up here in the winter but apparently this section of road stays open all year:

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Upon closer inspection of the sign in the background....yep that 24% grade is the absolute truth about what is ahead.   :eyebrow:  CA 4 definitely isn't 24% the duration of the upcoming inclines on Pacific Grade Summit and Ebbetts pass but it damn well hits that mark as described...I would recommend boning up on 1st or 2nd gear driving:

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CA 4 narrows down to a single lane a little past the 24% grade sign at Alpine Lake.  Yes...Ebbetts really is a single lane but it's still wide enough for two cars.  I would speculate the roadway is 14-16 feet almost at all times which leaves plenty of room to pass.  I've dealt with so much worse that 35-40 MPH seemed plenty prudent on the climb up to Pacific Grade Summit...but first Alpine Lake:

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For some reason CA 4 becomes a full two-lane again right before the final climb to Pacific Grade Summit:

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For it only to go back to the single lane about mile later for some reason:

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Now this is where I ran into the biggest issue of the day...COWS!  There was some farmers actually moving cows up Pacific Grade Summit to some cattle trucks.  Basically I had to back up and park it in a campground...nothing could be done to get by the herd until it passed by:

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Pacific Grade Summit wasn't too far east from here.  The sign assembly still has some nice button copy:



Basically you get the idea fast that Pacific Grade is nobody's fool with the obvious drop-off east of the sign above:

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I would speculate the 24% grade mentioned in the sign above comes from the descent from Pacific Grade Summit.  The road is STEEP....not even first gear was enough to keep me from mashing the brakes.  Can't beat the view though:

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I love when a hairpin is so steep that basically you can almost tell the grade of the road looking at pictures:

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Of course there is a huge dip from 8,050 feet down to 7,000 something in Hermit Valley.  I would speculate this is my cow friends were pulling out for winter from:

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You'd might be surprised but there isn't a huge amount of fuss climbing to Ebbetts Pass at 8,736 feet.  Apparently Ebbetts Pass might have been discovered as early as 1827 during Jedediah Smith.  Ebbetts Pass was officially documented by John Ebbetts in 1851 and....I'm to understand he thought that a railroad could go through here?  Even a narrow gauge with all the switchbacks in the world wouldn't get past Ebbetts Pass and Pacific Grade Summit...not with 24% grades about in places.  Anyways...Ebbetts became a toll road by the 1860s when mines were opened in the eastern Sierra.  Apparently "Ebbetts" didn't get applied as the name of the pass until the 1890s:

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Not even Ebbetts Pass was immune from water impounding as evidenced from Kinney Lake:

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Hell of a view from the top of the hair pins looking at the gorge cut out by Silver Creek.  CA 4 heads directly through to the north east and CA 89:

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Of course I couldn't resist another switchback picture:

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At about the 7,000 foot mark CA 4 blows back out to a full two-lane:



And just a couple miles from there you have the eastern terminus of CA 4 at the junction of CA 89.  My elevation was about 6,000 feet around here...at least I got the "END" sign for CA 4:

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Weird how the sign says "RTE 395" instead of US 395?  :eyebrow:  Monitor is much more gentle given the roadway was constructed in the 1950s I believe?  The grade is definitely a solid 5-8% almost at all times but never goes crazy like Ebbetts, Pacific Grade, and Sonora up ahead do.  Monitor Pass tops out at 8,314 feet and was part of the 1827 Jedadiah Smith expedition.

Heading up to Monitor you get a good look back at Ebbetts Pass to the west and you can even see the mountains near Sonora Pass to the south:

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Near Monitor Pass itself the road flattens out for this nice uphill towards the Forest Service watch tower:

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Can't beat the views of Walker River and Great Basin below.  You can even see Topaz Lake on the left in the second picture:

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Oddy Monitor seems to be very popular with truckers for whatever reason.  I say that because several break downs were on the side of the road.  From the summit it's a sustained 8% downhill to US 395, even a car might have some nasty brake fade considering it's 10 miles.  Regardless, got some decent pictures of a US 395 guide sign and the CA 89 "END" sign:

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From here I turned south on US 395 for about 20 miles to get to CA 108 and the road to Sonora Pass.  Oddly I've always found that Sonora Pass was much easier to climb from the eastern side rather than the west.  Usually the slope on the western half of the Sierra is much worse than the east:

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That's not to say that the eastern slope of Sonora is a cake walk.  There area actually 26% grade sections on the eastern slope, but they are brief and you have a much wider road than CA 4/Ebbetts:

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Found a waterfall I've missed before at about 9,000 feet:

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Of course Sonora Pass proper is at 9,624 which puts it second only to Tioga for mountain pass height in California.  Sonora Pass was documented in 1852 but may have been found as early as 1841.  When the mineral boom happened in the eastern Sierras it led to a graded road being opened in 1865.  Apparently there was some very real plans for a narrow gauge railroad at some point in the 1880s that never materialized:

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Love the button copy fanfare at the top of the pass:

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Of course as I saying before I think the western slope is over all much difficult than the eastern.  I don't think it ever exceeds 20% but the high grades last way longer on the western slope of Sonora:

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The road levels out pretty good around the 1933 Dardenelle Bridge over the Middle Fork Stanislaus River at about 6,000.  Basically 108 becomes pretty flat for a good long time west to Sonora:

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There is actually a really good overlook of Donnell Lake and Sonora Pass at about 5,800 feet above sea level:

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Since I was staying the night in Sonora I decided to stop by Columbia for a quick visit to the State Park in the old downtown section.  There was actually a decent E18 shield to take a picture of:

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Of course back to Sonora and CA 49:

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I'm actually not sure what I'll do tomorrow other than head home.  Kind of hard to top hitting the two most difficult passes in the Sierra the same day.  Really it goes back to something I said earlier....why is everyone so intimidated by something gentle like Tioga when there are way more bad ass roads in the same region?  I'm thinking Black Rock Road is going to be on the short list of where to hit next.  Apparently Tioga shuts down on October the 2nd and the snow should roll in some time next week.  I guess I'll be at home a lot more November onward...oh well.  Can't say that I've ever hit all the major passes in one year like this, all that's really left to do for the year is Echo Summit...but that can be done in winter.

Incredible scenery!

This is a fantastic thread, and the result of a lot of hard work. Thanks for the great photos of places some of us may never get to...

Quote from: kurumi on September 30, 2016, 11:14:47 AM
This is a fantastic thread, and the result of a lot of hard work. Thanks for the great photos of places some of us may never get to...

Thanks, I'm not sure if it's hard work or if I got way too much time on my hands nowadays.  I'm pretty much limiting myself to stuff 2016 and onwards but it makes me wish that I found this forum a lot sooner.  I'm going to open a Mountain States thread here next month with all my 2016 road trips on. 

But if I was going to recommend one road up in the Sierras I'd say make it CA 4 over Ebbetts.  That is such an alien drive compared to the rest of the state highways with the huge grades and wide single lane sustained for so long.

Quote from: Rothman on September 30, 2016, 10:25:21 AM
Incredible scenery!

Indeed it is, shame it seems that CA 4, CA 108, and CA 120...probably Sherman Pass to are all going to shut down next week during the first major snow the year.  Sometimes it actually holds out until November, but not this year it seems. 

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 30, 2016, 03:53:17 PM
Indeed it is, shame it seems that CA 4, CA 108, and CA 120...probably Sherman Pass to are all going to shut down next week during the first major snow the year.  Sometimes it actually holds out until November, but not this year it seems.

I wouldn't be so sure because it will depend on how much snow will fall over the Sierras this weekend.  Here in the Bay Area, forcasters are only expecting about a tenth of an inch of rain which isn't very much.  I wouldn't be too surprised if the NPS closes 120 over Tioga Pass for the winter but I think any closures on the other passes would be temporary.

Quote from: myosh_tino on September 30, 2016, 05:05:06 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 30, 2016, 03:53:17 PM
Indeed it is, shame it seems that CA 4, CA 108, and CA 120...probably Sherman Pass to are all going to shut down next week during the first major snow the year.  Sometimes it actually holds out until November, but not this year it seems.

I wouldn't be so sure because it will depend on how much snow will fall over the Sierras this weekend.  Here in the Bay Area, forcasters are only expecting about a tenth of an inch of rain which isn't very much.  I wouldn't be too surprised if the NPS closes 120 over Tioga Pass for the winter but I think any closures on the other passes would be temporary.

There weird thing is that there is a crap ton of VMS boards in all directions around Chinese Camp saying that CA 120 east will be closed on 10/2/16.  I say that's weird because the Park Service is stopping overnight parking on Tioga on October the 15th and there isn't anything on the Quickmap showing the VMS signs I was seeing.  So what the hell?...is it something like the road over Don Pedro closing or the New Priest Grade?  All the VMS said was 120 East closed 10/2/16 to 3/31/17.

But to your point it really depends on how much snow there is going to be.  I definitely didn't expect cow herds to be moved like that so soon out of Ebbetts.

Forgot to mention that I'm spending the weekend in Fresno on a work thing.  With that being the case I didn't want to take the boring way down to the city so I took the scenic detour.  First I started with a quick climb up the New Priest Grade to Priest Station.  First I started with heading down CA 49 over to the multiplex of CA 108.  Apparently "Cone Zone" is now a thing with construction areas?...saw this on a bridge on Don Pedro Lake:

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Funny there was talk about the Priest Grades in another thread today.  Basically the Old Priest Grade is a 1840s wagon trail that got eventually built up into a road.  The grades are named after Priest Station which is located at the top where both meet.  The Old Priest Grade is a only about 2 miles in length but has a peak grade of 17%.  Basically anything like a truck, RV, or bus banned on the Old Priest Grade these days and cars are required to use low gear. 

CA 120 runs on the new Priest Grade and was constructed in 1915.  Given that the Hetch Hetchy Railroad project wasn't too far behind with the O'Shaughnessy Dam project it kind of made sense for a newer road to be built.  The New Priest Grade is about 5 miles in length and most GPS units will direct you to the Old Priest Grade.  I find that humorous since I can beat cars on Old Priest Grade from the new fairly easily provided I don't have any traffic in front of me.  Basically it's easy to sustain a good run of 35-45 MPH on the New Grade while the Old "should" be done at 15-25 MPH...especially down hill, unless you like riding the brakes and possibly boiling the fluid.  :eyebrow  Anyways, the starting elevation of both grades is about 1,000 feet and I want to say the top is about 2,300 feet:

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For the record it looks like the Hetch Hetchy Railroad followed what is Priest Street just to the south of the Old Priest Grade:

http://www.abandonedrails.com/Hetch_Hetchy_Railroad

Above in the picture with all the warnings about the Old Priest Grade you can see Priest Street and the old Hetch Hetchy Railroad Grade on the left intersecting the Old Priest Grade.  Found a map showing the route of the Hetch Hetchy Railroad along with the terminus at the Sierra Railroad:

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I took Coulterville-Priest Road to J132 just to see what was out there...wasn't much.  There was a short section of downhill that might have hit 30% grade but I'm not sure and it didn't last long.  Got a decent picture of the guide sign and J132 in Coulterville:

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Given that I was out here last week on CA 49 there wasn't much point in stopping through the twisties between Coulterville and Bear Valley.  BUT...I did miss this view of the Lake McClure area and CA 49 climbing from the Merced River:

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Today I took E16 east to Hornitos.  E16 doesn't really offer anything too exciting but Hornitos was a nice stop.  Apparently Hornitos was founded in 1848 as a Mexican Mining village right before the Gold Rush.  It seems the Mexican miners were after quartz and were largely pushed out by white settlers from Quartzburg.  Apparently Hornitos was the first incorporated town in Mariposa County and had a population near 15,000 around 1870.  But if you have read this read before you know I tend to find those population claims from mining towns dubious....tent, shacks, or what not that's WAY too many people for that to be a realistic figure.  Word is that there is less than 100 people left today, some nice mining era buildings to see:

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I decided to cut east from here back towards Mariposa on CA 140:

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And back CA 49 to Oakhurst.  I got caught behind two school buses on the way to Oakhurst only to clear them 5 miles from town just to run into a garbage truck.  :banghead:  I was looking for a CA 49 "END" sign but there wasn't anything to find at CA 41...not even a shield.  I decided to take the road less traveled and went north on 41 to Bass Lake Road to head back south:

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Apparently Bass Lake Road has the county designation of Road 222.  Bass Lake Road is surprisingly a good 4-lane divided road before dipping back down to 2 lanes near the lake itself.  If you want to head back to Fresno the quiet way and be left alone by the tourist crowd this isn't a bad option.  Road 222 carries a couple designations as it crosses into North Fork and south towards the San Joaquin River where it becomes Powerhouse Road in Fresno County.  There isn't really much to see in Auberry and Prather but I did find this abandoned general store in the former with an older 7-Up logo on it:

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End of the line was at CA 168 which I took back to Fresno.  I ran into this bit of construction just outside of Prather.  I'm always amused when Caltrans decides to say "%#T it" and removes the asphalt entirely in a work zone.   You get a really good idea right quick who is familiar with driving dirt roads and who isn't.....the guy in the HHR wasn't comfortable.  :-D

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Now since I'll be here the entire weekend I might venture out to Black Rock Road on Sunday morning.  I think that I found a really good parking spot out by one of the pipelines.  I'm looking at maybe trying a quick 5-6 mile run up through the two wooden bridges.  I might be interest in doing the road on a motorcycle but everything I've ever seen tells me a car is a no-go for Black Rock...even though it's paved.  For some reference on what I'm talking about:

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on September 30, 2016, 06:16:19 PM
There weird thing is that there is a crap ton of VMS boards in all directions around Chinese Camp saying that CA 120 east will be closed on 10/2/16.  I say that's weird because the Park Service is stopping overnight parking on Tioga on October the 15th and there isn't anything on the Quickmap showing the VMS signs I was seeing.  So what the hell?...is it something like the road over Don Pedro closing or the New Priest Grade?  All the VMS said was 120 East closed 10/2/16 to 3/31/17.

Out of curiosity, were the VMSes that said 120 is closing on Oct 2 the overhead variety or were they the portable ones?  According to Caltrans' Quickmap, the VMSes on the west side of Yosemite all say something about roadwork in Yosemite Valley.  Nothing about the impending closure of 120.

All portable VMS units.  Usually they were at a junction point win CA 120 like coming south on 49 or north on J59.

Edit:  Weather station in Fresno is talking snow at 6,500 feet possibly an inch in the norther Sierras.  That might get interesting up on Sonora Pass.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 01, 2016, 09:28:24 AM
All portable VMS units.  Usually they were at a junction point win CA 120 like coming south on 49 or north on J59.

That makes sense then.  Portable VMSes are not displayed on Quickmap only the fixed overhead ones.

Quote from: myosh_tino on October 01, 2016, 12:19:39 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 01, 2016, 09:28:24 AM
All portable VMS units.  Usually they were at a junction point win CA 120 like coming south on 49 or north on J59.

That makes sense then.  Portable VMSes are not displayed on Quickmap only the fixed overhead ones.

Question remains though after seeing the Park Service information; what is actually shutting down tomorrow eastbound on 120?

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 01, 2016, 12:59:07 PM

Quote from: myosh_tino on October 01, 2016, 12:19:39 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 01, 2016, 09:28:24 AM
All portable VMS units.  Usually they were at a junction point win CA 120 like coming south on 49 or north on J59.

That makes sense then.  Portable VMSes are not displayed on Quickmap only the fixed overhead ones.

Question remains though after seeing the Park Service information; what is actually shutting down tomorrow eastbound on 120?

I have no doubt 120 over Tioga Pass will close tomorrow.  The incoming storm seems to have enough punch to make travel difficult given it's high elevation.  What remains to be seen is if 120 will remain closed for the winter after the storm passes.  Normally, Caltrans will put out a message on its VMSes about impending winter closures so why that hasn't happened yet is a mystery to me.

It's entirely possible the NPS is acting conservatively by warning those that are traversing Tioga today that they may not be able to use the road on their return trip.

Quote from: kurumi on September 30, 2016, 11:14:47 AM
This is a fantastic thread, and the result of a lot of hard work. Thanks for the great photos of places some of us may never get to...

Completely agree. 15 years ago I would have been doing what you're doing, but certainly not anymore. So reading your posts is the best many of us can do.

Thank you Max!

Quote from: myosh_tino on October 01, 2016, 03:07:32 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 01, 2016, 12:59:07 PM

Quote from: myosh_tino on October 01, 2016, 12:19:39 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 01, 2016, 09:28:24 AM
All portable VMS units.  Usually they were at a junction point win CA 120 like coming south on 49 or north on J59.

That makes sense then.  Portable VMSes are not displayed on Quickmap only the fixed overhead ones.

Question remains though after seeing the Park Service information; what is actually shutting down tomorrow eastbound on 120?

I have no doubt 120 over Tioga Pass will close tomorrow.  The incoming storm seems to have enough punch to make travel difficult given it's high elevation.  What remains to be seen is if 120 will remain closed for the winter after the storm passes.  Normally, Caltrans will put out a message on its VMSes about impending winter closures so why that hasn't happened yet is a mystery to me.

It's entirely possible the NPS is acting conservatively by warning those that are traversing Tioga today that they may not be able to use the road on their return trip.

Yeah we're going to have to see.  Rumor is that it's just going to be a dusting closer to Yosemite and Fresno while Tahoe will get the bulk of what's coming.  But yes, they already did one for Sonora Pass last week when it got some snow.  I thought my plans were ruined since the Quick Map said "closed for winter" but the 800 road number said it was due to a storm.

Quote from: andy3175 on October 01, 2016, 10:55:53 PM

Quote from: kurumi on September 30, 2016, 11:14:47 AM
This is a fantastic thread, and the result of a lot of hard work. Thanks for the great photos of places some of us may never get to...

Completely agree. 15 years ago I would have been doing what you're doing, but certainly not anymore. So reading your posts is the best many of us can do.

Thank you Max!

Much appreciated, been a fun couple years getting a chance to do this kind of thing.  A lot of my travels in on the West Coast and South East started out as worked based activities that morphed into a full on hobby.  I'm still kind of amazed some of the lesser known roads that I've traveled on over the years really don't have much of a write up or through information.  Case and point, I was planning on doing Black Rock Road tomorrow but I'm going to hold off until next Friday.  I've seen next to nothing on that road for years and it seems like a hell of a side trip in the Kings Canyon area.

Well found why CA 120 west of Yosemite is shutting down:

SR 120
    [IN THE CENTRAL CALIFORNIA AREA & SIERRA NEVADA]
    IS CLOSED FROM THE NORTH JCT OF SR 49 TO 6.5 MI NORTH OF THE
NORTH JCT OF SR 49 /AT JACKSONVILLE RD/ (TUOLUMNE CO) FROM 1700 HRS EACH NIGHT
TO 0700 HRS EACH MORNING TUESDAY THRU FRIDAY THRU 10/7/16 - DUE TO CONSTRUCTION
- A DETOUR IS AVAILABLE

    1-WAY CONTROLLED TRAFFIC AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS FROM 2.5 MI WEST OF GROVELAND
TO THE WEST BOUNDARY OF YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK (TUOLUMNE CO) FROM 0600 HRS TO
1800 HRS TUESDAY THRU FRIDAY THRU 10/7/16 - DUE TO MAINTENANCE - MOTORISTS ARE
SUBJECT TO DELAYS OF UP TO 10 MINUTES

    [YOSEMITE NAT'L PARK]
    FOR YOSEMITE NAT'L PARK ROAD INFORMATION CALL 209-372-0200

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 05, 2016, 07:42:27 AM
Well found why CA 120 west of Yosemite is shutting down:

SR 120
    [IN THE CENTRAL CALIFORNIA AREA & SIERRA NEVADA]
    IS CLOSED FROM THE NORTH JCT OF SR 49 TO 6.5 MI NORTH OF THE
NORTH JCT OF SR 49 /AT JACKSONVILLE RD/ (TUOLUMNE CO) FROM 1700 HRS EACH NIGHT
TO 0700 HRS EACH MORNING TUESDAY THRU FRIDAY THRU 10/7/16 - DUE TO CONSTRUCTION
- A DETOUR IS AVAILABLE

    1-WAY CONTROLLED TRAFFIC AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS FROM 2.5 MI WEST OF GROVELAND
TO THE WEST BOUNDARY OF YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK (TUOLUMNE CO) FROM 0600 HRS TO
1800 HRS TUESDAY THRU FRIDAY THRU 10/7/16 - DUE TO MAINTENANCE - MOTORISTS ARE
SUBJECT TO DELAYS OF UP TO 10 MINUTES

    [YOSEMITE NAT'L PARK]
    FOR YOSEMITE NAT'L PARK ROAD INFORMATION CALL 209-372-0200

I saw that one on Quickmap and didn't understand what it was. It had said full closure, but I think it was just either temporary or was actually referring to one-way controlled. It's still up there too. The NPS site didn't mention it. Then again, they don't seem to keen on good updates. I hit a long one-way controlled section on 190 on the way to Kings Canyon a couple of weeks ago, for tree trimming, and the park site said nothing about it.
I saw that Sonora, Ebbetts and Monitor Passes all closed for a day or so this past weekend. Sonora Pass is still showing a closure on the map, but the electronic sign says otherwise.

I think it's more that the Park Service in general just refers you to the respective DOTs outside NPS lands.  I ran into the tree trimming on CA 120 a couple weeks back with the Challenger, really if I was in the Sonic I could probably avoided it on Mather Road since I was coming from Hetch Hetchy.  Weird that they have the work ending on 3/31/16 on the VMS signs (the ones I saw, not the quick map which say just plain closed)...and for some reason 120 is shut down totally overnight?  CA 180 just outside Kings Canyon had a tree trim zone for about 1 mile and so did 245 heading south.  It would have been nice if there was a VMS inside the park letting you know what was ahead.

Looks like I timed that trip over Ebbetts, Monitor, and Sonora almost perfectly.  I just checked Sonora and it's still showing closed on the quick map...like you said it shows open on the VMS from US 395.  Just called the Caltrans Highway Information line and it doesn't say anything about Sonora Pass being closed either.

Alright, today was Blackrock Road and Trimmer Springs Road.  For those in the know Blackrock Road is generally considered to be one of the most dangerous paved roads in California.  Basically Blackrock runs from the end of Trimmer Springs Road on a two-lane bridge over the Kings River where it crosses and becomes a single lane paved Sierra National Forest Road under the designation of FR11S12.  Blackrock crosses the Kings River one more time before cutting north to Balch Camp and north east along the North Fork Kings River.  My understanding is that the pavement ends near the Black Rock Reservoir and becomes gravel/dirt up to the Wishon Reservoir where Blackrock Road ends.

So with that in mind I'll just start thing out where Blackrock Road starts or rather where Trimmer Springs Road becomes Blackrock/FR11S12 at the Kings River:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F1_zpsdsi9fsvu.jpg&hash=312fdebe2c7d42cbd11ec3b67a5c16bed5a96aa5)

The bridge above heads from the north bank to the south bank of the Kings River where it comes a "wide" one-lane.  This is where you'll see probably the only FR11S12 sign:

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After a mile or so on the south bank there is a steel one-lane bridge back over the Kings River:

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I guess Shawn is heading towards Garnet Lake.  Across the river Blackrock turns left towards Balch Camp while right will take you towards Garnet Lake and up river towards Kings Canyon:

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Really it's a neat little bridge, too bad I couldn't find a time stamp for the construction date:

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Of course on the north bank you have the directional signage indicating where to go.  The new vinyl flood advisory signs are interesting, I'm guessing that PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) has had some issues at the intersection of the Kings and North Fork Kings River over the years:

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Blackrock follows the North Fork Kings River from here and starts to get more narrow:

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Surprisingly Balch Camp is actually pretty built up for a company town.  Plenty of new and clean vehicles are scurrying all over the place and if you kept straight you would head towards a power station.  To continue on Blackrock you need to cross the concrete one-lane bridge over the North Fork Kings River:

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Balch Camp is an interesting place, I really didn't expect it to be so modernized almost 45 miles away from CA 180 out in the middle of nowhere.  There appeared to be actual real houses, a community pool, and some other stuff you would expect to see in a company town.  Most maps show Blackrock Road doing an S through Balch Camp but there is a newer bypass that appears to have been repaved recently.  Basically there are a crap ton of "no-trespassing" signs in every conceivable way into Balch Camp but nothing on Blackrock Road.  I would imagine that there are some pretty strange people who cause all sorts of chaos when they come out this far along the Kings River, didn't get the impression it was a friendly place. 

Continuing up Blackrock Road you'll see this pipeline where the road narrows to about 10-14 feet and there is a cattle guard:

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I actually parked my car behind the pipe since I was going to do the incline as a run.  There is all sorts of stuff written about this segment of Blackrock that's pretty nasty, so I figured that it would really be just as easy to squeeze an incline run in up to the two wooden bridges above Balch Camp.  I don't have the exact distance since I wasn't wearing a fit bit but it's probably 2-2.5 miles from here to the second wooden bridge.  Apparently there has been issues with people firing shotguns at signs:

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Of course this is the part that scares people since the road gets so narrow:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F14_zps2zsgfzrr.jpg&hash=b8e251b70c67cd64dc5c4461113f68d40f3aca2f)

The first mile on the uphill climb has a pretty heavy incline but nothing that is too worrisome given that you likely wouldn't have to back up given the width of the road is sufficient to find a passing spot:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F16_zpso7d55br9.jpg&hash=e2d16e210f5e6602918e719c440fb2c9b31dbbac)

Of course that really starts to change once you approach the first bridge.  The slow sign definitely got blasted by someone in the past:

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Of course there is one hell of a view given how sheer the cliff face above Balch Camp really is:

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Which of course the "slow" sign is a good indicator a narrow bridge is ahead, the first of the wooden ones I mentioned:

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If you look close on the right on the bridge you can see a construction date of 1968.  Basically I can't find much in regards to specific dates in regards to Blackrock Road or the Black Rock Reservoir so this was a welcome find.  What I do know is that Blackrock Road, Blach Camp, and Black Rock Reservoir are all part of the Kings River Project that was put together by PG&E after Pine Flat Dam was built.  I know that the Wishon Dam was opened in 1958 at the northern terminus of Blackrock Road.  My speculation is that Black Rock Reservoir construction route was initially south from the Wishon Reservoir along Blackrock Road and that the roadway from Balch Camp north east was completed sometime around 1968.  Granted...that's just speculation but it seems to me that it would be obvious for no prior bridges to exist in the area before 1968:

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Of course how much fun would this be without showing how far the drop from the bridge is?

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Some pretty good views can be had between bridge one and bridge two.  This section of Blackrock is mostly where the reputation of the roadway comes from.  Granted I ran this rather than drove but aside from the sheer drop I would probably rate parts of Kaiser Pass Road and Mineral King Road as more difficult.  I say that based off the lack of substantial grade and the fact that there is little to no traffic on Blackrock whereas the other two roads I mentioned have a lot more vehicles on them.  I did see two PG&E vehicles on my climb up where I took this picture:

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Wasn't too long until the second wooden bridge came into view:

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Which had one hell of a view of the road and gorge below, couldn't take something like this in a car:

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Suppose you can't put a decent shotgun blast in this sign.  :-D

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Which of course means that I was at the second wooden bridge:

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With another time stamp of 1968:

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Apparently there is a campground up ahead near the reservoir.  Word is that Blackrock really isn't anywhere near as daunting from this point forward, so there was no point in going further on foot.  I might come back here next year with the family and check out the campground, I'm fairly certain it's remote enough to be left alone.  Even the Forest Service pulled staff from the Ranger Station apparently:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F30_zpsadnme2ng.jpg&hash=c77b6f792016bfad898dbdc201a01467cb1025e0)

Some views of the road on the way down:

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Of course it's actually pretty damn hard to get to Balch Camp without an off-road vehicle, so I had to double back on Trimmer Springs Road.  Hard to believe how close Blackrock really is to Kings Canyon:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F35_zpshba82rye.jpg&hash=90ee1df47777c27deb38cfa3a97dee50d76b6da6)

Pine Flat Lake isn't looking too good these days, I would take a wild guess and say it's 30-40% capacity right now.  Basically the lake is looking more like a wild river bed these days:

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Which hasn't bode well for the CDP Trimmer.  Apparently Trimmer was around way back in the 1880s when it was actually down on the Kings River.  Word is that it was named after the Trimmer Springs Resort which would have been on the Kings River behind the buildings in my pictures.  It seems like Trimmer has been abandoned for quite a long time given how much desolation and junk as accumulated.  Even the boat ramp in Trimmer is closed down.  Given the town had to relocate during the construction of Pine Flat Dam from 1947 to 1954 it's all the more ironic that it died out likely due to the reservoir becoming too dried up for too long:

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The shrunken reservoir is really obvious close to Pine Flat Dam, but we're talking one of the bigger ones in California.  The Pine Flat Dam was completed in 1954 and had turbines added in the 1980s.  The primary purpose of the dam was to control flooding along the Kings River, and really despite the reservoir being low it certainly accomplishes that purpose.  As of the 9/11 attacks apparently you can't approach the dam structure itself, in fact today they had a large construction truck blocking the access road:

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But that seems to have a decent side affect with all the boaters gone Trimmer Springs Road actually is fairly wide open.  It's a fun road that is extremely curvy but doesn't have any substantial grades.  I would say it's certainly worth a weekend drive just for fun, the low reservoir is actually makes it seem more daunting with added height to the bottom from the roadway.

But in regards to Blackrock Road there is actually a very well written account of road conditions on dangerousroads.org:

http://www.dangerousroads.org/north-america/usa/4328-black-rock-reservoir.html

But don't watch the Youtube video they linked unless you mute the guys talking, they get really distracting.  I prefer this video because of that and simply that it's much more informative:



Really that's about it for this side of the Sierra for the season.  I might try for Echo Summit/US 50 in November but we'll see, I might just switch things up to the Diablos for the winter.  I have a big trip coming here pretty soon to close out the month so there will be some more Nevada stuff pretty soon.

Edit:  Found this on Youtube while searching for "Balch Camp."  Apparently this guy thought it was Balch Camp Road, got the entire road up to the Ranger Station I mentioned above:

Anyways....fun day and knocked everything south of Yosemite Valley south in the Sierras for the summer season.  Looks like Hetch Hetchy is going to have to wait until later in the week but Ebbets and Sonora Pass should be on the menu shortly thereafter.  Scott...if you're reading this now you understand why I'm not in favor of this bullshit mileage tax your buddy Jerry Brown is after.  Sure would ruin a lot of weekend fun at least....

Until California has some other plan to fix our roads and highways, some other plan will have to come.  Unless the gasoline tax is raised once again for repairs.  My buddy? no I am not a Democrat, I am a Republican.  Comments done for my part.

Quote from: ACSCmapcollector on October 09, 2016, 04:18:39 PM
Anyways....fun day and knocked everything south of Yosemite Valley south in the Sierras for the summer season.  Looks like Hetch Hetchy is going to have to wait until later in the week but Ebbets and Sonora Pass should be on the menu shortly thereafter.  Scott...if you're reading this now you understand why I'm not in favor of this bullshit mileage tax your buddy Jerry Brown is after.  Sure would ruin a lot of weekend fun at least....

Until California has some other plan to fix our roads and highways, some other plan will have to come.  Unless the gasoline tax is raised once again for repairs.

You found it, I was wondering when you would.  :-D  Suffice to say the type of roads I typically travel aren't exactly on the high priority for any repairs no matter what bill does or doesn't get passed.  A great many of them wouldn't even be affected since they are county, National Park, or Forest Service maintained.  Begs the question, do I pay for those roads too in a usage tax?   It would seem reasonable to say that it should apply to state maintained highways but there is no feasible way of doing it.  But I digress, there are plenty of ways to boost road funding through tradional increases in gas, property, and sales taxes just to name a few.  You yourself are in favor of San Luis Obispo County measure J-16.  Regardless I tend to believe the angle being used with a mileage tax is discourage frequent driving, which plain just sucks in a state with so many great recreational options.

But before this turns into a political rant, I'll just say that I'm looking forward to some Clark County roadways I haven't been on in awhile.  Not to mention I'm definitely looking forward to opening the Mountain States thread.  I have some stuff from earlier this year that I haven't uploaded in New Mexico and Arizona that I'm waiting until the end of this upcoming trip to do.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 09, 2016, 04:29:22 PM

Quote from: ACSCmapcollector on October 09, 2016, 04:18:39 PM
Anyways....fun day and knocked everything south of Yosemite Valley south in the Sierras for the summer season.  Looks like Hetch Hetchy is going to have to wait until later in the week but Ebbets and Sonora Pass should be on the menu shortly thereafter.  Scott...if you're reading this now you understand why I'm not in favor of this bullshit mileage tax your buddy Jerry Brown is after.  Sure would ruin a lot of weekend fun at least....

Until California has some other plan to fix our roads and highways, some other plan will have to come.  Unless the gasoline tax is raised once again for repairs.

You found it, I was wondering when you would.  :-D  Suffice to say the type of roads I typically travel aren't exactly on the high priority for any repairs no matter what bill does or doesn't get passed.  A great many of them wouldn't even be affected since they are county, National Park, or Forest Service maintained.  Begs the question, do I pay for those roads too in a usage tax?   It would seem reasonable to say that it should apply to state maintained highways but there is no feasible way of doing it.  But I digress, there are plenty of ways to boost road funding through tradional increases in gas, property, and sales taxes just to name a few.  You yourself are in favor of San Luis Obispo County measure J-16.  Regardless I tend to believe the angle being used with a mileage tax is discourage frequent driving, which plain just sucks in a state with so many great recreational options.

But before this turns into a political rant, I'll just say that I'm looking forward to some Clark County roadways I haven't been on in awhile.  Not to mention I'm definitely looking forward to opening the Mountain States thread.  I have some stuff from earlier this year that I haven't uploaded in New Mexico and Arizona that I'm waiting until the end of this upcoming trip to do.

Well I never get as political as of now, as much as I have before...because I have changed.  I had to refocus my magnifying glass on what is going on throughout United States and California.

Not really a road picture thing, but I picked up a nice US 101 cut-out and it arrived today:

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Had a US 395 from the same guy going but I lost the auction on it.  Too bad to, the guy seller had them nice and cheap which is unusual for California Highway anything.

Beautiful scenery but definitely some scary roads!

Quote from: hm insulators on October 14, 2016, 04:58:25 PM
Beautiful scenery but definitely some scary roads!

Yeah I can hardly ever get my wife on any of these trips, she doesn't handle heights too well....not even with "running" Blackrock Road instead of driving it.  :rolleyes:  I'm finally getting caught up with the last two days worth of stuff, I will be posting shortly and creating the Mountain State thread.

Alright gang finally getting caught up after yesterday in Mojave and Clark County area.  I made my way east out of Bakersfield on CA 58 to CA 14 north:

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The purpose of this trip is basically to see stuff and roads that I haven't seen before.  That being the case there was a lot of roadways south of Ridgecrest that I haven't been on which served as a bypass to Searles Valley.  I cut off CA 14 to Redrock-Randsburg Road north east to Garlock Road and by proxy the Garlock ghost town:

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Surprisingly Redrock-Randsburg and Garlock Roads are in very good shape.  Before the road splits at Garlock Road the road surface is very smooth and appears to be a recent repave.  Even Garlock Road wasn't that bad, although things get a lot more twisty. 

Garlock itself is right off of Garlock Road on some private parcels of land.  Apparently the town was founded in the late 1890s when gold was discovered in the area.  Word was that water pumping was moved to Randsburg and it really killed the town.  There was postal service here until about the 1920s from everything I've seen which seems to be line with the age of the remaining buildings:

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Managed to get a decent view of southbound US 395 with the Garlock Road street blade in the picture:

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Kind of a gut wrenching sign to see if you are heading to Reno.  Thankfully I'm heading to Death Valley and not staying on the same road for 348 miles:

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Which wasn't long at all, maybe five miles are most before my turn off for Searles Station Road.  Searles Station is more of what I expect from a rarely used Mojave roadway.  The road is rough and has some hard crossings at railroad tracks, but unlike others the asphalt isn't coming up:

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Wasn't too long before I came to Trona Road and cut north to CA 178 and Searles Valley.  This was another quality road that built at a much higher standard than would be expected:

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Cutting east on CA 178 to Searles Valley it isn't too long before I encountered the western CA 178 "end" sign at Pinnacles Road.  I'm fairly certain that CA 178 also carries the name Trona Road through here, I'm certain it's called that cutting north to the Inyo County line.  Regardless, it's interesting to think that the approximate alignment of what might have been a connected CA 178 would have gone straight over the Panamint range directly east.  Personally I think CA 178 should follow Trona Road and Trona-Wildrose Road north to CA 190 and give the eastern stub it's own number.  But...I digress the road isn't used too much to the north of Searles Valley and there is no way it would ever get turned over to Caltrans.  Interestingly the China Lake Range was doing tests while I was taking this picture to the north, it was interesting to hear explosions in the distance:

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Searles Valley itself is hellish due to the salt mines from Searles Lake.  I can't smell very well but I always get the wiff of the salt from the lake and factories.  Trona Road becomes Trona-Wildrose Road at the Inyo County line.  The road isn't "bad" heading down into Panamint Valley but it's definitely neglected but nowhere near as bad as north on the valley floor.  There is actually a decent overlook that you can make for yourself that has a look at the road and the valley below:

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Off to the northeast you can see the Ballarat ghost town at the foot of the Panamint range:

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At the floor Panamint Valley you can still access Ballarat from Trona-Wildrose Road.  I'd say Ballarat is mainly known for the Manson Family occupying the land around the town site back in the 1960s.  Apparently Ballarat was founded in the 1890s due to silver mines being opened in the Panamint Range.  The town was largely abandoned by the 1920s but apparently has weathered the test of time due to desert climate.  I've never been down to the town itself, given how bad Trona-Wildrose Road gets north of here it doesn't seem like something that I want to try in a Chevy Sonic without assessing Ballarat Road in some other way...maybe on foot.  Regardless lots of fanfare with historic signage which includes even a write-up on Panamint City:

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If anyone recalls I drove Trona-Wildrose Road out of Death Valley on the way to Ridgecrest back in March.  Back then there was a large portion of the road which was ground down to dirt with a 35 MPH speed limit.  I would have thought that Inyo County would have had made progress....well I thought wrong.  Instead of a quality dirt path like March they had you over on the shoulders with all the jagged rocks.  At least there was a grade and it looks like they are finally ready to repave things:

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At the turn-off for Panamint Valley Road is the first signage for Death Valley and CA 190.  Panamint Valley Road is hellish, the surface is among the worst I've seen in the area.  One neat thing is that there is red asphalt which is always something neat to see:

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Isn't too long before Panamint Valley Road ends and you intersect CA 190.  It's a fast climb east from the Panamint Valley floor to Towne Pass, I always thought it was strange that the road is so high speed at 65 MPH in a National Park.  I think I-94 through Theodore Roosevelt National Park is the only road that is fast in a National Park.  CA 190 seems to be a sustained 8% or higher given there is actually a sign telling you to shut your AC off:

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Heading down into Death Valley I made a couple stops at Stovepipe Wells to check out a historic marker by a truck and the Mesquite Dunes.  Apparently the truck is located roughly where the 1849 Emigrant Party burned their wagon.  That must have been all kinds of awful getting stuck in Death Valley in those days....goes to show that the short-cut isn't always worth it:

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I also checked out of the Harmony Borax Works at Furnace Creek.  Apparently Borax mining bean here in 1883 and the Harmony Works were used until 1889.  Apparently the company that worked the Borax at Harmony eventually became the Pacific Coast Borax Company which latter led to settlements like Ryan and Amargosa/Death Valley Junction.  Apparently 20-Mule teams were used to haul the Borax to the railroads in Mojave:

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Of course the theme of this excursion is for "different" things.  That being the case I've never been up to Dantes View nor traversed anything beyond the Ryan Mine.  The views of Death Valley and the Panamint Range were sure something to see:

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Dante's View Road itself is pretty tame in my opinion.  The last three miles appear to be entirely over 10% with the last 1/4 mile at 15%.  There isn't anything that would require any special notice by the driver for the remaining 10 miles back to CA 190.  Even still it's about a 3,500 foot gain over the course of 13 miles...that's pretty fast for an incline:

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Speaking of Ryan the mine site and possibly some of the town are still near CA 190.  Ryan was originally about a dozen miles south east of it's present location when the Lila C Mine opened up in 1907.  The town was moved to it's present location in 1914 where it became the western terminus of the Death Valley Railroad.  The Death Valley Railroad was a 20 mile narrow-gauge line that transported Borax from Ryan to Amargosa which would later be renamed as "Death Valley Junction" in the late 1960s.  Apparently the Death Valley line operated in one form or another until the 1960s and largely used the same path that CA 190 uses.  I'm to understand that the Pacific Coast Borax Company shut down the Ryan Mine in 1928 but the town remained active through the 1950s due to hotel back flow from Death Valley itself.  The site can't be accessed but is easily seen for Dante's View Road:

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Seems there isn't an "END" marker for CA 190.  There is a large amount of signage directing you to Las Vegas, my route was through State Line Road:

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Speaking of Death Valley Junction....

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Really there isn't a lot more to say about Death Valley Junction.  I'm not sure why the name was changed from Amargosa since it seems like a lot of buildings still use the former name.  Apparently the Opera House and many of the other buildings were constructed from 1923 to 1925:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ44DVJ_zpsr7agesn4.jpg&hash=652751f17fdd67d58dca0297380e39383a755649)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ47DVJ_zpsk61rbey9.jpg&hash=ec0f998e80a09946537668d7db33438078eac532)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ46DVJ_zpsw9ajjogc.jpg&hash=c76277e25206167c20d3fe1798b80ba5d41f5e58)
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Of course there is State Line Road which heads into Pahrump in Nye County, Nevada.  Apparently State Line got a recent repave, the road used to suck but now it's actually very smooth and an easy drive.  I would say the repaving was this year due to the stray construction signage strewn about.  At the end of State Line is NV 160:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ48Stateline_zpslqgpfiuc.jpg&hash=6cd0f14d34e039c0fac510c0a781e4e2cc517673)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ49Stateline_zpseitaumq1.jpg&hash=a33e5d9939e44273c0ce852e0b891219c433bde8)
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I had to go quite a ways to the NV 372 junction even to see a NV 160 shield.  NV 160 in Pahrump is absolutely terrible.  The roadway is absurdly slow and clogged with traffic.  East of Pahrump it blows out to four-lanes and really is pretty nice all the way to I-15:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ51NV160NV372_zpsinfnb6h1.jpg&hash=4b8a6aa55ebe2ae7c46c400b37f6d1c15d4592f7)

But I wasn't heading to I-15, I was heading to Red Rock Canyon via NV 159:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ52NV159_zpsn9rcbhex.jpg&hash=7b90c4818e057f2225514873c7ef3f9fd6c8fdc0)

Of course for a nice view of Red Rock Canyon heading into Vegas itself.

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ53RedRockCanyon_zpsb0fm2w1y.jpg&hash=718f492a512d73c5bef0e21ffc12e7e1af07071f)

I followed Charleston all the way to downtown rather than taking a freeway.  I ended up passing CR 215 and I-15 on the way:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ54CR215_zpsenagub8g.jpg&hash=342ff5690723773631b66e9ffe4dea1cddc28578)
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Can't beat the view of Las Vegas Blvd from the Stratosphere to end the day.  Some friends of mine just moved to Vegas, they had never been up in the tower itself.  The view on the top level would be even nicer without the suicide fences so I had to take an unobstructed photo from behind the glass:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs1255.photobucket.com%2Fuser%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2Fmedia%2FZ56LasVegasBlvd_zpsusf1taiv.jpg.html&hash=979ff75cc2c303c58b17a690ec98d0601ad89e22)
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The next morning I took I-15 up to Valley of Fire Highway, took a picture of the US 93 split just for shits and giggles:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ60US93_zps1kf9awuv.jpg&hash=8f6b9be0b086ffde16fb0d96520b57d7f092fd47)

I want to say that Valley of Fire Highway was previously signed at NV 169?  I'm also fairly certain that this was also NV 40 prior to the 1976 renumbering:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ61ValleyofFire_zpsqroavcnv.jpg&hash=a63566f017a1cd6c624e063d400256c8283cdb8f)

The Valley of Fire isn't a bad side trip, I've never been before.  There is actually some really good road photos to be had on Valley of Fire Road and Mouse's Tank Road:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ62ValleyofFire_zpsfiittffb.jpg&hash=2c288624c90d2f2ca97f0fc2965598ede2112e37)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ64ValleyofFire_zpski9dgmql.jpg&hash=e11baa0c6d6fd99f04f01953b81169b386a707d0)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ65ValleyofFire_zpsimw7tyfj.jpg&hash=b9888452ff1f0a4e9efec429fde18f1157397790)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ66ValleyofFire_zpsqm9n1cml.jpg&hash=c258fce3e633c5938d0bd90ff2498527ee958fdb)
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I thought was the "Scenic Byway" signs were interesting:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ63ValleyofFire_zpsnw6ulyk6.jpg&hash=b18f3e27849a4fe8db54aaef386f0164867dd4b6)

So was this guy, who somehow managed to sneak up on me:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ68ValleyofFire_zpsmzi7wzw8.jpg&hash=22919c077e2a21e05d368be66b1e78596e453c56)

Heading east out of the Valley of Fire this would have been the eastern terminus of NV 167 on the right:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ75NV167_zpsotutxacw.jpg&hash=9b7900226e3e07ff8591b7338fc0f02481110ee6)

I decided to try to check out St. Thomas.  I asked the guy in the previous picture what the condition of St. Thomas Road was.  Basically he said that it was pretty good for the first two miles and after that I would probably be too low in a car to make it through, so I decided to run the road to at least where I could see the old town site:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ76StThomas_zpsmealikpg.jpg&hash=92aa947c182462de59c3e73109a24b7a0c0a197b)
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St. Thomas was founded back in 1865 by the Mormons.  The town was largely abandoned in 1871 when a survey found it to be in Nevada instead of Utah but people moved into the abandoned buildings in short order.  St. Thomas was abandoned in 1938 during the Hoover Dam project due to the fact Lake Mead was going to flood it.  St. Thomas has been above water I think about a decade now and might never go back under.  It even looked like trees are starting to regrow at the town site which is off in the distance.  I was hoping for 2-2.5 miles but it turns out the road is a lot longer than that.  Too bad the Park Service doesn't have a readily available site on St Thomas Road that I could find.  I would agree with the statement about the road getting bad past two miles.  There is a lot of sand and some pretty large holes in the road that are deeper than six inches.

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ78StThomas_zpsjgn51ybx.jpg&hash=c7862d70f5e521cb0325adfae470c13384b78ef3)

Decent look back at the Valley of Fire heading back west on St. Thomas Road:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ79StThomas_zpsq0e0ya79.jpg&hash=a96da08693a67af51d9b9d5177564b16666560ad)

Interestingly it's pretty obvious St. Thomas Road was paved at one point.  The top layer of dirt is weathering away exposing a lot of white washed asphalt:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ80StThomas_zpsg2ft4mi9.jpg&hash=27ad7471dc3a0f401d642d0eab00e066c22cc576)

Heading North I hit the first NV 169 sign and there was actually a "END" sign at I-15:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ90NV159_zpsz5gppwpl.jpg&hash=46a2ef9fa0873eca7fac748c1a6fc17e79fa2525)
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Managed to snag a NV 170 sign on the way out of the state into Arizona on I-15:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FZ93NV170_zpsvtdl9k1t.jpg&hash=3de435715d8e262baa3f488f4683a98d693911d6)
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With that in mind I'll continue this on "Max's Mountain State Fury Road Reports" for Arizona and Utah.  Eventually this will kick back to California on the return trip home.

Back in California and the Pacific South West....same road trip.  The continuation thread in the Mountain States can be found here:

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=19025.msg2182748#new

The original post up to Reply #13 applies to this road trip....anyways, back in California on I-10/US 95:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F9_zps9grdhdjh.jpg&hash=8f094101b6bc60acbe794e1eb9796a742b9f6475)

Isn't too long before US 95 cuts north off of I-10.  Funny...I'm surprised there has never been a push to get US 95 as a complete overlap of AZ 95 or at least get another US Route out that way.  Seems like the Arizona side has become a lot more important in the last couple decades with Bullhead City and Havasu than.....ugh...Needles:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F10_zpsxovxci6w.jpg&hash=be5a7a6703dfb24c312d41c08608a8d757cd4d3a)

Snagged a CA 78 since I was passing it.  Kind of a boring route until it hits the mountains where the character completely changes:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F11_zpsoycnnjfp.jpg&hash=a64de04c9206bbac68132314db23cbd1eac994bd)

Stopped off on Ford Dry Lake Road to see what has become of Chuckwalla Valley Road...apparently this:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F12_zpsxjja2wy8.jpg&hash=e02430bc30ad110d31cdf016055ca05a06be6cab)

Sad to see the 1932 alignment of US 60 and 1934 alignment of US 70 go like this.  I don't know why Chuckwalla was shut down but I would speculate it probably has something to do with the same floods that got the Tex Wash Bridge on eastbound I-10 last year.  I never found the asphalt to be all that bad through here either...for it's age anyways.  For those who don't know Chuckwalla Valley Road runs from I-10 exits 217 to 201 which "could" be used as a historic alternative.  Funny to think that just a mile or so west of exit 201 there was a little service stop called "Hell."  Apparently it went up in 1954 but was razed to make way for I-10.  Urban legend would have it that it was used to make puns something akin to "it's hotter in L.A. than it is in Hell" by weather stations in Los Angeles.  Anyways, here is a view west on Chuckwalla and east where the trucks are blocking the view of where the asphalt of US 60/70 is cut off by I-10:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F13_zpsae7u2o2l.jpg&hash=67b832461c45e516dd8faedef9e1dded547ca3fa)
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Speaking of Tex Wash....that is near Desert Center.  And speaking of US 60/70...that ran down Ragsdale Road through Desert Center itself.  For some reason I could exit on the ramp to CA 177 heading west:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F15_zps82yhlnvm.jpg&hash=3823d028deec929910051e02ea8d1bf6eea4648b)

So I just went up one exit to Eagle Mountain Road to pick up Ragsdale Road:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F16_zpsle32moso.jpg&hash=b1c7fc795fc7bf38c730e9e6793a9778f645fb6b)

I'm unsure of the age of the bridges on Ragsdale Road but they sure appear to be original to US 60 when it was constructed in the 1930s.  You'll know you hit Tex Wash when you see the creepy old gas station on Ragsdale:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F17_zpsx0vagklq.jpg&hash=191904359de20cd07a8e1eb592c8bbd0479d4750)
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There is a pretty good look at the I-10 Tex Wash Bridges that can be had from the Old US 60/70 Tex Wash Bridge on Ragsdale.  The eastbound lanes in the background were the ones that got washed out last year:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F19_zpsjqb14qez.jpg&hash=87939aa5cdafc9382ef591312c7b6687bce140a5)
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I find it kind of amazing that trucks are still allowed on the Old Tex Wash Bridge.  I remember when I-10 washed out that Caltrans put out some kind of notice to take either I-40 or I-8.  I found that laughable since CA 177 and CA 62 could have been used just as easily and been way more direct to Los Angeles.  I remember thinking that Ragsdale Road looked like it was good shape from the photos I was seeing....apparently I was right:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F21_zpsruh1ktnr.jpg&hash=4761a1edea487551dbd9e28fc453235e72dca6c8)

Desert Center itself is a very interesting place...it seems like the place was blessed with luck up until the last decade.  Apparently the town was founded by a guy named Steve Ragsdale or "Desert Steve" back in 1921.  Supposedly he stumbled upon a well near Desert Center in 1915 when he was moving from Arkansas and decided to open an service station in the desert.  Word is that the original Desert Center was six miles south of Ragsdale Road and the town site...or service center was moved in the early 30s when US 60 was being built.  Desert Center got an Army Airfield in 1942 and the Kaiser Steel Eagle Mountain Mine opened around the same time which brought an actual population.  The Kaiser Steel Mine shut down in the 1980s but I know a prison operated there until the the early 2000s....you can see Eagle Mountain Road a couple pictures back which will take you directly to the sight.  Word is the Marine Corps does urban combat training out there now.  So really it wasn't so much the US Routes disappearing that killed Desert Center it was the mines....I'm not sure who is really left out here:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F22_zpsrltg31bm.jpg&hash=66c98882961b5835ae42ed220f836d1717d8cc62)
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Figured that I would knock out an eighth national park on this trip and swung up Cottonwood Springs Road to Joshua Tree National Park.  Incidentally US 60/70 would have swung left on Box Canyon Road to Mecca:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F25_zpsjektxao2.jpg&hash=a330223e1c6a8e7a7c4273ea1bb2fb22c2d4cd1e)

Cottonwood Springs Road eventually becomes Pinto Basin Road and really it takes a LLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOONNNNGGGG time to pass through the park.  For the most part the speed limit is 35-45 MPH and really it should be 10 MPH higher at all times to Park Blvd.  I'm fairly certain the speed limit is so slow due to the mayhem caused by the tourists.  I recall a story circa 2011-2012 where some European tourists came up from I-10 and took a rental Dodge Charger up Black Eagle Mine Road...which a bad idea in of itself compounded by the fact that they didn't tell a park ranger.  Apparently they were found in a beef jerky state of dry decay about a week later and near the National Park boundary....Darwinism at it's finest.  :eyebrow:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F26_zpsnpt0anpg.jpg&hash=c91774a0c31d2fc193698ff37f0b5c653dfd5453)

Turned left on Park Blvd to reach Keys View Road:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F27_zpsmwxeiznq.jpg&hash=ac12c9f5d5784960097642e4ea829744f73f5082)

Keys View is an overlook about 5,000 feet above Coachella Valley.  There are some fantastic sights of the Salton Sea, San Andreas Fault, San Jancinto, the Windmill Graveyard, and San Gorgonio from the overlook:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F28_zpswjz2vyja.jpg&hash=eb3239198ffe29c96c2e2d2168414a23dfdd4ead)

Of course there is a crap ton of Joshua Trees to be had on Keys View Road....which are actually Yuccas:

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Took Park Blvd to CA 62, just in the nick of time it seems.  There was about a mile backup coming into Joshua Tree National Park from the town of Joshua Tree....weekend warriors I supposed?

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I was heading Angeles Crest.  Given that I really don't care for driving in around Los Angeles and the Inland Empire after five years of working there I had it planned in advance to cut north on CA 247...and yes it's really called Old Woman Springs Road.  :-D

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In Lucerne Valley I cut west on CA 18...or at least one of the parts of CA 18 that cuts west.  This really ought to be two different routes given the wild 180 it does in the mountains:

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I went down Bear Valley Road to get some lunch and hit I-15 as a pass to CA 138...which I thought would be the way to go.  What I didn't count on was a truck breaking down in the middle of Cajon Pass.  The back up didn't look too bad when I was eating on the QuickMap so I decided to give I-15 a try but had a back up plan in mind:

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Which was needed almost immediately.  First the ramp on Bear Valley Road with I-15 was all jacked up with construction which cost me 20 minutes.  By the time I got on I-15 the freeway had already backed up to US 395....so I got off on US 395 and took Phelan Road west:

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I guess that Phelan Road is the truck detour right now for CA 18?  Got a pic of this mutant construction CA 18 shield in Phelan:

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Before hitting CA 138:

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And after about an hour of extra wriggamorals finally CA 2 and the Angeles Crest Highway:

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Figure I'll wrap up Angeles Crest on the next post...this one is getting a little long.

Something that I failed to mention in regards to Cajon Pass.  I guess everyone and their dog knew that Phelan Road was the good way to get to CA 138 and get down Cajon a little bit.  Lots of angsty suburbanites violating about every traffic law in existence, one guy even was passing people on the shoulder.  Those poor little folks from Phelan didn't know what hit them and really must hate people from the Inland Empire.  :rolleyes:

Anywho, given that I was contending with all the above hitting CA 2 on the Angeles Crest was a godsend.  The road climbs very fast to Blue Ridge and the traffic tapers off almost completely.  Basically it's just folks who purposely mean to be on Angeles Crest who you will usually find.  That can be good on days like today:

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Honestly from Blue Ridge to Vincent Gulch this might be the worst grade on the Angeles Crest Highway...despite it being a mountain road the grade hardly ever goes over 5%:

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But until you get a couple miles west of Dawson Saddle you need to look out for rock fall.  Today was especially bad with the rocks which really had me going a lot slower than I usually do through here:

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Speaking of rock fall....made a stop at the long closed off northern terminus of CA 39 on the Islip Saddle.  This section as most of Pacific Southwest posters know is the section that has been closed off since 1978.  The QuickMap says the route will reopen in 2025...I highly doubt it ever will.  Apparently the section is so bad now that there is even a sign barring pedestrian traffic that I don't remember.  There is a fairly decent fanfare to be had with the CA 2 safety corridor sign and a great view of CA 39 from the Islip Saddle:

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There are some dual tunnels out of the Islip Saddle westbound.  After this the road on Angeles Crest becomes much less prone to rock slides:

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Lots of pretty overlooks to be had westbound heading downhill:

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Of course there is a decent couple overlooks of Los Angeles if you were ever wondering where all those mid-size car commercials are shot at.  It was about here where the Biker Boyz crowd got a little out of hand.  Usually it's really bad with the sports bike crowd on the weekend but it was slow day for some reason.  I think it had a lot to do with it being fairly late in the day....I guess some good came of that Cajon Pass traffic disaster:

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Made my way down to a friends house in Pasadena for the night.  One more thing to do before this trip gets wrapped up:

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Wasn't the interesting day that I was hoping for.  It was raining in the Sierra Pelonas this morning and it didn't seem like a good idea to force the car down the original Ridge Route.  The road is very beat up and usually only gets worse after a storm pours rocks onto the road.  Basically you can get pretty far in before the road is blocked off from the North off of N2 and CA 138 here:

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.7423959,-118.7125598,16z?hl=en

So that being the case got a couple photos from Wheeler Ridge:

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Namely the junction of CA 99 and I-5.  I always thought it was strange CA 99 just kept going straight and I-5 took a right exit:

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Picked up a CA 166 sign since I don't have one on the thread yet:

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And CA 119 is one I plan to do some more digging into since it was part of US 399.  I'll probably double back to the Ridge Route on the way back up to Bakersfield....whenever I get to it:

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When I got home found a US 395 sign that I bought waiting on the porch.  I had a replica 395 before this so it was a welcome addition:

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So with that all in mind I'm looking at doing all the stuff discussed in the La Gloria Road thread probably in the next week or two, from there who knows?  Going back to yesterday I would be curious to know what happened to Chuckwalla Valley Road being shut down if anyone happens to stumble upon an answer. 

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 23, 2016, 03:20:27 PM
I always thought it was strange CA 99 just kept going straight and I-5 took a right exit:

Not that strange, since 99 was there first. This way they didn't have to relocate the existing road, just build an exit and overpass.

Quote from: kkt on October 24, 2016, 01:08:49 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 23, 2016, 03:20:27 PM
I always thought it was strange CA 99 just kept going straight and I-5 took a right exit:

Not that strange, since 99 was there first. This way they didn't have to relocate the existing road, just build an exit and overpass.

It's a little weird considering how big a deal it was to put I-5 in all that empty land or rather it feels counter-intuitive...at least to me.   But then again I'm sure it was one hell of a cost saver to build the interchange that way.  There would still need to be a pretty big cross-over of the south bound 99 lanes regardless. 

Speaking of costs...holy crap CA 2 over Angeles Crest must have cost a fortune to build.  I've driven the roadway a couple times but really never read up on the back story about it.  Almost three decades to complete is actually kind of amazing even though the project would have included all of CA 173 being paved originally.  It's really no wonder with that level grade why it's not cost effective to fix CA 39.

Thanx for the pics, Max...I had family friends in Yucca Valley-29 Palms, so I'm familiar with the area. These places remain the least populated spots of the megalopolis of Southern CA. Despite 18-20 million people live within 90-100 miles of civic center LA, as well San Diego, Santa Barbara and Bakersfield, with metro areas in San Luis Obispo and Imperial valley, you can drive across the CA desert to not see a building or human being for over 100-150 miles.

Quote from: Desert Man on October 25, 2016, 12:13:05 PM
Thanx for the pics, Max...I had family friends in Yucca Valley-29 Palms, so I'm familiar with the area. These places remain the least populated spots of the megalopolis of Southern CA. Despite 18-20 million people live within 90-100 miles of civic center LA, as well San Diego, Santa Barbara and Bakersfield, with metro areas in San Luis Obispo and Imperial valley, you can drive across the CA desert to not see a building or human being for over 100-150 miles.

Or like this leaving 29 Palms east on 62 towards Parker, Arizona?  :-D

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Seriously it's a rare day you see another person on 62 until the northern terminus.  From there it's actually how much 62 and US 95 are used to short-cut up to Clark County and I-40.  That distance used to be shorter to services when there was a gas station in Vidal Junction.  The weird thing is that 62 basically is right on the boundary of the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts.  With Imperial Valley I never really got the same sense of desolation than out in the Mojave.  There are so many notable ghost towns like; Amboy, Kelso, Rice, and many more that used to be population centers...certainly gives it an unnerving feeling if you aren't familiar with anything but surburbia.

Incidentally I was intentionally trying to get that person on the bike but it begs the question, where the hell were they going?  The purse/man-bag type article suggests someone local.  That was back in February when I was heading up to Prescott, I was taking pictures of the area for a buddy who was station at the 29 Palms Marine Station.

I grew up in La Canada Flintridge; the second house we lived in was one block west of Angeles Crest Highway. I've been up Angeles Crest Highway numerous times for hiking trips.

Quote from: hm insulators on October 27, 2016, 02:22:02 PM
I grew up in La Canada Flintridge; the second house we lived in was one block west of Angeles Crest Highway. I've been up Angeles Crest Highway numerous times for hiking trips.

That would be pretty cool to have access to something like that just down the block.  I'd really like to hit a lot of those backroads up in the hills if I ever got some time for it.  Rumor was there is some decent incomplete road finds and tunnels near the Islip Saddle where CA 39 is cut off from the rock slide.

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 24, 2016, 01:12:30 PM

Quote from: kkt on October 24, 2016, 01:08:49 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 23, 2016, 03:20:27 PM
I always thought it was strange CA 99 just kept going straight and I-5 took a right exit:

Not that strange, since 99 was there first. This way they didn't have to relocate the existing road, just build an exit and overpass.

It's a little weird considering how big a deal it was to put I-5 in all that empty land or rather it feels counter-intuitive...at least to me.   But then again I'm sure it was one hell of a cost saver to build the interchange that way.  There would still need to be a pretty big cross-over of the south bound 99 lanes regardless. 

Interstate 5 in the San Joaquin Valley was built as a high-speed connector route between the Southland and The Bay Area, intentionally avoiding all the Valley's cities and towns.

Quote from: BakoCondors on October 29, 2016, 07:43:44 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 24, 2016, 01:12:30 PM

Quote from: kkt on October 24, 2016, 01:08:49 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on October 23, 2016, 03:20:27 PM
I always thought it was strange CA 99 just kept going straight and I-5 took a right exit:

Not that strange, since 99 was there first. This way they didn't have to relocate the existing road, just build an exit and overpass.

It's a little weird considering how big a deal it was to put I-5 in all that empty land or rather it feels counter-intuitive...at least to me.   But then again I'm sure it was one hell of a cost saver to build the interchange that way.  There would still need to be a pretty big cross-over of the south bound 99 lanes regardless. 

Interstate 5 in the San Joaquin Valley was built as a high-speed connector route between the Southland and The Bay Area, intentionally avoiding all the Valley's cities and towns.

Yes which continues over the flyover on the right which crosses over both the northbound and southbound lanes of CA 99 to continue Northwest.  Just seems odd that interchange was never updated to have CA 99 continue on the right towards Bakersfield while I-5 went left and just crossed the southbound lanes of CA 99. I guess since it's out in the boonies the interchange functions just fine as is.

Back on the road today...  Reason it took so long was that the Sonic got a face full of deer out in Utah and crumpled pretty much the entire front clip.  The good news was that it was just body damage which let get it back home, the bad would be that it's still not fixed.  So with that in mind I'm holding off the Diablos for a while and stuck somewhat local with the Old Ridge Route and Ridge Route Alternate.  Basically the Old Ridge Route was original road over the Sierra Pelonas that replaced the road through San Franciquito Canyon...apparently it was 697 curves and a consistent 6% average grade, that ain't bad for a road that opened in 1915.  Of course the Old Ridge Route was part of US 99 from 1926 to 1933 when the Ridge Route Alternate Opened up in Piru Canyon.  Anyways, before I get off on too much of a historic rant about the Ridge Route I'll just refer you to this site as it speaks way more on the topic than I ever could hope to:

http://gbcnet.com/ushighways/US99/US99f.html

So with that in mind I started down CA 99 and stopped in Grapevine to check out what's left of Grapevine Road.  Grapevine Road was part of the Ridge Route from 1915 to 1934 when the replacement grade was built to the west which is now the south bound lanes of I-5:

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Of course you have to jump back on I-5 to get to the other sections of the Ridge Route.  Like I was saying earlier the southbound lanes of I-5 are the alignment of the post 1934 improvements:

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Stopped at Fort Tejon at the top of Grapevine Canyon, it's now a state park preserving the site of the 1854 fortification:

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I'm to understand that from Fort Tejon through Lebec most of the Ridge Route was covered up by I-5 itself.  There are still trace remains on Lebec Road...or at least I'm convinced this is one of them:

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South of Lebec you have Peace Valley Road which has a part of the 1951 expressway version of the Ridge Route intact as a divided highway.  I'm to understand that there is old concrete slabs of the 1915 road just off of Falcon Road, but I couldn't find them:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F8_zps6cxfnkm7.jpg&hash=3a131f395af64f5205a16a9df6bfd58ae8eea08a)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F9_zpss7vxom4j.jpg&hash=3a6989d15b70faaed0ee91bc5259b53583749681)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F10_zpsrj0pbdvx.jpg&hash=3128133e449d8b456e4ed7668e9ee86d29d61e1d)

In Gormon the 1915 alignment of the Ridge Route can be driven on Gormon Post road all the way to CA 138.  Gormon Post Road dead ends right at I-5 where the road would have kept going heading north.  Right before CA 138 there is actually an intact section of the white concrete from the 1915 alignment:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F11_zpswyxbzkg5.jpg&hash=49e59d6791e30bdc84e3ce9df98f2b5e7ca7d408)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F12_zpsyym2snqt.jpg&hash=60fc19c956c64052bcf22a82c2c07dd23b65ae1b)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F13_zpso8sxyvaj.jpg&hash=a5acd12b0254132b66d4a166fd257305ebe3652b)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F14_zpsdnkkwylm.jpg&hash=50bfceec56b5b6831397d9f633555809b5b72832)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F16_zpsq9e5hn9f.jpg&hash=0679517c0e1349be49f404a45fa7c4d1124d853a)

I'm fairly certain that the road on the north side of CA 138 has something to do with the Old Ridge Route, but I can't prove it.  Regardless the Old Ridge Road begins about three miles east of Gorman Post Road and is signed as County Route N2 for about two miles before it splits east.  Incidentally N2 has an "END" sign....that's pretty good signing for a road that's pretty beat up:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F17_zps4oh1xt45.jpg&hash=8b895d8315054b7ff7743b1d5e4bec8f4facc4bb)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F18_zpss2wn6bqm.jpg&hash=1476aa700897a04d6423f7b11e3e6d19b8ba15dd)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F19_zpsvds20apm.jpg&hash=dbcb03e3ce70ddf6b7e6ff7c17d66ad0cde50d1c)

From CA 138 the Old Ridge Route starts to climb quickly.  There are some pretty good views on some of hairpin pullouts of Antelope Valley:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F20_zpstzbtf836.jpg&hash=303060e2cddf58af8e94449b1a9eb6be099690aa)

There is some decent signage, albeit old as all hell where the Old Ridge Route continues south branching off of N2.  The road surface really starts to get bad at this point but still can be driven, and yes they are REALLY serious about the road being closed as you'll soon see:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F21_zpskivern35.jpg&hash=e808178861d7456ce0852d8297ae565b557573f8)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F22_zpsimzeufkm.jpg&hash=a31249678b699d43819f82bfd5cd59970f1e1a0d)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F23_zpsleodn5qj.jpg&hash=1a91b7661430c3e83c0fbe54fcd5a635aa45752e)

About a mile south of N2 is the ruins of the Sandberg Resort which I have sometimes classified as a "ghost town."  The resort was built in 1914 in anticipation of the Old Ridge Route being opened the following year.  The resort burned down in 1961 and Angeles National Forest cancelled the lease on the property in 1963.  Basically there is just wandering horses and brick ruins today:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F24_zps6gxaxpog.jpg&hash=d6df2b100a956b762316ab4e20a546042bbd643c)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F25_zpsatphlsqe.jpg&hash=656208b438ac2fbde05b3c8cf10b4195ca4841b3)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F26_zpsmlpeudki.jpg&hash=8ef978871c6afa1cc009cdb58408b825c87c6076)

Incidentally this is what the monument above used to look like:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Sandberg-Inn.jpg/400px-Sandberg-Inn.jpg)

I'm going to make this a two-parter since the WiFi here absolutely is complete crap.

Continuing onward southbound....  I forgot to note that the Sandberg Resort was built close to the high point of the Old Ridge Route which is Libre Summit.  The Sandberg Resort is about 4,100 feet above sea level.

Just south of the Sandberg Resort the road maintenance ends.  There are some nice views to be had here but unless you got something high clearance or an OHV you aren't going anywhere south of here in a vehicle:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F27_zpsxtzqdgx1.jpg&hash=d41a468f51124187e58966c5ebaf8c3cc0c1306d)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F28_zpslkbmykvs.jpg&hash=017f2d2f32e973a9ee06c09a493caaa984d410ee)

Seriously don't try to drive south of that warning sign, the road conditions fall apart completely south of here.  It isn't far to Libre Summit, I ran it but even an out of shape hiker can make it easily.  Ironically the original concrete from the 1920s is what stood up the best over time.  The asphalt is completely breaking up and there are plenty of rock slides that have buried sections of the roadway which makes it really narrow at times.  It's a shame too, you can really tell the Old Ridge Route was way ahead of it's time as far as quality.  6% grading was really shallow back in the 1910s and still is the standard Interstates go by.  Now the 697 curves...holy shit, not so much.  :-D  Either way it's a complete shame the road was never really had much up keep, it would be one hell of a trip to take it all the way to Castic.  Enjoy the desolation of literally a century old roadway:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F29_zpsqfhrdkwi.jpg&hash=2f4169e5c43a10c3724e3ef22390ab6d949ee047)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F30_zpswlskroue.jpg&hash=f1e0a1c7c5f99aa3ffc4d3e57bed01e33ab7ba76)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F31_zpsrr9hjmhz.jpg&hash=bc46940a9f0d886ef581dda5ea0c3028843f0eb1)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F32_zpsirs0hmoz.jpg&hash=acbe520b91c825e72167d5f466eb7a11a7c5965a)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F33_zpsl7vffxgf.jpg&hash=f881efe537e82cfc4791588d294fb0b4eeed8222)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F34_zpsxjo4jnyn.jpg&hash=4f93a13c4dab45509d9c0d50bb44d1d497589890)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F35_zpsdapyn13j.jpg&hash=d3f8a972ab309f7ab128feaeff39df699bb68be9)

There is a derelict historic marker which designations Libre Summit.  Since it can't really be read I'll just tell you that it's 4,233 feet above sea level:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F36_zpsrawzwec3.jpg&hash=22d0aaa3e74f6305ccb801882f68de2d14b48605)

And there is some pretty nice views to be had from the Summit:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F37_zpscvktocr2.jpg&hash=c633acc773ed6fa20a9fce401727d48574d32125)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F38_zpsdv3dewf1.jpg&hash=3d5d59de7e229fde3f88185130534c19a901f837)

And you can even see all the way to Pyramid Lake which Ridge Route Alternate is submerged under:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F39_zpsgq5fvxrc.jpg&hash=628e07db1e2a5688762840d2c4c6ce7bb519e9a3)

To get there though you have to back track to I-5 since the Old Ridge Route is closed a couple miles south of Libre Summit....that is unless you want to continue on bike or foot:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F40_zpsmnmyycyq.jpg&hash=d23772442b1f988b8194dbd40918f7f6181072cf)

If you take I-5 south to exit 183 there is a section of the 1933 alignment of the Ridge Route that is still driveable, it still even has a sign that says "Golden State Highway" on the divided expressway portion:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F41_zpsomkzhmpd.jpg&hash=549d147596cdce2ef4780f79e12c0dcf575301d2)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F42_zpsuflqhsmk.jpg&hash=b78a3e033eea14969aa06a9e0c4b549c5ec2af70)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F43_zpsmyntbswf.jpg&hash=47051671646c01a8a0d9553dc41599ccf25208c3)

Back in 1933 this would have been a three lane road.  The center lane would have been the passing lane for both directions and I guess it was called the "Suicide Lane."  The expressway configuration of Ridge Route Alternate was completed which made this a four lane roadway.  The road is blocked off to traffic five miles north of exit 183 but you can still go about another 2.5 miles north through Piru Canyon.  The bridge over Piru Creek was actually original to the Ridge Route Alternate and the 1951 date is when it was expanded:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F44_zpss8lggv6t.jpg&hash=36cbbcf85c5b6866e6fe4d88d4929898f4e02faa)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F45_zps3zwizyrd.jpg&hash=9c7781014ddde7fd5033235b33b00061879df6dc)
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I ran this section, surprisingly it's almost completely intact all the way up to Pyramid Dam.  When I-5 was completed Pyramid Dam was built which flooded out the Ridge Route Alternate.  My understanding is that there was a similar plan back when the Old Ridge Route was being plotted out which is why it didn't take Piru Canyon...which even in those days would have been an infinitely easier route:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F47_zpskg61om43.jpg&hash=d571865209f87157511caf13c6d88ec46afb8ff3)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F48_zpscvknmqqc.jpg&hash=59efd9ff2c6319e59b906be5baefb8683064e33e)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F49_zpsordc6ynr.jpg&hash=836fac055d15080aa2c3838be7b5020f0385347c)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F50_zpsrwfummzg.jpg&hash=fcfb2fb32dab61fb465fa012e827eba74cb8aef3)

So with that in mind, that's pretty much all for both Ridge Route alignments.  In Castic Junction the old roadways are still intact and take be taken north for awhile.  The Old Ridge Route is called "Ridge Route Road" and the Ridge Route Alternate is called "The Old Road," although I'm to understand that most if not all those the "Old Road" is just a frontage replacement for what is buried under the southbound lanes of I-5. Basically I just jumped on CA 126 and headed west to Ventura for the night.  Snagged a CA 126, CA 23 and even a CA 118 despite the heavy sun glare.  I'll be taking CA 33 north on the way home to get a nice little US 399 tour on the way back home:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F51_zps2unld0e7.jpg&hash=72d466f10866fb0f3eb81a855fb201734741f6a2)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F52_zpsm2fw5ppr.jpg&hash=0fa74eedf90b5b641a4dd7d2a89be69aac81d340)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F53_zpseewep5hx.jpg&hash=b0089a76018cbfd88199a30d36fa84a7469da657)

Not the soundtrack I would have chosen but this guy did the whole Old Ridge Route in timelapse:



It would seem that someone broke the north gate near Libre Summit.  Not sure what the guy did to the south gate, he suddenly time jumps past it.

Spent the day out in Ventura, my observation on the US 101/CA 126 is that it needs a lane expansion.  There isn't really much reason there should be a backup at 1 PM aside from outdated design capacity. Snagged a couple pictures of the US 101 Business Route, the close-up picture is at the split from Main west to Thompson:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F54_zps5qfc1nhi.jpg&hash=4b89143ba6da4d5e394b5195396574198b371dde)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F55_zpstje1eczx.jpg&hash=d946c8d9b2424b090fd70da69ca2787927cd67e2)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F56_zpsszy1e0iw.jpg&hash=69326b8b7c43487a892911b6393445ca1d6bf6b9)

It would seem Ventura County in general has a fetish with red light cameras...when did that happen?  I don't seem to recall many of them being around Oxnard and Ventura just a couple years back.

Beautiful day to head out to the Anacapa Island though, worth the cashing in of hotel points for something a short distance from home:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F57_zpsjc2hbetx.jpg&hash=eab72e5c55ec966fe2253e3ff403554598114867)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F58_zpsyavvtyfu.jpg&hash=90e30c32fab2f8328aef52f304ebf9f53f438f9d)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F59_zpscba7cwl5.jpg&hash=ee69cf33b147f9767dcc6935d043600143e2ffc4)
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(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F61_zpsbivte1qh.jpg&hash=630d6730a9315bda442f3caa8e71621d647ea44e)

Supposedly the southern terminus of US 399 was at Main Street and Ventura Avenue according to USends.com.  I'll give it a looksy on the way home:

http://www.usends.com/90-99/399/399.html

Found this video about the Ridge Route just now:



It seems my suspicions about Lebec Road and the abandoned concrete slabs are affirmed.

US 399 day today...for those not in the know, I'm taking about the 1934-64 US Rout that ran on the alignments of CA 119, CA 33, CA 166, and CA 150 southwest through the Transverse Ranges to US 101 in Ventura.  Started the day out at what would have been the southern terminus of US 399 at US 101 in Ventura at Main Street and Ventura Avenue:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F70_zpscdffxeji.jpg&hash=d2120a94b55c99a1ced1dc749fd15deedd02900b)

Oddly Ventura Avenue really isn't ever cut off by the CA 33 freeway, I actually took it entirely where the freeway ends.  Ventura Avenue passes under the CA 33 freeway a couple times heading north:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F71_zpsaslrfjm1.jpg&hash=eb888120fc90a3c2b3023cebb9ab82f82ca757ee)

In Ojai CA 150 overlaps CA 33 for a couple blocks before 33 cuts north along the old US 399 alignment:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F72_zpssy3jdzt6.jpg&hash=ad040acd9489aad176c7ee6a3508d84cab6a58cd)

As CA 33/Old US 399 continues north it passes through a series of three tunnels as it enters Wheeler Gorge:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F73_zpsuvvhx2t8.jpg&hash=251b7d25b040a80d38c2030b976e60b090da05c6)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F75_zpsuyni3jau.jpg&hash=457fb3b9c3c40052df9f8dd48fd1c0c6c7206068)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F76_zpsxtvl6oiq.jpg&hash=40db07b94e56d7f984683346ffbfb66577f266be)

The road through Wheeler Gorge is a very fast climb as CA 33/Old US 399 climbs the canyon walls to about 3,600 feet according to my altimeter:

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Now I wouldn't classify this section of roadway anywhere as difficult grade wise as some of the Sierra California State Highways but it ain't easy.  The grade usually is a good indicator in California of a former US Route...curvature on the other hand can be all over the place regardless.  Either way the best view of CA 33/Old US 399 and Wheeler Gorge are at a very clearly evident dirt overlook near the top of the hair pins:

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But even the view from the very top into Wheeler Gorge isn't half bad either:

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The road begins to lower slightly as you continue north and Nordhoff Ridge comes into view:

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North of Wheeler Gorge CA 33/Old US 399 kind of levels out substantially and the climb to Pine Mountain Summit is much more gradual:

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The same can't be said of the north descent to the Cuyama River where the road loses close to 2,000 feet in just a couple miles:

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Along the Cuyama River CA 33/Old US 399 levels out substantially and straightens, the twisted roads are pretty much done for the rest of the route.  CA 33 approaches CA 166 where it multiplexes it for about 14 miles east, US 399 would have multiplexed a signed CA 166 as well.  Oddly the junction of CA 166 doesn't mention anything about CA 33:

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However a couple miles east there is a reassurance sign indicating that indeed CA 33 is multiplexed with CA 166:

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Interestingly before the truck grades start if you have a vehicle with decent clearance you could take Soda Lake Road up to Soda Lake and the Carrizo Plains National Monument.  I would exactly call this a difficult grade heading east to Taft but it seems to be getting more popular with truckers over the years:

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US 399 would have followed CA 33 north out of Maricopa at this junction:

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In Taft US 399 would have taken a turn on CA 119 northeast to Bakersfield at this junction:

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Basically US 399 would have followed CA 119/Taft Highway all the way east to US 99 at Pumpkin Center just south of Bakersfield proper.  Today that junction would be CA 119/Taft Highway and CA 99BL/Union Avenue:

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2667991,-119.0030025,3a,75y,90h,73.57t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1smD_Vy-_PQjB7v_zaBtsXgg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

Oddly US 399 for a time multiplexed US 99 up to US 466 which ran on Edison Highway and Summer Street.  US 399 just suddenly stopped at US 466...kind of weird even by the weird standards of US Route multiplexes of the era:

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.379858,-119.0044061,3a,75y,270h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfGYZm7BuB98azTCwv5nwtw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

Of course in 1964 the "Great Renumbering" took place and US 399 was one of the many casualties among the US Routes...probably the most justified considering it was only 137 all intrastate which would now be on the short hit list for the AASHTO.  CA 119 took over for the Taft Highway and CA 33 was ended south to Ventura.  This would be the first state map showing the changes:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239525~5511850:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1964?sort=pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=27&trs=86

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239527~5511851:-Verso--State-Highway-Map,-Californ?sort=pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=28&trs=86

Here is the map from 1963 which last showed US 399, note the terminus is showing at US 466 in Bakersfield:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239528~5511852:State-Highway-Map,-California,-1963?sort=pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=29&trs=86

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239530~5511853:-Verso--State-Highway-Map,-Californ?sort=pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=30&trs=86

This would be the 1934 map not showing US 399 in downtown Bakersfield:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239594~5511896:Road-Map-of-the-State-of-California?sort=pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=73&trs=86

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239596~5511897:-Verso--Road-Map-of-the-State-of-Ca?sort=pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=74&trs=86

But it's definitely there in 1936:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239591~5511894:Road-Map-of-the-State-of-California?sort=pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=71&trs=86

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239593~5511895:-Verso--Road-Map-of-the-State-of-Ca?sort=pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date&qvq=q:caltrans;sort:pub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_list_no_initialsort%2Cpub_date;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=72&trs=86

Cahighwaysguys has US 399 reaching US 466 in 1942:

http://www.cahighways.org/305-440.html#399

Gbcnet.com's write up on US 399 including an interesting picture of a sign swap to CA 33:

http://gbcnet.com/ushighways/US399.html

And USends which I got the Main Street and Ventura Avenue from:

http://www.usends.com/90-99/399/399.html

Apparently the origins of US 399 date back to a 1913 survey.  Given that projects like the Ridge Route were about to be in the works at the time it's understandable why a shortcut route from Ventura to San Joaquin Valley would be desired.  Apparently there was also a push to get more access to what would become Los Padres National Forest in 1936 which would have been prime California Condor territory.  Regardless the route was always a strange one, but not really all that more strange than the Old Ridge Route or Ridge Route Alternate would have been.  Given how little traffic probably used the road even back then it was probably hard to justify any extensions which could have saved the route in 1964.  Personally a revived US 399 extended via CA 178, Trona-Wildrose Road, CA 190, CA 127, and NV 373 might make it on some of my fictional thread posts coming up very shortly...who knows?

Picked up a new sign with some local flavor and apparently pretty topical considering the Westside Parkway thread is about the most talked about thing on the SW board right now:

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I always thought it was a little strange that LRN 58 was used to renumber not just US 466 from Bakersfield to Barstow but CA 178 west of the city as well.  That's pretty damn odd when you think about it, CA 178 could be the highway using the Westside Parkway and everything else all the way to US 101.  Also strange to think that 58 was the LRN from US 66 east of Barstow to the state line.  That's a lot of history behind the scenes even before the renumbering in 1964...