On Sunday, I went out and did a little field investigation on the 'Road Closed' sign at Yuba Pass. I could find nothing in the Forest Orders closing it, and the FS wasn't clear on the situation when I called around and asked. Anyhooo...
Off I went from Little Truckee Summit and made a high-speed beeline to Yuba Pass. I looked at the tire tracks going in/out of that road, and they all appeared to be light truck or passenger car radials. Not the type expected on 4x4 vehicles, ATVs or motorcycles, so unlikely this was going to be just a trail that would be closed per fire restrictions.
I waited along Hwy 49 for about 10 minutes, hoping to flag down a FS truck so I could say "Hey, watch this!" as I did what I was going to do next. That would give them an easy opportunity to ticket me if it really was closed. No FS trucks came by. Oh well, I tried.
I hit the gas, waved at the sign, and headed north. Here is what I found at the other end of this road:
Looks like a normal/legal FS road to me. No 'Road Closed' signs anywhere to be seen. In fact, there were many other signs in that area directing traffic from the north to use that route to get back to Yuba Pass:
Neat. So now I was real-real danged sure that this is a legal route.
Having come that far, I decided to go on out and see Gold Lake. Beautiful country along the way there:
I rode right into the campground at Gold Lake, having crossed Gold Lake Highway via FS28 (which begins right there). Got a lot of strange looks from the campers even though I cruised through at 5 mph, but I didn't care. It is a nice lake:
The campers must have had a good time that weekend, just look at how much trash they neatly stacked in and on the dumpster:
Took a side trip up to Mills Peak. Neat place. Looks like a great place to launch a hang glider. Maybe next time I'll bring mine:
Old Glory was being proudly displayed by the FS guy (Dave) manning the tower:
Great views from up there:
The north side of Sierra Buttes still has snow:
I'll be darned, I crossed into Plumas NF and hadn't realized it:
On the way back, I did some exploring of various roads in the Haskell Peak area. Found a fancy bed-and-breakfast inn:
That road heading north from Yuba Pass actually forks. The west fork is a snowmobile route, while the east fork is a nordic ski trail (really just a big wide road in summer). I rode the snowmobile route on the way out, then the nordic ski trail on the way back. The snowmobile route is a bit tighter and steeper (for a road), so was more fun:
By the time I got back to Little Truckee Summit, I had put 103 new miles on my wife's special edition Grizzly. So now both grizzlies are good to go for the 200 mile first service (I put 95 miles on mine the day before).
If you want to see more pictures, you can go here and view the "103 Mile Ride - Gold Lake/Mills Peak" album:
http://www.grizzlyguy.com/ATVs