Made another Nor-Cal run at the end of July, doing Escondido to Dunsmuir, CA then over to Fortuna on the coast and then back home to Escondido. Biggest thing I wanted to share with the group was that I got lucky and was able to rent a forest service firewatch tower for a night. In high school we used have shenanigans up there, but it was in pretty bad shape. The USFS has cleaned it up and you can rent it out (and another one close by) on recreation.gov. Pretty easy to do, but it's usually booked solid so look early, best part was no other people anywhere to be found. There must have been a cancellation because 2 days opened up right at the tail end of our time in Dunsmuir. If you're interested, the one we rented is "Girard Ridge Lookout" near Dunsmuir CA. The tower had awesome views of Castle Crags and Mt.Shasta, and was pretty amazing for star viewing as well. Other than the tower, we did our usual hang out at the river, and some light offroad exploration in the area.
Tower Views
River time.
Tower Views
River time.
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