Any good drives around the Bay Area?

[Nose Nuggets]

Are there any nice offroad scenic drives anywhere around the bay area you can do in a day in a stock lc100? I've tried looking around on AllTrails and OnX (i'm new to this, not sure if these are even good resources) and everything is kind of far away for a day outing.

Thanks for any recommendations!

 

[Shipwreck]

Scenic
Offroad
Near the Bay Area

Pick two. Maybe one...

In reality there is little to no true offroad trails in the Bay Area. Hollister Hills OHV park down in Hollister is good to get your feet wet in offroad skills. Frank Raines and Carnegie cater toward motorcyles, but offer limited vehicle trails. None are scenic though. There are plenty of scenic drives near the coast, but are mostly paved highways or rarely, short gravel roads. There are some dirt road routes down near Big Sur or Usal Rd up in the Sinkyone Wilderness. You probably just missed the peak wildflower bloom down in the Carrizo Plain east of San Luis Obispo.
But as you mention, depending on where you live in the Bay Area, most of these destinations will take just as long to get to as heading to the Sierras or southern deserts..

 

[george_tlc]

Yeah, any dirt roads near/around the bay area have been paved or are closed/private. It's remarkable how non-dirt friendly the bay area is. And as above, either head to the mountains or to the socal deserts. The other option is heading north, quite a bit of dirt once you get north of clearlake (pillsbury lake area) and quite a bit in the trinity forests (between 5 and 101, south of hwy 36).

The bay area is so ridiculous that it's a challenge to find enough dirt to exercise lockers.

cheers,
george.

 

[Nose Nuggets]

Rats! Oh well, i sort of figured as much. Do you guys have any recomendations for a first outing at the places you mentioned?

 

[SIZZLE]

Rats! Oh well, i sort of figured as much. Do you guys have any recomendations for a first outing at the places you mentioned?

Hollister Hills is a great place if you've never really been off roading before. There will be plenty of people around if you need any assistance and trails are well marked and graded. I think the grading there is very conservative too.

What area of the Bay are you in? North and East will be your main options, but (at least for me ) its at least 2.5 hours in any direction before i can hit dirt.

 

[george_tlc]

Trinity Wilderness Trip - http://www.george4wd.taskled.com/tn2021.html is the Trinity Forest area when I last was there late last year. There's quite a LOT of forestry roads to explore, some well worn, some rarely traveled.

Usal Beach 2009 - http://www.george4wd.taskled.com/usal2k9.html one of several trips to Usal beach when my kids were kids . There's not too much to explore in terms of roads - Usal Rd basically runs up the coast and will take you to Shelter Cove, a small town with great fish & chips near the musuem/light house. Usal Rd from Usal beach to the T-junction further north often has signs saying it's not for through use - but not like there's anyone telling you to not drive it.

Downloading various topo maps of the areas is a good idea if you want to explore the Trinity forest. Easy to get yourself lost if you don't know how to read a map and do some planning.

Neither are 'day' trips and at minimum I'd take a w/end and camp out. Nice thing with the Trinity area is that you are up at 5000-6000' feet most of the time so it's cooler even in summer when places like Red Bluff are bumping into 100F temps. Do note that big fires went through the area, so a lot of the forest beauty is now charcoal - thought there is still a lot of beautiful areas up there.

Southern deserts are getting warmer quickly...

Look north of Clearlake and you'll find Lake Pillsbury and there's a decent amount of forestry roads to explore. If you are in the north bay, that's not too far to head and feasible to do as a long day or sleep out the Saturday night.

Hollister is an offroad park, so really just a place to go to test out your vehicle and decide where to spend more money for upgrades It can be entertaining to watch folk do neat things or stupid things

cheers,
george.

 

[Nose Nuggets]

Hollister Hills is a great place if you've never really been off roading before. There will be plenty of people around if you need any assistance and trails are well marked and graded. I think the grading there is very conservative too.

What area of the Bay are you in? North and East will be your main options, but (at least for me ) its at least 2.5 hours in any direction before i can hit dirt.

East Bay, Oakland/Berkeley area.

 

[SIZZLE]

East Bay, Oakland/Berkeley area.

Then head east my son. There’s so much awesomeness in Stanislaus. A guidebook helps. Pick up something like this:

Amazon product ASIN 1934838071
I don’t have personal experience with this one in particular but have the Moab version from Wells and it’s very good.

 

[Nose Nuggets]

Trinity Wilderness Trip - http://www.george4wd.taskled.com/tn2021.html is the Trinity Forest area when I last was there late last year. There's quite a LOT of forestry roads to explore, some well worn, some rarely traveled.

Usal Beach 2009 - http://www.george4wd.taskled.com/usal2k9.html one of several trips to Usal beach when my kids were kids . There's not too much to explore in terms of roads - Usal Rd basically runs up the coast and will take you to Shelter Cove, a small town with great fish & chips near the musuem/light house. Usal Rd from Usal beach to the T-junction further north often has signs saying it's not for through use - but not like there's anyone telling you to not drive it.

Downloading various topo maps of the areas is a good idea if you want to explore the Trinity forest. Easy to get yourself lost if you don't know how to read a map and do some planning.

Neither are 'day' trips and at minimum I'd take a w/end and camp out. Nice thing with the Trinity area is that you are up at 5000-6000' feet most of the time so it's cooler even in summer when places like Red Bluff are bumping into 100F temps. Do note that big fires went through the area, so a lot of the forest beauty is now charcoal - thought there is still a lot of beautiful areas up there.

Southern deserts are getting warmer quickly...

Look north of Clearlake and you'll find Lake Pillsbury and there's a decent amount of forestry roads to explore. If you are in the north bay, that's not too far to head and feasible to do as a long day or sleep out the Saturday night.

Hollister is an offroad park, so really just a place to go to test out your vehicle and decide where to spend more money for upgrades It can be entertaining to watch folk do neat things or stupid things

cheers,
george.

WOW! thanks for all this detail, much appreciated and great personal diaries on your past trips!

I think hitting up Hollister to shake out the kinks sounds like a good plan. I've got family down in Monterey so I can make a weekend of that easy. And then check out Lake Pillsbury, that looks really cool.

Both of your trips are going on my list, they both look real nice. Do you think a stock lc100 would have any issues?

You mentioned in one of your trip posts that you slept in the back of the truck. Got any hot tips for that?

 

[Nose Nuggets]

Then head east my son. There’s so much awesomeness in Stanislaus. A guidebook helps. Pick up something like this:

Amazon product ASIN 1934838071
I don’t have personal experience with this one in particular but have the Moab version from Wells and it’s very good.

This is great to hear, Stanislaus is really close. That offroad book sent me down a real rabbit hole. I think the one you linked is probably the best of what i found and the most recently updated. Thanks for the tips!

 

[george_tlc]

Yeah, stock 100 should have no issues on typical forestry roads. Anything that looks sketchy you can always decline to proceed down. One benefit of not having a crowd watching is that you have less 'pressure' to do something stupid

I threw a simple plywood platform for my recent 2 week death valley trip. Worked out great and room to store stuff under it. Bed was always made and making/breaking camp was super quick.

What Did You Do with Your 80 This Weekend?

Specifics on the vehicle tranny. 1994 a442f. 4 solenoids from Amazon $25 per piece. Cheaper than from Cobra Transmission and certainly cheaper than from the dealership. Boxed as Isuzu OEM parts, parts marked as genuine Aisin. I know this has been covered in the past but figured it doesn’t hurt...

forum.ih8mud.com

and

What Did You Do with Your 80 This Weekend?

Specifics on the vehicle tranny. 1994 a442f. 4 solenoids from Amazon $25 per piece. Cheaper than from Cobra Transmission and certainly cheaper than from the dealership. Boxed as Isuzu OEM parts, parts marked as genuine Aisin. I know this has been covered in the past but figured it doesn’t hurt...

forum.ih8mud.com

cheers,
george.

 

[cme4lyt]

Don’t forget ’bout the Mendocino Forrest area; many miles of great, ‘easy’ trails to get spoilt on. Lake Pillsbury and Hull Mountain, two of my favorite areas….

 

[peesalot]

I agree that there are lots of trails that have not been popularized in the foothills. Whiskey, Bear Valley, Jackson, Sourdough campground would be a great first trip and has river for washing/cooling off. Check Hwy 4 maps, also, Alpine Lake area, slickrock trail, all reachable in a day from east bay.