2021 Pashnit Touring on a Hayabusa

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On over to La Porte Rd, a personal favorite. This road was a dirt fire road a few years back, then about 20 year ago, it was paved and is now a super fun twisty motorcycle road. Zero people.

Entering the August 2020 North Complex fire zone. This was a massive lightning-caused wildfire that was the result of numerous lightning strikes causing multiple fires that all merged into one fire. If you also viewed my 2020 ride thread, the smoke was in every photo for two months.

We never stopped riding, but I did have to re-design my August 2020 tour and move it to the other side of the state to avoid this region.

 

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What we were avoiding... posted this shot earlier, but it's an amazing photo.

This is the region we're now riding through.

Couldn't escape the smoke last year.
No snow this year means it may be another bad wildfire year.

 

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Lots of salvage logging going on

Fire is very sporadic, few miles later you emerge from the burnt zones

Zero other people out here, even on holiday weekend

 

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Good to see salvage logging, quite a few logging trucks

Dreamy curves

Old bridges

And hairpins too

 

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Never get tired of this scenery

 

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Trying to replicate a shot from a few years ago. I probably should have looked where I positioned the bike.

Same spot on my Z1000 at the summit - you can see the same trees are larger.
I loved this bike. 1000cc motor in a tiny package. 18-yr-old kid in a pickup hit me head on a blind mountain hairpin. He was on the wrong side of the road. The white-orange Z1000s are pretty rare and I was so mad about this kid wrecking my bike, I bought the same exact bike a 2nd time. Maybe someday, I'll another naked standard. All my guys on the tours have sold their BMWs and bought KTMs.

Even further back, La Porte Rd with the '00 Hayabusa

 

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No People

 

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La Porte Rd leads to Oroville which got real famous real fast a few years ago. But not in a good way.

188,000 people were told to evacuate immediately back in 2017 when people thought the nation's tallest earthen dam might collapse. It didn't, but there was a ton of damage to the spillway & lots of finger-pointing after the water subsided.

 

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Oroville Quincy Highway was built right along the shores of this reservoir and is like a racetrack. Fast, super curvy and constantly headed up hill.

It's also very burnt and in even worse shape than La Porte Rd from the August 2020 North Complex Fire

 

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The North Complex fire was a massive fire & burned 318,000 acres which is roughly 500 square miles due east of Oroville. 16 people died & another 100 injured. A thunderstorm in August 2020 started 21 separate fires all burning at once while fueled by 45 mph winds which all soon conjoined into one fire. After riding these roads for many years it's wrenching to view the damage, but hopefully they'll salvage log most of this, and it'll take 20 years to grow back.

 

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Reaching the edge of the fire line

Well, sort of

Riding out of the fire line and back into the forest.

Yes, it's as fun as it looks.

 

[Bumblebee]

The North Complex fire was a massive fire & burned 318,000 acres which is roughly 500 square miles due east of Oroville. 16 people died & another 100 injured. A thunderstorm in August 2020 started 21 separate fires all burning at once while fueled by 45 mph winds which all soon conjoined into one fire. After riding these roads for many years it's wrenching to view the damage, but hopefully they'll salvage log most of this, and it'll take 20 years to grow back.

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There have been extensive study on wild fires and their effect on forests, fire is a natural event and forests come back bigger and better from having wild fires...in many cases we as humans are too good at putting them out which allows disease and insects to take over forests..

 

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Once you get out of the fire zone though, the road is dreamy and fast.

Very twisty on down the mountain to reach Quincy.

 

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North of Quincy, for the train buffs, there is a something rather unique.

The Keddie Wye is a railroad junction in the form of a wye on the Union Pacific Railroad in Plumas County, California, United States. Located at the town of Keddie, it joins the east-west Feather River Route with the "Inside Gateway" (BNSF Gateway Subdivision) north to Bieber. The west and north legs of the wye are on bridges over Spanish Creek, and the southeast leg runs through a tunnel (Tunnel No. 32).[1] Just to the northwest, where the two bridged legs join, is Tunnel No. 31. The wye and the town are named for Arthur Keddie, who purchased the survey rights and the right to build a railroad through the Feather River Canyon.

 

[pashnit]

The Journey continues to Highway 89 - Mt Lassen, a dormant (sort of) volcano that last erupted in 1917

After the 1915-1917 eruptions, this mountain was made into a National Park.

Highway 89 Mount Lassen | California Motorcycle Roads | Pashnit

Ride over Mount Lassen, CA Motorcycle Roads

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This region around Mount Lassen is actually a grouping of 30 volcanic peaks across a large square area. Mount Lassen is considered the largest lava dome on earth and is the largest of the 30 peaks said to have formed 27,000 years ago.

Lassen Peak produced a dramatic eruption in 1915 visible for many miles as Mount Lassen can easily be seen from the Central Valley and even from Bay Area peaks like Mount Diablo & Mount Um on a clear day. The 1915 eruption spread ash as far as 200 miles to the east. It was the last eruption to occur in the Cascade Range until Mt. St. Helens in 1980.

 

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Many years in late May, there's way too much snow to get over the mountain this early in the ride season. MT Lassen is said to be the snowiest place in California. Lake Helen near the summit usually gets 40 feet of snow each year.

Highway 89 over the mountain normally looks like this.

One of my favorite experience up here is riding up here in May and getting caught in a snowstorm on the Busa.

When the snow really starts coming down, your brain is screaming I gotta get the hell outa here.

 

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This year, in late May, there's nothing. Changes every year.

 

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Went to Yellowstone as a kid. This is kinda the same thing.

 

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Bubbling, hissing, steaming, crackling

Another portion of the park is really active at Bumpass Hell