Trip Date: April 5, 2022
Find this SpotMike and I had tried to get up here in mid-March, but we were repulsed barely 50’ inside the lower gate. The weather had been hot already in Sacramento with a couple of 90 degree days. It was sunny and clear for weeks with no end in sight. On our way up, all indications were consistent with the recent weather. We had no indication coming over I-80, in Truckee, Reno, or anywhere up 395, that we were going to have problems with snow on our road. It wasn’t until we got to about Ravendale when we began to notice patches of snow scattered about. When we turned West onto Termo-Grasshopper road, the patches got a little larger and there seemed to still be snow lower down the local ridges. When we turned onto South Grasshopper, the road was wet and slippery in spots, but nothing prepared us for what we saw when we came to our gate.
It had been 3 full months since the December deluge drenched the entire West; all of California, Oregon, and Washington precipitation totals were historic. However, what we know but still takes some thought to appreciate all the resulting impacts, is just how cold it gets up here. That means in the winter, it is often freezing cold 24 hours a day. The daytime high may get above freezing for a few hours, but it may not. Which means any snow that lands, may stay on the ground for a long time. But, really, this was ridiculous.
Despite the patchy snow around us, our road was pure white. And the snow/ice was deep. It seemed to have been whipped, and stirred and frothed into a jagged sculpture. This wasn’t a sweet little few inches of puffy soft snow layered perfectly smooth over the road like a sweet little blanket. This was tortured ice crystals that had hung on in the toughest of gnarly frozen and wind blasted conditions. I sensed we were screwed as soon as I saw it. Big Mike had warned us about getting in and out early in the morning when the snow was still frozen, lest we get stuck in the sludgy muck. We were about to test the theory.
We had traveled all this way, and despite no faith in getting up top, we at least had to try. It didn’t last long. Maybe 50’ inside the gate, we were done. The truck had lost traction a couple times already and had slid from one side of the road to the other. We were stuck, spinning the tires, with 99% of the way yet to go. Being prepared for snow or mud was the farthest thing from my mind. We hadn’t had any precipitation since that massive storm in December, and the last 2 weeks were downright hot. In fact, the reason we decided to head up now was the fact that it had been so consistently sunny and hot and dry for weeks.
Mike whipped out his tiny folding military shovel and I used my ax handle to push and pull some snow around form behind the rear wheels. It was a sunny beautiful day, so the resulting wet and cold from being on our hands and knees under the truck wasn’t terrible. It was only about 1:00 and we didn’t get far, so despite the lack of tools, it wasn’t a particularly urgent situation. This did not prevent me from keeping a gaze up and down South Grasshopper road just in case a truck came upon us to give a quick pull of a chain and rid of this manual labor.
In 5 or maybe 7 foot increments, we eventually made our way out of the deeper ruts in the snow to a spot we actually could get some traction on terra firma rather than spinning on the ice layer, and we jetted backwards almost crashing into the gate. Free at last. It was still such a silly predicament, with so little snow around us, the road was solid and totally impassable. There was more snow on the ground on at least 2 other trips, but the road had never been covered like this. Oh well. Neither of us felt like hiking up the road to the top, so we had a beer, changed our clothes and hopped back in the truck to go home.
With the sting of failure still fresh in our minds from this last effort, Mike bought a 4 wheel drive version of the Nissan Exterra he already had. His commitment to getting up the hill in the winter is admirable, if not a tad misguided, IMHO. Much more prepared this time, driving 2 w wheel drive rigs with chains, a winch, shovels, tow straps, and off road tires, of course the ground was as dry as could be and we rolled up top without incident. I was a little stymied at the upper gate when neither of the keys I had with me could open the lock, but fortunately, the hide a key was still under the third rock from the third post, three meters to the East.
As I get to the property each time, I still can’t help but search intently for signs of bad guys. Obviously I look closely to see if all the fencing is still in place. However, the heavy brush on one side of the fence where they cut through previously, and the boulders lined up on the other give us extra confidence that at least the most vulnerable spot is well defended now. Higher up the road near camp, my first indicator is the little cabinet behind the shitter. If that door is open, the bad guys have been here. My second key is the shitter door. The bad guys seem to need a lot of toilet paper and have helped themselves to ours. So far so good. Ultimately up top, everything looked like it should. Nothing out of place, nothing broken, graffitied, burned, or otherwise wrecked. We seemed to be in good shape; no moleste! What a relief. This was by far the longest period we had been away from the property (November 13- April 5). I think even if we made it up last trip in March, that still would have been the longest time, but no matter, all was good.
I made a whiskey offering to the gods and then just walked around the loop road and out to the edges of the rock formations East and North. The sun felt great and it would have been easy to nod off in any number of spots. I sent a picture to Bob of his build site and then decided I wanted to walk down to meet Mike. I wanted to head off the West side and meander down to the triangle road, but then I got worried I could miss him, so I just headed down the road, past the cemetery, out the triangle road, and onto S. Grasshopper. It was great to be seeing everything on foot again.
Not seeing Mike yet, I headed out to the NW corner to find the post. It was pounded low into the ground which explains our difficulty seeing it. With nothing to add to it or brighten it up, I headed back just in time to meet Mike and check out the new rig. It was real nice and he was super pleased with it. After giving him the report, we cruised up top laughing at our recollections of our prior attempt. It was great to be together up top the hill again.
It had been 8 months since Mike had been here, and I had no idea what was knew to him, but I knew we had done a lot. He of course was very much interested in the trailer and the batteries and propane and such and I was more interested in the kitchen, BBQ, fire corral, and cocktail lounge. Once everything had a good going over, we got to unpacking and settling in. Mike was pretty certain the batteries on the trailer were dead, and both 2” valves on the water tanks had cracked and broken, losing all water above the valve. Very, very disappointing.
We futzed with stuff, hooked up the solar panel to the batteries, looked for any additional winter damage, walked the loop road, showed Mike Bob’s build site, and then got ready for cocktails. As usual, the bar was well stocked. Kristen made a killer pork enchilada from some of the meat from the pig roast and I got to heating it up. My desire to have a mellow day up on top tomorrow was banished when we decided we should go into town to get new batteries for the trailer and valves for the water tanks. I was bummed to have to run errands all day, but we needed to do it, so that was that.
Sleep was off and on. It was definitely cold, but not inside my sweet cabin and toasty bed. It was just that typical first night transition. The stars were great, and despite the cold, I did get out to the cocktail lounge for a bit to see if I could see any color in the sky from the recent solar flare. Alas I could not, but it was still nice to be out in the calm still of the night. Despite not having socks or pants on, I was perfectly comfortable in my sweatshirt and wool cap and gloves. I went right back to sleep and awoke to a glorious sunrise.
We had a nice breakfast and lounged for a bit taking inventory of what we wanted to get in town and where we wanted to go. We hit up Tractor Supply, Kragen, Ace, a plumbing supply place and the lumber yard and were still back at the property by 1:30 or so. We got right to work swapping out the batteries and hooking up the solar panel. We swapped out the valve on the kitchen tank and put a plug in the cabin tank. We unloaded the cinder blocks by the trailer and Mikey was ready for a nap. I helped myself to a beverage and began prepping the BBQ.
Mike brought his steaks and a can of peas and we washed it down with some pumpkin pie that K baked. It was a great day and a superb night. I slept really well and woke up feeling good, despite the sorrow of having to leave. I took some pictures of the tiny wildflowers that were already out, although we were ahead of the bigger bloom yet to come. I made a list of stuff and things for next time and then headed into Susanville to return the battery cores for the refund. Since I was in town, I decided to head back 36/32. Deer Creek was beautiful even though the Dogwood were not flowering yet. It was a great drive home and arrived about 4:00 feeling great that we got up top without incident and found that we hadn’t been visited by the bad people over the winter.
Hart Hill; First Successful Trip of 2022 Photo Gallery
