Chums, I gotta be honest. I am at a point now where I have dozens of photos from numerous weekends that I am not caught up on. Right now, my heart is elsewhere. I strongly believe I am going to be under the knife again soon and it is all I can think about.
There will be plenty of time later to go into all that crap. For now, I want to try to get through this recent trip because it was so awesome. I think normally, this would have been a 5-part epic. I just don't have the mental energy to replay it that way. I can say that - even though this winter has actually been quite tolerable - this spring has been incredible for the eye and soul.
As I do each winter, when The Sierra is off-limits, I keep things relatively close to home. The two weekends collected here are of scenery that is actually within one tank of gas of my casa. The things I took in are things that have been under my nose for many moons, but for whatever reason, it is only now I cared to look up. While having these trips under my belt earlier would have given me the chance to make some of the more mundane weekends much more engaging, I am just glad I got to them while I have the whole summer ahead with which to go back and see them in detail. For now, an overview.
If you take I-5 North of the Bay Area towards Redding and Oregon, right near the merge of 505 with The 5, where CA20 crosses east-west, are what look to be mountains just sticking out of the valley floor, but not mountains that are connected to either The Sierra or Mendocino National Forest. I always wondered what those places were since they are so prominent on the horizon, and very one-of-a-kind on the floor of the Central Valley. I now know they are called The Sutter Buttes.
For many, ANY drive along I-5 is considered BORING. This saddens me to no end. They are the farthest thing from boring. In fact, the hills and mountains that hem the valley have become my favorite places in the state. I prefer them to the coast, the desert, the cities, and the Napa's, Carmel's, and Malibu's which others seem to feel are all there is worth seeing.
As I often say, I have to give Caltrans and the workers of The New Deal much credit for building such beautiful access roads within these places. I will never get over how empty they are, but in a way, I prefer having these places to myself. In the case of The Sutter Buttes, riding around their perimeter is almost as fun as driving through the center of them is (yes, there is a road that goes right through - but I don't wanna get ahead of myself.)
I am not sure if people outside of Cali realize how many rivers come out of those mountains and empty into the Sacramento River in the northern Central Valley. It is dozens. Before all the dams were built, when those rivers ran wild & free, they must have been able to flood the entire valley wall-to-wall. In fact, there is still evidence of the power the rivers have in the form of an abandoned flyover right near the Buttes.
The land around the rivers is as lush as any mountain meadow you will see. It was as green and beautiful as anything I had ever seen, but clearly, this is not how things have always been.
The road that comes along the southern side of the Buttes clearly must have often been left all but impassable for the bulk of the 20th Century since the original roadway was built so high in the air over these lovely floodplains aside the rivers. I am usually creeped out by any large abandoned infrastructure, but budding naturalist that I am, I actually kinda got a kick at how much of an ass-whomping the water must have been laying on the roadway for the state to build such a huge elevated roadway in the middle of the flattest of flat land. Go River Go!
I am aware at the same time that for the road to be back down on the ground, the river itself likely has been further constricted and hemmed in with another vile dam (shocking the salmon aren't returning to Cali isn't it?) That is not cool, but there is no reason to get worked up over this dam any more than the other crappy ones infecting the state's beautiful rivers. They won't come down til they have the river's on the verge of extinction. That's the Murikan Way!
With all the rivers that come into that valley, I can only imagine what it was like in the Central Valley after the winter thaw. It must have been wall-to-wall waterbirds. Flora and fauna a-go-go set in the middle of paradise. I think about that often. If time travel were real, I likely would often visit a place like Sutter Buttes before the white man came. It had to be something.
What's left isn't bad mind you. In fact, coming along the southern half of the buttes brought me right into the middle of what I imagine to be old farms and ranches that have long looked as they look now. I have never wanted to be a cowboy, but I could stand a night or two on a moonlit night out on this kinda range, especially since I have no livestock to worry about. Get a little fire goin' and then go into my tent and fire up my portable TV!
I imagine this land is as expensive as any in the state, and if I were to save up and buy in every part of the state I would love a piece of, I couldn't retire until my late 90s. I am certainly in no danger of settling down in the hinterlands, but y'all should know that is largely because I am largely unemployable out there - at least at the salary I need to stay out of debtor's prison. Were my debt wiped out, I would very likely make a beeline for some place out in the sun of the Central Valley.
Naturally, there is the rural pigfucker mindset. I am not sure I could get used to that again. The kind of mentality which looks at the destruction of a part of this landscape as justified so long as someone can get rich off it is an attitude I will never be able to reconcile myself to. To look at something this beautiful, and eons old, and decide it is expendable, is truly disgusting. I realize that the cowardly little economic determinist devil on the shoulder of the American Psyche will always make a case for the taking of anything that can be converted into the coin of the realm, but that doesn't mean I can tolerate living around those who decided to listen to him! Maybe I could. To leave the Blue Archipelago basically means I would need to learn to have to. Even so, it turns my stomach to see a whole hill taken.
Grrrrrrrrrrrr. I can't let myself get sidetracked by the pigfucker thing. It is not as bad in Cali as it is elsewhere, for which I am grateful. Even so, it is out there and I am confronted by it every trip I take.
Relax. Breathe deep. Relax. OK.
Out in the channel on the south side of the buttes was another elevated road that has gone out of service. I couldn't quite catch it with my cameras on hand, but in this case, there was the additional weirdness of a real live shepherd living in the channel with his flock. I shit ye not. It is a little hard to make out unless you open the photo (by clicking on it), but he lives in a camper in the trailer and indeed was out watching the flock when I happened upon his little slice of paradise. The lack of places provided for tourists like myself to pull over and photograph whatever I pleased was probably a good indicator of how receptive the locals would be to me getting close ups as I examine & reduce their lives. That part of the mindset I do understand, and indeed, am happy to abide by.
Eventually, the half-moon of the south road around the buttes comes into Sutter, where I caught the road that cut right through the formation, going east west. At that point, I doubled back west and started on the "inside passage" and it proved even more wonderful than the southern.
Like I said, I all but had the roads to myself. The sun was out. My music programming was masterful. My soul was receiving nourishment straight from the hose.
What's more, I was far enough north to begin to see some of the lava rock fields that Shasta & Lassen have laid down over the centuries, and this too was pleasing to the soul. I realize that the rocks likely shelter many a rattlesnake, but they need a place too. Normally I get hung up on cows in paradise. Perhaps I need not be so mammal-centric...perhaps I should be more quick to notice rattlers in paradise. I will let you know how that goes.
Soon enough, I made it to the last of the center road, and I gotta say, I got one of those "open road" moments that keep me prowling Cali's back roads. I don't know how I got caught up in the "romance" of such vistas, and I know I am propping up a cliche, but I am now fully bought in to the attachment to that open western road heading through beauty and into the sun. That I got a near-perfect one only further cements me to the idea of tracking them down til I have seen them all.
After coming out from the center road, I made the swing north and northeast, around the top of the buttes. From that angle to, I caught many a glimpse of exceptional beauty. Vacas in paradise were everywhere, the first breezes of evening were coming, and I was as happy as I get. .
I looked for a tree to pull over and sit under for a bit, and out here, there aren't a ton to choose from. Eventually, I found one and just soaked in the beginning of the end of the day. I can only provide a metaphysical answer to why it is that human hearts warm to a beautiful view of the sun over the hills, but to the degree we do, I am held in its sway as much as anyone. A perfect end to a day.
After clearing the NE view of the buttes, my first interaction with them came to an end. I hit CA99 and left the outback for the highway. It would be a week before I returned to the area to finish the ride, but having had such an awesome time with the NE part of the Central Valley, I decided to see what was out there to see on the western floor of the valley across from Sutter Buttes. I found that the Sutter Buttes are only a part of the story of that area and that there was much out there beyond the casual gaze...
That is in the next entry.
Posted by rudayday at April 02, 2008 04:43 PM