Shasta-Trinity BDR to The Lost Coast

[frankentrd]

Shasta-Trinity BDR to The Lost Coast​

---

Just got back from an awesome trip hitting the Shast-Trinity BDR to The Lost Coast BDR and wanted to try my hand at a little write up.

I've been planning this trip since February when I first learned about the Shasta-Trinity Back-Country Discovery Route. I've always wanted to do some more exploring in Northern California and I figured this was the perfect trail to start with. The "official" trail ends around Ruth lake but I didn't see a reason we couldn't connect it to the Lost Coast BDR which we did last year. I knew the lower part of The Lost Coast BDR was really awesome so I figured it would be the perfect place to end this trip.

I spent the better part of a month planning the route with 1 goal in mind: as much dirt as possible. I believe I did a pretty good job but there were definitely some unavoidable paved sections when going around private land or through some of the small communities in the region. The final trail I pieced together was ~370mi. In the map below pretty much anything shaded is public land. Most of the trail was going through NF or BLM land with a pretty big private land section just before the Lost Coast:

Day 1​

---

This trip it was only me, my wife, my 2 dogs, and my buddy in his 3rd gen which we just got put back together 2 days before we left. We got on the road WAY later than I planned around 12:30PM. We had an ambitious goal to make it to Mt. Shasta from Southern California which is about an 11 hour drive without any stops.

We made it to the dirt on the north side of Mt. Shasta around 2:30AM and decided to push a little further to a lake I thought we could camp at. Now keep in mind it's just the 2 of us way out in the middle of nowhere with only our Baofeng UV-5RTP radios to keep in contact. I'm in the lead and I know the rules, make sure the person behind you sees you whenever there is a fork in the road. We made it to the last mile or so before the lake and somehow my buddy missed me make a turn when I was maybe 50' in front of him. I watched his lights disappear into the trees as he sped away in the opposite direction. I tried radioing him but it was too late, the noise of his 3rd Gen paired with the insane power of the Baofeng radio wasn't enough to get his attention. The road I was on had a gate anyways so I flipped a U-turn and started racing after him.

It took probably an hour of searching before I managed to spot him. He was trying to catch up with me not knowing I was behind him. The whole time I thought he might have gone off the edge into a ravine or took a wrong turn on one of the many, many offshoot roads. What I spotted was his lights waaaayyyy in the distance when I was on top of a hill with a bit of a view. I started flashing my lights and he started flashing his back. My wife started trying to contact him on the radio but we were only receiving static. Thankfully my voice made its way to him and he got the message to stay put while we came down the hill. We finally met up again around 3:30AM.

Now, both tired and a bit grumpy, we only needed to figure out how to make it to the lake. Like I said before, the road I turned on was a dead end and I only downloaded a topo map of the region. I had noticed there were a bunch of unmapped roads in the area and I was sure one of them would take us to the lake. Somehow the bottom of this hill we had just enough cell service to load some satellite images where we managed to find another route up and into the lake. Finally at ~4AM we had made it to our 1st camping spot! We both drank a beer and passed out.

Day 2​

---

We all slept in the next morning. I woke up 1st ~10AM and took a little walk around the lake with my dog. The area was super beautiful and the trail we managed to find had a "locals only" type of vibe to it due to how tucked away we were.


My buddy and my wife were both up ~12PM where we packed up and hit the road. The plan was to only spend 3 nights on the Shasta-Trinity BDR then 3 nights on the beach. We got on our way and immediately realized this was going to take longer than we expected. Our 1st obstacle was ~1/4mi long wash out in the road. No problem, we were able to make it over without any issues.




We probably went another 2 miles before we came to a 2nd, much deepeer but much shorter washout. Again we had no problems making it through except for me getting stung by a wasp taking photos of my buddy crossing:



We ran into 1 more obstacle being a tree in the road which we were able to winch out of the way:


The rest of the day was great. We were able to put down about 80 miles with a stop in the town of Mt. Shasta for fuel and some snacks. We arrived to our 2nd camping spot at another lake around 6PM:

 

[frankentrd]

Day 3​

---

We woke up the next morning ~9AM, made some breakfast, and did some fishing around the lake:




The next section of the trail was incredibly slow moving. Not because we hit any hard wheeling but because we were driving through a fairly recently burned zone with lots of trees and branches in the trail and off to the sides trying to puncture our tires. The shrubs were all overgrown and the road was pretty washed out. It was clear this part of the trail hadn't been maintained in quite some time so we did some trail maintenance when we could:




We only made it about 60-70mi that day. We had a fairly long highway stretch so we decided to air up and stop in Weaverville that evening to get some dinner, fuel, and supplies before finding a camping spot for the night.


I had plans to camp next to the south fork of the Trinity River but we were pretty tired and decided to pull over on the side of the road. Not pushing to the river ended up being a great decision...

Day 4​

---

We woke up to some awesome views and hit the trail pretty early for us ~9AM:



This day was more of the same. We ran into 1 section that had so many logs we needed to drive around them. I normally try to stay on the road but there wasn't another connecting trail anywhere close by:



We noticed the trails were a lot busier than they had been and after talking to someone as we passed them we learned it was opening day for deer hunting season. So on top of navigating burnt forest roads we were also making sure we weren't going to crash into an F250 with a 5th wheel on some of the more maintained portions of the dirt trails. You wouldn't believe how far into the trails some of those rigs made it.

Things were going pretty smooth until we hit the biggest wash out I have ever seen. I wish I took a photo but I left my phone and camera in the car when my buddy and I got out to survey the damage. Imagine what it would look like if a 30' diameter pipe broke during a storm and sucked the road right into it. This was the closest photo I found online to what we were looking at:


There was no way to go over it and our only option was a 40 mile detour out and around. If we had tried to push to the river last night we would have been navigating this in the dark. The detour also took us around the camping spot I planned so I suppose it worked out in the end:


Luckily the detour was incredibly beautiful as it took us up on top of a ridge with amazing views but it still added about 2 hours of driving to our day. When we finally got back on track we pulled over and made ourselves some lunch:


Despite the few road blocks we were still able to put in about 115 miles today. I thought we could push to the Lost Coast but we ran into an unexpected gate which was not listed on my map. The detour around wasn't too long but it was starting to get late due to the longer 40 mile detour we just did so we made the decision to spend a 4th night in the NF and head to the coast in the morning. We found a nice little tucked away spot in the trees where we cooked dinner and hung out for a bit before hitting the sack:

 

[frankentrd]

Day 5​

---

We woke up ~9AM, cooked some breakfast, and then got on the road:


Now this is the part of the trail where we were officially off the Shasta Trinity BDR and on to my own map. I knew most of the track was going to be paved due to it being private land but I still took us off road when I could. It was only ~90 miles to the coast and I knew we would be fine. We stopped for gas in Ruth and continued on the way:


This next section is the only place we had any sort of issues with the vehicles. The day before my buddies brakes started to act up but if he pumped the pedal everything worked fine, so we didn't worry about it too much (this is important info).

My wife was itching to drive and I figured it would be a pretty mild day so I agreed. I hopped in my buddies 4R as I hadn't yet driven in it after all the work we put into it. Well, the trail out of Ruth ended up being one of the steepest and most sketchy trails I have ever been on. And that's when things started to go wrong. 1/2 way up the hill my buddies 4R started to bog down and died right at the steepest part! He slammed the brakes as hard as he could but with the lack of pressure we weren't stopping. I slammed it into park which bought us just enough time to pump the brakes and stop the thing from flying backwards down the hill. Luckily we were able to get it started again and just pinned it in 1st gear until we made it to the top. The engine was cutting out the whole time but the momentum kept us going.

Next up was my wife. I didn't want to walk down the hill so I radioed to her that we were clear and how she should hit the hill. She did great and the ol 4th gen pulled up it without any issues. She's wheeled my Tacoma before so I wasn't too worried but I didn't want to see her and the dogs go rolling down the hill.

Once we were both at the top we started investigating what was going on with the 3rd gen. It had this issue once years ago when we were hitting Cleghorn but we swapped the MAF and IAC which seemed to fix it. We didn't have any parts stores nearby so we did what we could. We cleaned his air filter, pulled the fuel filter out and backwashed it, bled his brakes a couple times, and changed some fuses around for the EFI system. My wife read a book while she waited for us to finish:


It didn't die again and the brakes started working better but they weren't working 100% correctly either. Regardless, we continued to the coast. The rest of the drive was very nice as we just meandered through pot farms and beautiful landscapes. We made it to the Lost Coast BDR around 4PM and jammed down to one of our favorite camping spots from last year. It was a bit foggy when we arrived but not too cold which was great:

The only notable thing that happened this evening was while my buddy and I were enjoying a few drinks under my awning a slight breeze picked up and ripped it off my roof. We couldn't help but laugh because just 2 seconds before I said I should probably dig the legs into the sand in case it gets windy.

Day 6​

---

We didn't do much on day 6. I fixed my awning and we just chilled on the beach, fishing, drinking some beers, and relaxing. We had the whole place to our selves so I let the dogs run around and enjoy the water while my wife read her book in the shade:



In the evening we got some pics of the 3rd gen hitting a little burm while the tide was low. I wanted to hit it myself but I didn't feel like packing up my entire setup just for a few jumps:




We had a pretty big fire the last night and made some delicious paninis over it.

Day 7​

---

Day 7 was just a drive home day. We were on the road by 8AM and I pulled into my driveway at 11PM.

Overall it was a very fun trip and something I would absolutely do again! The trucks did great and we learned there are soooo many trails in the Shasta-Trinity NF that need exploring. I will be planning another trip to the area just so I can check some of them out. We stayed on the main trail for 90% of the trip but I wish I had more time to get lost in the woods a bit more.

I do have to say unfortunately even in some of the more remote areas we stayed the camping spots had trash in them. We packed out all our trash and cleaned up every camp we stayed in to make them better than we found them but it's things like that which will get these areas closed forever. So if anyone wants to try this trip please pick up after yourself so we can keep these areas open for everyone!

 

[Klever]

So bad ass!

 

[the bodj]

GREAT write up! Thanks for sharing. I absolutely love the northern area of our state, but haven't ventured in that area. Definitely something I'll have to check out.

 

[frankentrd]

So bad ass!

Hell yea!

 

[frankentrd]

GREAT write up! Thanks for sharing. I absolutely love the northern area of our state, but haven't ventured in that area. Definitely something I'll have to check out.

Glad you liked it! I hadn't ventured up north much either until this trip and we barely scratched the surface. There are miles and miles of trails. I think next time I'll plan something around the Trinity Alps area. When we passed through it looked like there was some awesome wheeling potential.

 

[Tflow]

That looks like a rad trip! I need to explore more up that way. It really isn't that far for me, being in the Bay Area. I usually just shoot over to Northern Nevada area on my trips. I'll have to put this on the list of places to check out

 

[UR_Mawm69]

fucking awesome writeup man! i feel like i was just reading one of SmellyElliot's DMC write ups on DR back in the day.

fuck yeah man!

 

[frankentrd]

That looks like a rad trip! I need to explore more up that way. It really isn't that far for me, being in the Bay Area. I usually just shoot over to Northern Nevada area on my trips. I'll have to put this on the list of places to check out

You're not far at all! We came through the bat area on our way home. I'd also love to check out Northern NV, I've heard there is some fun wheeling out there too.

 

[frankentrd]

fucking awesome writeup man! i feel like i was just reading one of SmellyElliot's DMC write ups on DR back in the day.

fuck yeah man!

Thanks! Unfortunately DR is a little before my time but I'm glad I could bring some of that nostalgia back.