Reiff/Rayhouse Road—Fiske Pond overnight

a few of us (Mr bananachunks, Mr cwanger2000 and Mr Felix, a BARFer who hasn’t posted in a few years) had a bit of an adventure this weekend on Reiff/Rayhouse Road.

first a pic for reference:

SFMCjohn said:

the Zero Ton Causeway and Hwy 16, back in October, 2020

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we met up at the usual BARF Second Sunday Starbucks in Cordelia and were on the usual Second Sunday route to Reiff Road by 9am-ish ...



found some water in the causeways on Knoxville-Berryessa Road ...



not clear to me what’s going on here ... don’t think I was there. yes, that’s it.
the old scary ride-around has been blocked now, by boulders.



found a new wash-out after the spillway bridge, that had us scratching our heads for a second ...



climbing up to four corners ... was super-impressed with how much the road has degraded since October, 2020, when it was in spectacular shape from the recent fire fighting activity at the time.



got to the top, before noon ... we decided to run down to Cache Creek first, and then probably head back up and out to Buck Island.



but we managed to break our dual-sport n00b Mr Felix’s hand, instead.

we used Mr bananachunks’s InReach to contact our loved ones and arrange a pick up truck to meet us at Hwy 16. we loaded up Mr Felix on cwanger2000’s mighty KTM and headed down the hill to see what the situation was with the zero-ton causeway ...



had my own personal mini-drama, first.

and, were confronted with our bridge situation:



we’d kinda been counting on a new bridge being mostly rebuilt, but no ...



Mr cwanger2000, contemplating our options ...

Ooooohhh! Looks like some good times were had by (most)! Wishing a speedy recovery to Mr. Felix!

Thank you SFMCjohn, the usual good photos with the additional implication that I should get out and ride. Speedy recovery to Mr Felix who now has time to post more.

Great pics and write up, as always

SFMCjohn said:

..but we managed to break our dual-sport n00b Mr Felix’s hand, instead. ...

we used Mr bananachunks’s InReach to contact our loved ones and arrange a pick up truck to meet us at Hwy 16. we loaded up Mr Felix on c_wanger2000’s mighty KTM and headed down the hill to see what the situation was with the zero-ton causeway ...


..and, were confronted with our bridge situation..

we’d kinda been counting on a new bridge being mostly rebuilt, but no ...

Mr c_wanger2000, contemplating our options ...

Click to expand...

Uh oh.

Waiting to see how this played out.

And speedy recovery to Mr. Felix

Wow looks like some adventure was had! Best wishes for a fast full recover to Mr. Felix!

bikewanker said:

Thank you SFMCjohn, the usual good photos with the additional implication that I should get out and ride. Speedy recovery to Mr Felix who now has time to post more.

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I like the way your mind works, brother ...

Mr Felix is expecting his first baby in June, so we'll see how much time he has ...

stratslingr77 said:

Ooooohhh! Looks like some good times were had by (most)! Wishing a speedy recovery to Mr. Felix!

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Hope your GS is recovering from your recent close call ...

matty said:

Great pics and write up, as always

Uh oh.

Waiting to see how this played out.

And speedy recovery to Mr. Felix

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1962siia said:

Wow looks like some adventure was had! Best wishes for a fast full recover to Mr. Felix!

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Mr cwanger2000 soon came up with a plan. have to say, was sort of amazed at his expert/experienced rider decision tree ...



off to collect Mr Felix's KLR, which had actually belonged to Mr cwanger2000 before he sold it to Mr Felix. so the KLR used to be cwanger2000's moto, which turned out to be useful ...



yep, rode both bikes across Cache Creek, making it look easy, was the solution. super impressed myself. I'd have been tempted to slog back to Knoxville-Berryessa Road, which would've been exponentially more difficult.

Mr Craig also demonstrated his experience by walking a part of the river that I'd have simply written off as looking too deep. turned out to be the way to go, just downstream from the old causeway about 30 yards, and by scouting out an approach that I'd also probably have written off as not doable.

Mr Bananachunks has fun vids of the two crossings posted to his google pics page, hopefully I can get him to post a link.

after getting both bikes across the water hazard, Mr Felix walked across the same spot, which was maybe just around one's boot tops at its deepest. the pair then mounted up on the mighty KTM to scoot off towards Cache Creek Casino, cell service and on to an emergency room ...

we got a text that evening that they were safe back home with bikes. arty

Mr bananachunks and myself were left to our own devices to camp out overnight, which was always the plan, our other two partners in crime having always planned to make it a day ride.



tracks from Mr bananachunks. the purple line is us, the blue line is one of his previous trips, the four way intersection at the top is four points where you either turn left for Buck Island or go straight to get to Hwy 16. we tuned right (left, actually, since we were returning from Hwy 16) to scope out Fiske Pond, where we sorta wanted to camp maybe.

after almost getting blown off the knob where the purple and blue lines diverge, we retreated back to the relative shelter of the pond.



turned out to be a pretty blissful place to camp, with a view of the sunset and cell reception (unlike Buck Island, ha).

and, the sunset:



that's Mount Saint Helena in the distance, to the left of the pic.

the next morning we lounged around until 10am or so, enjoying the fact that the wind had died down. then we were off to make the not-trivial descent and to make short work of the washout and to see if we'd been locked in at the gate at the top (no, and yay!)



we scooted through Knoxville BLM, or Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, take your pic. the latter was a new one on me.



the bridge in the Knoxville OHV ... a TON of people enjoying Knoxville, and a ton of motorcycles on the way back to I-80. we were home safe in San Francisco before 3pm.

whew. all in all an eventful overnight trip.

big thank-you to Mr bananachunks for including me in his Fiske Pond sojourn, and to Mr cwanger2000 for a master class in experienced-rider decision-tree self-extraction, and to Mr Felix for setting an example for me in dealing with pain and adversity with class and good humor.

Wonderful write-up and pics as always SFMCJohn!

Great seeing / riding with SFMCJohn and cwanger2000, and awesome meeting Mr Felix - hope that hand heals quickly. Rumor has it he "can't wait to get back out there!"

I've been wanting to sleep in the Fiske area since SFMCJohn turned me onto it (and Buck Island) a bit over a year ago.

Finally!

[after much frustration trying to attach a pic or two, I gave up]

Helmet and phone dump is here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/vbjxEfN3zJUuHDtUA

Looking forward to hitting up the area again real soon!

bananachunks said:

Wonderful write-up and pics as always SFMCJohn!

Great seeing / riding with SFMCJohn and cwanger2000, and awesome meeting Mr Felix - hope that hand heals quickly. Rumor has it he "can't wait to get back out there!"

I've been wanting to sleep in the Fiske area since SFMCJohn turned me onto it (and Buck Island) a bit over a year ago.

Finally!

[after much frustration trying to attach a pic or two, I gave up]

Helmet and phone dump is here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/vbjxEfN3zJUuHDtUA

Looking forward to hitting up the area again real soon!

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ha, great stuff, thanks for the link!



would say your vid captures pretty well how gnarly that climb is, and of course Mr cwanger2000's river crossings are awesome.

Now THAT looks exciting!

O/T, unfortunately, the GS is done for, but insurance is taking good care of me. Picking up an Africa Twin in a few days!

stratslingr77 said:

Now THAT looks exciting!

O/T, unfortunately, the GS is done for, but insurance is taking good care of me. Picking up an Africa Twin in a few days!

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rip, GS ...

sweet Africa Twin, though!
will you get the DCT?

here is a direct link to a water crossing vid:
Cache Creek KLR Crossing by Mr cwanger2000

Ok.... Um, wow! I'm working and only able to pay a little bit of attention, but Holy Heck! What an adventure.

I can't wait to go check out the Fiske side of Reiff.

I guess now we have good intel that the construction on Reiff is done, the gate may or may not be open/closed or locked, and that the Zero Tone bridge project is stalled and incomplete, but might be passable with the right conditions and some big cajones...

Thanks for posting!

Thanks for the write-up & pics, John! And thanks to bananachunks for the other pics & vids

SFMCjohn said:

Mr cwanger2000 soon came up with a plan. have to say, was sort of amazed at his expert/experienced rider decision tree ...

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arty Go team rescue! Not sure I would've done that crossing.

At least you guys didn't have any ruts In one of the videos, it looks like there is a pretty good slide that may have wiped out half or more of the road. ?

All in all, looks like a great time. Thanks for taking us along.

SFMCjohn said:

rip, GS ...

sweet Africa Twin, though!
will you get the DCT?

here is a direct link to a water crossing vid:
Cache Creek KLR Crossing by Mr cwanger2000

Click to expand...

No DCT for me. I plan to pick it up on Saturday and wring it out a little on the way home.

Cabrito said:

Ok.... Um, wow! I'm working and only able to pay a little bit of attention, but Holy Heck! What an adventure.

I can't wait to go check out the Fiske side of Reiff.

I guess now we have good intel that the construction on Reiff is done, the gate may or may not be open/closed or locked, and that the Zero Tone bridge project is stalled and incomplete, but might be passable with the right conditions and some big cajones...

Thanks for posting!

Click to expand...

yes, the Fiske side is fun ... you know, I saw zero evidence of any big construction project on Reiff ... perhaps they were just doing routine maintenance/shorting up of washouts along the road?

I thought they were rebuilding the spillway or something. that they had put boulders to block the old gate ride-around was only the biggest evidence of change that I saw on the Reiff side.

HeatXfer said:

Thanks for the write-up & pics, John! And thanks to bananachunks for the other pics & vids

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hope to see you in Weaverville/Cedarville ... two wheel tramp sez they may be consecutive weekend this year, which means a week off work to ride.
w00t!

matty said:

arty Go team rescue! Not sure I would've done that crossing.

At least you guys didn't have any ruts In one of the videos, it looks like there is a pretty good slide that may have wiped out half or more of the road. ?

All in all, looks like a great time. Thanks for taking us along.

Click to expand...

was an awesome time, that’d I’d have spent on my sofa, otherwise, without Mr bananachunks’ motivation.

mad props to Mr cwanger2000 for his self-extraction skills. if we’d had to have relied on my decision-tree, we’d still be out there.

you’ve been up there a bunch, haven’t you? the winter rains always seem to be chewing the road away like that in a couple places. before the big fires I was pretty sure the stretch from Hwy 16 up to four points was going to be completely gone in a couple places, and then they got some D9s up there to fire fight and fixed the fire roads up pretty good in 2020. was really a bit shocked to see how quickly the sort of wash out in the vid have returned.

stratslingr77 said:

No DCT for me. I plan to pick it up on Saturday and wring it out a little on the way home.

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sweet, man, can’t wait to see the new Honda at StonyBARF!

Great Pics and write up John. I hope Mr. Felix heals up quickly!

Great write up John, that was truly an adventure. Talked to Felix the day after and he was in good spirits with a little pain but ready to get back out there when he heals. My wife Laura who some of you know here as ROL was an angel and drove out to help and get Felix's bike home. Thank you Laura I love you.

Great writeup and associated pics/vids! Glad Mr Felix seems to be doing OK. As a new middle aged rider I have been looking for some dirt options around here and have made it out to the south entrance of knoxville a couple of times, but didnt spend long in the "park". I looked at rd 40 on the map a bit, so was happy to see these pics! But got to say it looks a bit much for me lol.