Mountain Climbing

 

Curiosity made us take the truck back along Geysers Rd).  We started along this road yesterday with the bike, but turned back when it turned to gravel (re Poof! blog.  The road follows Big Sulphur Creek along the western edge of the Mayacamas Mountains.

The gravel road proved short-lived

and quickly turned into poor pavement.

As we rode the terrain changed constantly.  That’s the creek bed way down there.

Sometimes the road was one lane with no place to go.

Steep then flatter, rocks to grassland.

At times we were treated to two-lane with a center stripe,

then back to bumpy semi paved one lane.

The scenery was ruggedly beautiful, but the road was so narrow and twisty that Duane had to find a wide spot and stop to see any of it.

There was no end to blind curves.  The next five pix are a continuous 1/4 mile section of road.

At this point we’d driven east and southeast up the mountain side, then down to the creek level, then south across the creek and up the the ridge on the opposite side of the ravine.

From this point on Geysers Rd. was two-lane with a center stripe.

Near the top (2400 ft.) the next valley opened up.

The road led to the left of that valley, around and across the next one over.

The top section of road.

After we crested the road above we got our first view of the Alexander Valley, prime grape growing land along the Russian River.

Vineyards along the hills gave way to vineyards along the valley floor

in the heart of Sonoma wine country.

In addition to the wonderful scenery, we saw some other interesting things we saw along the way:

an old mine,

Calpine geothermal plant using the underground geothermal reservoir here,

(Geysers Rd. is misnamed for this reservoir which at one time vented steam into the air.)

this historic truss bridge we used to cross the creek,

(Sulphur Creek is only a few inches deep here.)

two wild turkey hens,

and the only stop sign on the entire road, with a detour sign.  To the right of the sign is a drop off of several hundred feet, to the left the road continues around the curve.

Geysers Rd. ended at CA 128.  We took that north to US 101 and home.  We are very glad our curiosity led us along this wonderful road.   It took us two hours to drive about 30 miles, creeping along 2/3 of it at 15 mph or less.  It is a very popular bicycle ride and would have made a wonderful motorcycle ride if the road had been more even. It is motorcycle friendly from CA128 east then north to the ridge above the Alexander Valley, but at that point we recommend that you turn around and retrace the road to 128. 

One more ride tomorrow.

Louise and Duane