2022 Pashnit Touring on a Hayabusa

[pashnit]

Kings Canyon NP - it's a vertical mile down into the canyon.

Bad news is still not open which sucks, but we'll be back here in May for the second running of this tour and hopefully all the park will be open by then.

Our playground

It's as fun as it looks.

Once the road reaches the bottom of the canyon, it flows up this river canyon you can see here at center and dead ends. So, you have to ride it both ways. Nuts. In the 1920s, when the original road was built, there were plans to extend the road up and over the Sierra Nevada range into Nevada, but the plans never came to fruition and no mountain pass was ever completed. You have to hike over to the other side in present day.

It's about ten years since I've run a motorcycle tour through here, which may explain why I had 30 people sign up for this ride. I split the riders into two groups, and we do it all again in early-May.

[pashnit]

Hume Lake Rd is a backroad in the park that connects over to the Kings Canyon portion.

[pashnit]

Yup. Closed.

Heading over to the Grant Grove - lot of big trees in this grove.

[pashnit]

To give you some scale.

[pashnit]

Eric walking through the trunk of a down Sequoia.

[pashnit]

Not the oldest trees, only about 2000 years old. This tree should grow another 1000 years. Crazy, huh?

Not the tallest, Coast Redwoods are taller.

But, they are the biggest. And trying to conceptualize a 3000-year-old tree is well beyond my ability.

If you like old trees, you have to go see the Whitebark Pines. Oldest trees on earth.

Different tour.

White Mountain Rd - Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest | CA Motorcycle Roads

Ride Inyo Count Motorcycle Roads, White Mountain Range

www.pashnit.com

[pashnit]

The General Grant tree is the largest giant sequoia in the General Grant Grove section of Kings Canyon NP, and the second-largest giant sequoia tree in the world.

[pashnit]

[pashnit]

Hollow Sequoia, walk on inside

That sense of scale again. Seen enough big trees?

Time to head out of the park and back into the twisties

[pashnit]

Dropping out of the Sierra Range and back into the foothills

Plan is to top off our fuel and head for Highway 245. I called it the 4-year-old in church.

If you've ever sat with a four-year-old in church, you might understand that reference.

[pashnit]

[pashnit]

Just when you think you're Ricky Racer on your favorite road, you run into a tree laying across the road.

Pay attention Ricky.

[pashnit]

End of day, time to head back to homebase for libations.

[Spudley]

Vikings Disease generally only afflicts men over 50 of northern European or Scandinavian descent,.....I'm screwed.

[pashnit]

The Parkfield Tour

Parkfield | Central Coast Motorcycle Tour | Pashnit Tours

Ride Coast Range & San Luis Obispo County with Pashnit Motorcycle Tours based from the tiny ranching town of Parkfield

www.pashnittours.com

Back on the road again. Running around the Santa Cruz Mountains. Next tour on the roster is headed to Parkfield in the Central California Coastal Mountains. Parkfield is a tiny ranching town, population 18. My camera broke on the first day, so not many shots of this ride, but I ordered another used camera body off eBay as soon as I got back from this ride. I'm really hard on the body and the lens, Time to upgrade, anyway.

Wet morning in Saratoga, meeting in the South Bay, but if we head south, we'd ride out of this light rain.

[pashnit]

Parkfield is tiny, the town only has 10 rooms and I have to book the entire town at least a year in advance. However, those 10 rooms contain 23 beds so my tour group size is limited to filling all the beds.

And after the usual last-minute 'Can't make it' and 'Can I go' changes, we ended up with 19 bikes.
Big group!

[pashnit]

19 bikes makes a long train of motorcycles in the mirrors.

[pashnit]

Highway 9 is a famous road in local circles, super twisty up to the top of the Santa Cruz Mountain Range. And recently paved.

Regrouping at the summit

[pashnit]

Don't see many of these old RT's anymore.

[pashnit]

Why Highway 9 is so famous.

It runs along the spine of the range through the redwoods.