Off road weekend: Hwy. 4 and Stanislaus NF

What's up guys , thought I'd share some pics from my run this past weekend. We were two 4Runners, two Tacomas, and a *cough* Jeep Rubicon . We met up in the lovely Central Valley oasis of Stockton and headed up hwy . 4...



The plan was to head up to Lake Alpine and check out the Slickrock trail. As we got up higher, more and more of the white stuff began to appear. As we pulled into the Slickrock trailhead, it was obvious that we would be snowed out on this trail ....



No big deal , we had other options. We moved on to the Deer Valley trail , and suprisingly it held less snow than Slickrock , despite being at a higher elevation . In the spirit of brevity , I'm leaving out miles of drop dead gorgeous scenery in every direction, water was flowing from every corner , and the forest was bursting with life .... Here we are on the Deer Valley trail...





We took Deer Valley as high as we could , it was rough and rocky but eventually the snow level turned us back...

At around 3pm we headed for lower elevations and hopefully less snow. We started exploring the Black Rock springs OHV area , and found miles of empty forest roads , Rubicon here on a stream crossing...



There really is maze of roads between hwy. 4 and 88 . After several hours of racing around in the forest we pulled into a nice little camp on the side of a stream ...




Then the usual beers and bull around the campfire. The dogs ran free, the music was playing , and booze was flowing . All agreed that it was a fine spot to hang your hat for the night ....

We woke up with intentions of making it all the way to hwy 88. Again a spiderweb of trails , some gated , some overgrown, was what we found . Eventually we did come to a very fun and completely optional crossing of Blue Creek ...




^^^ My buddy looking like he stepped out of a 4Runner commercial....

Onward through the forest , the light passing through the trees, the sound of the Mokelumne River in the distance , it really was a terrific little trail ...




After crossing the Mokelumne it was all pretty much wrapped up , only a few short miles to the 88 ... A parting shot ...



Thanks for looking !