EXPLORING NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

Jim and I hadn't been camping in a few years and we used to go all the time in our 1969 VW van. Now we have a 1984 Vanagon, with the pop top so you would think we would go more. In any case we pulled out the maps and looked for a place in the National Forest so we wouldn't have to compete with lots of RVs and their generators and yappy dogs. We found a place in the Mendocino National Forest called Letts Lake. It looked fairly easy to get to so we left on a Thursday around 3 pm and headed north on Highway 101. At Ukiah we turned east on Highway 20, driving around the north side of Clear Lake. At Upper Lake we took the "M1" (an impressive sounding name for a forest service road) north toward Lake Pillsbury. We were surprised at the good blacktop road and the pretty valley we went through. After about 30 minutes on this road we headed east again on the "M10," the forest service road that went to our lake. On the map it looked like we had about 20 miles to go. 2 1/2 hours of dusty rutted roads later (yes we forded a stream!) we finally found Letts Lake. The lake has several campgrounds. We choose the middle one after driving through all of them. We were quite surprised to see that on a Thursday evening in the middle of nowhere there weren't that many camp sites left. This was our first view of the lake:

No motors are allowed on the lake. Lots of people were fishing. We managed to camp between Russian speakers (downhill) and Cubans (uphill). When did camping get so international?


We learned the sad history of this area:


There was a lovely walk around the lake - perhaps 2 miles.


I thought the Manzanitas were especially stunning.




Even though it was a bit late in the year, we were at some several thousand feet of elevation so we did get to see a few wildflowers.



Our downhill neighbors were an interesting group - Mom and Dad, daughter and son-in-law and aunt? friend? They had a big encampment and the daughter and son-in-law fished all day long in a pontoon boat. They had little English but were quite friendly. On our second evening, after Mom had been cooking all day, she came up the hill to our table with a plate covered by a paper towel and asked, "you like fish? I fix Ukrainian style. Ever since six years old my daughter like to fish. She fish all day long." Ukrainian style trout was the whole fish, cleaned, head and tail removed but skin still on, cooked in tomatoes and onions. We had it cold on crackers. Yummy!

Our lake had lots of wildlife but the main thing we saw were ducks.


On our walk around the lake we met our uphill neighbors who had to be Cubans based on their rapid fire Spanish. They were walking with their English Bulldog. It was amusing to watch him fetch sticks they threw into the water. Not the best swimmer.

It's really nice to be at a lake that is focused on fishing and swimming and not on motor boats. It has a very peaceful feeling.


When we were ready to head home we hauled out the map and decided it would be much shorter to get to the highway by heading east toward Williams and then come back into Lake County on Highway 20 from the east. Ha! Maps are deceiving!! The route certainly looked shorter and the road better on the map. This road even went through some towns (Lodoga and Leesville). The reality was another 2 1/2 hours on HORRIBLE roads. This time blacktop with patches on the patches. I was afraid we were going to blow a tire. It was a relief when this road turned into deep gravel. However, the gravel was SO deep that we had to slow to a crawl at any turn of the road or we would spin out. It was a huge relief to get back onto Highway 20 and head west to Lake County. Even with such nasty roads, we would go again. Letts Lake and Valley is a lovely, peaceful spot.