Today’s ride just outside Big Flat, CA was remote and beautiful, but pretty toasty. We road a mostly gravel loop through forest roads and then up Corral Bottom from the Hyampon Side. We road mountain bikes for this because we had no idea what the condition of the gravel roads would be.
The temps have been in the high 90’s and even 100+ a couple afternoons so we got an early start for this ride. Starting from what I call the H junction (you can go one way to Hayfork and another to Hyampon), we took the dirt/gravel Eagle Rock Road. The first few miles are all climbing on a relatively good gravel road with decent shade. This is burn area from the Monument Fire so the forest is not as robust as it use to be.
After a few miles we turned left on Hayshed Creek Road and this is definitely the end of the good gravel road. Unlike the previous gravel road, this one had a few downed trees and extremely overgrown vegetation that made it barely a double track and in fact, single in some places. Our bear sensors were on high alert since I doubt this area gets any visitors ever. Even though this was a descent, the going was slow in places. There are miles and miles of trees and mountains in all directions up here and it was very quiet.
After passing a few small creeks and entering deep forest, we met up with Corral Bottom Road and turned left. Right would get you to Burnt Ranch and we may explore that some day. To complete our loop we climbed back up this small paved road to the start. This is such beautiful terrain and a really nice climb. Derek will think I’m crazy for saying that.
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