One of the challenges this summer was finding an area not affected by forest fires. I had a camping and off-roading trip planned for the end of June in an area near Mariposa and west of Yosemite National Park. But two fires were raging at that time and that altered the course of adventure. Sometimes that's not such a bad thing.
So on with Plan B. And Plan B turned out to be great. I ended up in two places I hadn't been since I was ten years old or younger - down in the Tuolumne River gorge in the Lumsden area and then Cherry Lake, both on the Stanislaus National Forest.
The first afternoon my friend and I met in Coulterville since that was a good place between where we live, Modesto and Fresno. We had a couple primitive places in mind, but with current dry conditions and fire restrictions, we could only have a camp fire in established campgrounds. So, the call was made and we headed from Coulterville to Highway 120 above Groveland and set our sights on a decent into the area known as Lumsden. Here are some
scenes from the Lumsden area on June 28.
The next day, June 29, we packed up and headed back up the canyon and to Highway 120. We traveled east and set our sights on another place from my childhood, Cherry Lake. The last time I was at Cherry Lake was probably about 1972 camping with family. Here are
scenes from Cherry Lake and vicinity.
After a long, twisting, dusty drive down the canyon road, the crisp blue waters of the Tuolumne River was quite refreshing.
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Lumsden Recreation Area
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