panoche road

Not that far south of Hollister, make a left at a little complex of buildings or a large farm, depending on how you look at it, that’s the start of it. This is CR J1, the Panoche Road, and it is only marginally maintained. As it winds its way up the Tres Pinos gulch the grand landscape views are presented in miniature. The views are close, the walls rise steeply but not to a particularly great height, and yet all the necessary components are present. The flat valley bottom, the flood plain, it’s barely a hundred feet wide. The creek, mostly dry right now, has cut a sharp vertical channel through it, a couple of feet deep. And the stream bed itself is gravel and stone cobbles. Everywhere along the bottom is green and as the land rises above the tiny plain, the grasses dry and brown. There are some cows here, and some horses there. In the wider places there might be a farm, or a dirt road leading off into the mountains, up some side creek’s draw. The Diablo Range is an intricate place. For the first hour the road is never not bending, always winding, ever routing around some topography. A few cars pass going the other way, but not many.

Then we reach the end of Tres Pinos creek and pass over into Panoche creek’s wash. The land opens up a bit, the road is a bit straighter, at least on a scale measured in multiple seconds of not turning the wheel. The pavement is in no better shape, there are and have been sections that are 50% slapped down asphalt patches. There are still farms, and even small communities. There is an elementary school out here, if you can believe it. At this point we haven’t had cell service for over an hour. In the wide Panoche valley, we pass a solar farm in the distance, and a sign for the Mercey Hot Springs. Stretches of road are only half paved now, sometimes it’s the left half and sometimes it’s the right half. Signs warn “impassable when flooded”. The green is gone and all around is a sea of dry yellow grass. The road makes a couple of those jig-jogs, a right angle right turn followed quickly by a left. It wants to keep going in a straight line, due east, but some property got in the way.

And then we’re on the New Idria road, and stopping at the Griswold Creek BLM day use area. There is beer litter, and old pizza boxes. The sign says no trash pickup and that is true, the trash has not been picked up. Littered in amongst all the carefully collected garbage, some of it is even bagged and ready to go, are shells of all sorts. Shotgun shells, 40 caliber, and a few rifle shells too. There are a few bullet holes in buildings, doors, and posts, but not as many as I expect. The picnic tables and shelters are newish, maybe less than five years old. The pit toilet building is in great shape, minus a few handgun dents and holes in the door, and minus the mess inside. Only use it if you really have to. Not sure the last time the septic was serviced.

There are a few graffitis around; stickers and a couple of tags. We have entered the territory of HTF and KOSE EVICT, whoever they are. There are others too, I can’t make them out.

jg

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