Shasta/Chappie ORV Area - Memorial Day, 1998

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The Shasta/Chappie ORV Area is located at Shasta Lake in Northern California. I've spent taken many family trips up to this area, and even lived here for two years when I was very young, but I'd never even heard of the Shasta/Chappie area until I saw it in a State ORV map. This particular property is managed by the BLM. To get to this area, drive to Shasta Dam, drive across the dam, and then take a left. The road will take you straight to the ORV area.

The first sight you see once you arrive at the 'staging area' is this steep little hill in front of you. It didn't look like much, but upon trying to climb to the top, I found myself sliding back to where I started. It seemed that last nights rain had left the dirt very slick.

I decided I wasn't going to make it up the steepest section, so I chose a slightly less steep section, and with a little go juice I made it over the top. As you can see in the next pictre, I still need to get a front locker....the good news is two weeks from the day I write this I should have my gears and front locker installed.

After playing around a lot in this area of the park, and taking some trails that were marked 4WD, but where the manzinita left no more than 2-3 feet of space between the sides of the trail, (really good on the paint!) we went in search of a Ranger, and found out if there were any wider trails to go on......at the rate we were going, I wasn't going to have any paint left by the end of the day.

The friendly ranger let us know that the area we were in had very few 4WD trails....mostly ATV and motorcycle trails. Just a ways past the dam as we were coming into the park there was a dirt road that went off to the right. The ranger informed us this was where we'd find most of the 4WD trails. If you want a map of the area though, you will need to stop by the staging area, and pick one up there. I should also mention, there is RV camping, and out houses at the staging area.

On a mild trail that skirts along the paved road, (still near the staging area) we found a little hill to play on.....and drew a crowd of motorcyclists, who took a break to watch us play. It seems that we were the only 4WD vehicle around this day...

This same mild trial has some off camber bumps (nothing too exciting) to play on, and we did come across this small rock slide too.

Believe it or not, this was not even CLOSE to how narrow the narrower sections of trail were. There were times when the manzinita had left only 12 inches of space to pass though, and we had to pass through.....the sound of manzinita on your paint is at least as bad as nails on a chalk board! The TON of rain that El Nino had dumped on this area this winter caused the manzinita to take over the trails.....this area was in need of MAJOR grooming when I was there.

The trail did provide variety....from dry creeks, to off camber sections, to out rageously narrow sections. If it weren't for the sound of manzinita scraping along my paint it would have been much more enjoyable though.

This is the first picture of our visit up the road to where the ranger told us most of the 4WD trails where. We played over there for awhile.....but a broken Firestik antenna, and a missing headlight guard later, we decided the manzinita was going to win, and we turned back before we did more serious damage. This was the only other 4WD vehicle we saw all day.....an old Chevy LUV. Lucky for us we met him on one of the few places wide enough to sneak a vehicle by.

The recent heavy rain from El Nino left us plenty of rain ruts to play in.....      We ended up with not very many picture of just how bad the manzinita was because....well......it was so bad you couldn't get out of the car.

The river you see is the Sacramento, coming out of the Shasta Dam. I couldn't resist taking this picture. I've always been jealous of the pics similar I see like this, of trips to Moab....but Moab guys, eat your heart out.....we haven't seen a California this green in YEARS!

I was in a PICKLE here!! To my right (behind the bushes) was a dry creek bed, at least a 5-6 foot drop down into it, and straight in front of me, the trail had washed out. It would have been a very off camber, but doable section normally.....but with the slick/muddy top soil it was a dangerous situation.

I tried several times to crawl through it, taking a high line, but each time, the front would totall loose traction in the mud, and go sliding for the creek bed below. Each time I popped it into reverse, and with a little help from my friends (the bushes I'm leaning on) managed not to loose the truck to the creek.

Going back wasn't an option....and crawling through it wasn't gonna work. I finally found a dirt trail application to my fast Pismo Dunes driving!! I crept the truck up almost to where it slid toward, and GASSED IT!! The momentum of the truck was enough to keep it from slidding into the creek faster than I could cross the section of washed out trail. YIPPY!!

Here's a shot of what the section looked like from the "good" side (the side after you've made it through). Of course pictures never do anything justice, and I wasn't let down here either. I guess I should have taken a shot that showed the drop into the creek on the low side of the trail.

Here's what the paint looked like after 4-5 hours of manzinita. BAD! I felt guilty for ruining a perfectly good paint job for a couple days....then I got over it! :-)  Jenn however did not get over it, and suggested I get out from under my truck and put a little of that elbow grease into bringing the paint back. I agreed and gave a shot...I used 10,000 grit paste, and a foam pad on the end of a drill. It took a layer of paint right off....but it looks new again.  I'm no paint freak...but now that I have it back the way it was, I KNOW I won't be playing in the manzinita again!

P.S.- Sorry it took me a month to get the trail report up...you know how it goes...