Just North Of Yosemite Nat. Park

[supervision]

   On the Pashnit web site there is a report on an area accesable by what's referred to as Cottonwood Road. It starts not too far east of Sonora, Ca.  The  first section of road decends rapidly off the side of a steep hill  down to a river canyon.. very tight and technical.. vision country!!   after a few miles of this stuff  and a little of winding along the river we come to Basin Creek campground.. I was told that aprox. 35yrs ago a logging company put the road in so they could harvest an area that was burned in a forest fire. The road goes about 25mi. back to Cherry Lake..  This time of the year is early for this area and we only pasted 1 motorcycle and just 2 cars the whole way back..  Lots of blooming Dogwoods and nice spring greenery.  Because they wanted the log trucks to have easy acess the road enginering is ausume with nice 40 mph sweepers one after the other.. The important thing to keep in mind is that this road is not maintained by the county and the forest service just barely keeps it up.  The condition of the road is gradully  getting worse but it still is a BLAST.. We got back to Cherry Lake and just sat in the sun enjoying the beauty. The temp. was about 70 and no wind or clouds.  This is a wilderness area and you need to bring your own water (very important in warmer time of the year cause it can be hot as hell).  There were only 2 fishing boats!  It is a long drive in a car and the road goes nowhere... well actually it goes away from Cherry to the south evntually  to hwy 120 below the Yosemite gate. This part of the road is refered to as Early Intake, it's where they run water through a powerhouse and the river is swift!  climbing away from Early Intake is so steep it made my ears pop, switch backs anyone?  My old friend Bob said that when he was young he drove truck and delivered cement down to the powerhouse project, I wouldn't go down that hill with a truck load of cement for nothin!!!  Up stream  is Hetch Hetchy Res. they dammed up the river long ago for water and power to serve San Fransisco.  We hit hwy120 and shot down the hill about 5mi. , big open 2 laner, fast but beware of the cops, this is a major tourist  road with a European in everyother car. Soon we turned towards home on Smithstation road, thur Greely Hill and down to Coulterville..The next 50mi. home almost feels like our backyard it just comes out of the foothills and  we were back home soon.. My bike has been charging great now and todays ride was 202 miles.. Hope this isn't to stupid to read..... If you go to Pashnit's web site there are pictures of this area... see ya!,  sv