The Day After
Tags: bus shasta snow trip volkswagen vw
I'm back. Well, actually we got back yesterday around 6pm, but nevertheless, I am back. The bus is back. No one died, no one was seriously injured. And it was an insane trip. I will pepper the place with stories in the coming weeks and as they come back to me, but I'll start with the drive there and our first night.
Thursday Jan 31: Left Saratoga, CA at 12.30pm with co-pilots David and Graham in-tow. Headed up 101 to 380 to 280, through SF, over the Golden Gate, continued up 101 to Hopland, CA to get gas and cut across 175 to 29 to 20. By this point we're in the Clearlake area and manage to meet up with a bunch of other Newts in the town of Nice, CA. We gas up there (it's now about 4.30pm) and head up Bartlett Springs Road toward the "Rampaging Spot" (aka: the campout/starting point). As we climb, we quickly rise above the snow line and I learn quickly how to keep my momentum and control in slushy, muddy snow!
Eventually we crest the pass to learn that one bus has made a wrong turn and managed to get stuck. So we have to leave our buses and hike about a third of a mile up to the stuck bus. About an hour later, we hike back down with the bus unstuck and backing out the whole way. Yes! Adventure number one. Now it's dark and we have many miles more to go before reaching our destination for the night. It's cold. It's wet. There are small rock slides to dodge and fallen trees that have been moved and giant puddles to plow through. But dammit, we got there!
As we got situated, more Newts arrived and set up camp, got fires going, played with some fireworks, socialized, ate, dried out, etc! The plan from the start was to be up, ready, and rolling by 4.30am Friday, so I decided it was time to crash out around 11.30pm.
Friday Feb 1: Woke up at 3.45am and instantly started packing and arranging the bus for take off. Got my co-pilots up and we got ourselves situated. The 10pm Thursday Driver's Meeting didn't happen until about 4.45am Friday and the start wasn't until about 5am!
Up Next: Three buses get stuck within a quarter mile stretch of road and the 4.5 hour trip down the mountain!
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