Returning to Summit Springs in Mendocino

Posted 23 July 2013 at 06:52 at age 25.
Created 23 August 2013 at 06:55. Edited 7 January 2016 at 06:26.

Yesterday I returned from my first camping trip of the year, that shouldn’t have taken this long to happen. I went again to Mendocino National Forest, this time with Rich. We tried to find some other people to go, but failed. It was still a wonderful trip.

We rented a KIA from Enterprise, and for the 48 hour rental period the fee was $160. It would have been $140, but we upgraded to a vehicle with USB ports to charge our phones. It didn’t end up working, though, and we had to get cigarette lighter adapters from a Walgreens in Santa Rosa.

Initially I planned to go to go to an area somewhat near the Summit Springs trail head I had been to previously. The map showed a stream going up a hill that I thought we might be able to hike along.

We ended up arriving much later than anticipated, and it was getting dark quickly. Since I didn’t know what we would be getting into in the planned area, I decided to go back to the same place I was last year. We thought we might camp at the trail head, and then head out in the morning. But when we got there, another pair were getting ready to set out, so we did the same.

We hiked a bit less than an hour in the dark, but we didn’t even need flashlights for much of it due to the nearly full moon. Even little Vera seemed to be able to see fine.

Lovely dirt roads in the Mendocino Forest!

An SUV would have been better!

We had to change our plans a bit when the road fell off the cliff before we reached our destination. Then we discovered the road we should have taken had a sign labeled “Summit Springs,” but was not visible on the Google Map, and was not the road the forest service put the marker on.

We eventually found the Summit Springs trail head at sunset, and hiked an hour or two in the dark till we found this nice spot to set up camp.

Some weird scorpion spider bug that was pretty large!

I really love my ALPS Mountaineering Chaos 3 person tent, although we usually do two people. The mostly mesh roof is amazing for gazing at the stars at night. Although they are a little obscured. But it’s still wonderful.

It’s hard to stay on the path with so many fallen trees in the way!

Very dry land

Dried up plants

A spider tunnel

We found the same stream I visited last year, and it served as our water refill site for the weekend

Vera had lots of fun exploring

Happy Vera

You can’t tell in this photo, but it was about 100 degrees!

Vast expanses of dried trees in the [Snow Mountain Wilderness](http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/mendocino/recreation/hiking/recarea/?recid=25214&actid=51)

Interesting little life everywhere, even in the dry rocks

You can’t tell in this photo, but it was about 100 degrees!

The old campsite of Keith, Topher and Mike from 2012!

This is how you know the way

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Nearly a full moon over Mendocino Forest

Sunset in Mendocino

Mendocino Forest

Mendocino Forest

Mendocino Forest

Mendocino Forest

Mendocino Forest