Cherry Lake / Yosemite Area

This was another of Mike T.s “Let’s get out and ride” ideas. He plotted a general idea in his Garmin Basecamp and then sent an email with the gpx attached.

Just a couple of things to note.

1. Cherry Lake was the discussion and I’m not sure why he says Bear Lake – maybe a typo. Big Bear Lake is nowhere near this and I don’t know of a Bear Lake in the area.
2. “Easy Forest Roads” is what he thought he was mapping. I’m not sure how you do that in Garmin Bascamp but we just assumed he knew what he was doing.

UPDATE: 9/15/25:

It would be just three of us – Mike T, Seth and myself. We would leave from his house in Pleasanton Friday morning. For the majority we would take small surface streets across the central valley, camp at Cherry Lake as a basecamp and do a day loop on Saturday and then come back home of Sunday on a slightly different route.

We had hoped a few others might be able to join us but they all had conflicts.

My bike was ready and packed. It was a slightly lighter load as it was just 3 days. Still no Safari Tanks so I had 3 liters of gas packed in my Reckless 80s. This would be the first ride with new chain and sprockets – and the front disc guard!

THE VIDEO:

And yes, I made a tongue in cheek meme just for the thumbnail of the video.

Starting from Mike’s house in Pleasanton we went up and over Tesla Rd past Carnegie OHV. There had been a bad accident on the main highway and so just about everyone had rerouted up and over on Tesla Rd. We had this massive oncoming traffic that was bumper to bumper for several miles.

We wove our way across the valley. We took no pictures and pretty much didn’t stop. There’s not much to see and we were also trying to beat the heat and it was already getting warm.

When we got to the foothills we were somewhat running parallel to Hwy 108 and the Stanislaus River.

We did stop and remove a layer or two in Knight’s Ferry after which we hopped on Hwy 108.

We headed further up Hwy 108 towards Pinecrest where we filled the gas tanks and got off road for the first time.

It started out easy and fun enough. Mike was on his 890 and Seth was on his VStrom with very little knobs. We somehow entered into an OHV area and the trail quickly changed it’s tune. We were dodging big rocks in a deep loose bed of little rocks while going up some steep climbs and going down some even steeper climbs with deeper and looser rocks.

At one point I came around a turn to find both of their bikes taking simultaneous dirt naps. And this wouldn’t be the last time either. https://youtu.be/jpIlZhUwBNo?si=KuFaR_r0iem-ZgD_&t=147

It wasn’t overly technical. I think we were more hot and tired more than anything. The temps were somewhere in the mid 90’s. Our spirits were high – just lacking in technique.

We finally got down to Cherry Lake Campground via the hard way. The Camp Host came by and collected $ and honesty I don’t know what made this a $35 a night campground but whatever. We set up camp and then walked down to the lake. There was a trail that we were warned was a little steep. They had no idea what we came down to get there.

The water was crystal clear and just the right temp. I had decided since it would be all easy fire roads and warm that I would bring only a pair of flip flops as camp shoes. This would be the last known picture of that pair. They wouldn’t be a pair by the time we made camp the next night.

Although the campground was full, we were just about the only ones at the lake. It was dinner time so maybe everyone was cooking dinner? There was just one other person. This woman on a paddle board way out in the middle.

Cooled and cleaned we climbed back up to our campsite, made dinner and a fire and then went to bed for a good nights sleep.

Oh, and we did have a quiet family of deer just about walk through too! That was cool.

What wasn’t cool was at about 11 PM, just as I was drifting off to sleep my tent was suddenly lit up with the brightest light. I thought for sure it was Alien Abduction time and I was suddenly glad I had rinsed off in lake before the probing began.

Surprise! It wasn’t aliens at all. It was however three college aged lesbians in a Subaru with absolutely no social skills. Not only were they loud, they were completely oblivious. They took the last campsite available (next to ours) and were setting up their tents right were the deer were in the picture above.

NOTE: I have nothing against alternative lifestyles, college aged women or even Subarus. Hell, our Subie is almost at 200,000 miles and still a daily driver – we love that thing! What I do have an issue with was their complete lack of empathy towards anyone around them.

It was nearing midnight and they were flashing super bright flashlights everywhere they needed to see not considering that the beam also carried outside the limits of their camp and totally lit up our tents. They made countless noisy trips back and forth between their car and campsite – often calling out to each other too. No social awareness whatsoever!

Once they had their tent set up I was hoping they would have gone right to sleep all things considered. Nope. One of them decided they should also have a fire and began chopping firewood with an axe against a rock.

Over breakfast it was decided that we were not going to camp here again. I’d rather camp in a ditch alongside a busy road than spend another night there. We found the camp host and got our money back for the next night.

Packed up and ready to go we left Cherry Lake behind. Actually Cherry Lake wasn’t the issue, the campers at Cherry Lake were.

We got off road pretty quickly once again. Our plan was to ultimately make it to Big Oak Flat just above Groveland for gas.

First we crossed the Cherry Lake Dam and stopped to take a picture.

From there we had a side plan to go via forest roads out to nearby Lake Eleanor. Most of this was shaded and great gravel roads. We got almost out to the lake before hitting a gate that allowed only hikers past that point.

So it was an easy return back to the Cherry Lake Dam. I was leading and had noticed a woman walking with her two dogs on the way out so I was looking for them on the way back. At the dam we found she had set up a camp just on the other side of the dam (free and quiet) so I’m putting that to memory just in case next time.

Next up we decided to deviate again from our purple line and see if we couldn’t get out to Hetch Hetchy which was just a little south east. This is the main source of water for San Francisco.

We got all the way to the park entrance which is part of Yosemite and so they also collected the same fees as they do at the main gate of the valley floor. We decided it wasn’t worth the $30 each but it was cool and shady so we took a break at the gate. Seth saw wild black raspberries and so he was picking and eating them. He then started identifying (or misidentifying for all we know) all sorts of edible plants like wild sorrel and 6 or 7 others. I ate a raspberry just so he would be happy. I wanted to be the only one who survived if he was wrong. I’ve seen “Into the Wild” and know how that turned out.

Circling back we stopped in Maher at the general store and had an ice cream sandwich. This is a summer camp run by the City of San Francisco. To stay there you must be a current resident of S.F. and have to enter and win a lottery.

Back on the bikes we followed a route Mike had mapped that led down along the Tuolumne River. It started out ok, but it kept getting sparser and sparser. It wasn’t even a two track anymore and we could see the canyon it was dropping into had steep walls on either side.

We kept looking at maps and it looked like it should go through and it should only be a few more miles. Ha!

At one point Seth was in the lead and stopped. He had come up on a downed tree that he could almost get under if it wasn’t for a small branch. We got off the bike, I gave him my pull saw and in a few minutes we were back on the trail.

That lasted about a minute and we came up on another tree but this one someone had piled a few branches up to get over. Mike and I helped Seth get over first. His bike had the least amount of ground clearance. Next was my turn and Mike had the foresight to grab my helmet with the camera. You can watch this at https://youtu.be/jpIlZhUwBNo?si=lC14k6Ngg_LnE4bG&t=935

When it was Mike’s turn he has such long legs he really didn’t need any help at all.

We kept pressing on even though the trail kept getting more and more overgrown. Finally we were just about down to river level and we came across a car and a couple of ebikes by a river drop in point. We realized the car got in here, not by the way we came in, but by a side road we passed just a couple hundred yards back.

I was most worried about running out of gas. It was hot and getting hotter and we were all out of water. We decided we were done with the struggles for the day.

We back tracked and found the road the car had probably come in on. It ran up the steep banks of the valley back towards the Highway. It was a short road but boy was it steep and hot! Here’s that little fire trail of a road going up this steep ridgeline.

It flattened out near the top and I could here cars going down the highway. Our fire road ended 50 yards away from the highway but was blocked by a big steel gate that was chained closed! There was no way around either side of the gate.

We stopped in the shade and started looking for alternates. Seth looked at the barbed wire fence that was attached to the steel gate and discovered that the wires could be easily unwound so we could get the bikes through and then rewind the barbed wire again like nothing ever happened! So we did just that.

On the other side we of the fence were all these no trespassing signs telling us to keep out. We were fading fast and none of that mattered. Mike was apparently getting a little dizzy and sat down. We reminded him that he was sitting in Poison Oak but that didn’t seem to matter to him. He was tanking.

I heard a familiar sound which turned out to be some local on a 950. He was just riding by and wanted to see if the gate was open yet. We told him how he could get through via the barbed wire but he said he didn’t want to do that. He did tell us that gas was just down the road a bit and there was even a restaurant just around the corner.

We decided to stop for lunch at this cafe and it was a great idea. We had food and drink and got back on our bikes feeling much much better. It turned out that I had ridden some of this area years ago on my 950 with Tomm and Dave like 8 years ago. It was an organized ride called the Yosemite Family Adventure I think. I still have the t-shirt.

We drove down the hill a bit and filled up with gas. Next we headed back up the hill towards cooler elevations in search of a campsite for the night.

We stopped in the first campground and asked if they had any available. They were full but the manager suggested if we were up to it to find a forest road and disperse camp. There was one just east just off of Evergreen Road so we headed that way.

We got on Evergreen Road and while looking for a forest road we reached the end where it dead ended at the same place we had ice cream sandwiches earlier in Maher! We knew we couldn’t stay in Maher so it was back down Evergreen. We found a forest service road and found a good campground for the night.

In setting up my tent I discovered that one of my Flip Flops had fallen out somewhere along the way. So I camped that night with just a single flip. No flop.

We made our dinners and since we were in forest land there was no fires allowed at the time. We did sit for a while talking and watching the bats come out.

I think we all slept well. I sure did. In the morning we breakfasted, packed up and hit the road. It was early. We decided to stop for lunch on the way back in Knights Ferry.

Once we hit the Stockton area Mike T split off and headed south towards his home while Seth and I headed back home via Brentwood and Hwy 4 to the north.

Back home, I texted the guys that I was home safe, stripped down and took a good long shower paying special attention to my toes! EWWWW! Yuck! Oh it also didn’t help that I had dropped a 2×4 on my big toe the week before.