Day 5 - August 18, 2001

Indian Scotty Campground to Trinity Lake

I slept in the next day - the first time I had this trip. I waited 'till the sun had warmed the tent and got up - wrote for a while in this journal, got my towel and headed for the river for a morning swim. The water was still warm. After my swim , I was laying on my towel on the warm sand and I heard a large splash in the water near me. I at first thought it was a fish, but it turned out to be an Osprey flying up and down the river basin in search of food. The night before Enid had told me about an Osprey nest further into the campground, so I thought I'd go for a walk and see if I could find it. I didn't, but I did come upon Enid's trailer. I stopped and said good morning and goodbye and went back to my camp to pack up and get ready to go back down the Scott River Valley, through the alfalfa fields, except I turned right through the Quartz Valley .What a great road - on into Greenview and on to highway 3.

Highway 3 from that point to Trinity Lake is beautiful. As I neared the town of Trinity, I stopped to look for some camping sites. There were several, but the lake was so low that the campsites were several hundred feed from the water and the water wa a muddy brown color around the perimeter of the lake. There weren't many people there. There we're some places to stay at the near by lodge, but the rooms we're mostly just a square kinda' of thing. Not very inviting, except for the fact that they had showers! I chose to camp despite the thought of having a shower in the morning.

I found a very nice place to camp. A campground called "Tannery Gulch Camp". South of the resort by about 5 miles. I talked to the campground host and he recommended site #62 - out on what is supposed to be the lake - the water was still about 300 feet below where I was camping - a long and steep climb to the muddy water. I'm sure that if the lake had been at it's average level, this site would have been just amazing. Nobody around, out on a point and nothing to see but the beautiful lake and mountains in the distance. Oh well - maybe next year.

The restaurant at the resort didn't open 'till 5:00 that night so I set up camp and tried to drink one of the beers that was left over from last night. No good. Too warm, so I just went up to the resort and called home, talked for a while and then went into the bar for a drink until I was told that the restaurant was open. I can't remember the name of the lodge of the restaurant but the food was quite good. A great salad bar. I had escargot as an appetizer which got most people's attention - they all wanted to know if they really were snails. I assured them that they were.

After dinner I walked down to the marina store for beer and some snacks. It was a long way down to the marina. Not to much stuff in this store, just the bare essentials, beer water, some t-shirts and some fishing stuff.

Back up the hill to the motorcycle and back to camp. I was so tired sleep came really early that night. I watched the sunset on the lake and fell asleep...

End of day 5 - 139 miles