Panoche and Idria, December 2004

Ron Bobb and I got a chance this past weekend to ride out and back to
Idria, the site of an abandoned quicksilver (mercury) mine (one of the
largest, the other being Almaden) at the southeastern corner of San
Benito County. We started at the store in Paicines, a cross-roads about
10 miles south of Hollister, CA.

We took Panoche Rd. up Tres Pinos Creek, over Panoche Pass into Panoche
Valley. 30 miles from Paicines in Panoche Valley is the "Cold Beer Bar"
that is open Wednesday through Sunday, although the owner told me he was
around the other days, just not officially open. (He'll be closed Jan 3
through Jan 13 next year.) New Idria Rd. branches off from Panoche Rd.
toward the east end of the valley and heads south through Griswold
Canyon, through Vallecitos Valley, up over Syncline Divide and then up
San Carlos Creek into Idria.

Road conditions vary from excellent to fair with a couple short steep
sections of dirt/gravel and a muddy section within the last mile of
Idria. Traffic is almost non-existent, about 1 motor vehicle every 20
minutes on average.

Between Panoche Valley to Idria I had the pleasure of a rare experience
of stopping by the road and hearing nothing but my ringing ears as my
brain tried to "turn up the RF gain" to hear something. No sounds of
airplanes or distant cars, although contrails were visible in the
distance.

If you want to enjoy a long road ride away from auto traffic, I
recommend this route. Round-trip distance to Idria from Paicines is
about 105 miles. Climbing is about 3500 feet outbound, 1500 inbound.

http://tinyurl.com/6xxny

--
-- Bill Bushnell )

Bill: Nice writeup & photos. Amazing how similar some of the landscape looks
to what you find on the Tour of the Unknown Valley
(www.ChainReaction.com/unknownvalley04.htm). Looks like you made it back
just after it got dark.

I just did a quick plot of your loop- is this it?
www.ChainReaction.com/idria.htm Might be interesting to try one of these
days! Aside from the start, and Cold Beer Bar, were there any other places
for food or water?

Thanks-

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com


"Bill Bushnell" wrote in message
...

Ron Bobb and I got a chance this past weekend to ride out and back to
Idria, the site of an abandoned quicksilver (mercury) mine (one of the
largest, the other being Almaden) at the southeastern corner of San
Benito County. We started at the store in Paicines, a cross-roads about
10 miles south of Hollister, CA.

We took Panoche Rd. up Tres Pinos Creek, over Panoche Pass into Panoche
Valley. 30 miles from Paicines in Panoche Valley is the "Cold Beer Bar"
that is open Wednesday through Sunday, although the owner told me he was
around the other days, just not officially open. (He'll be closed Jan 3
through Jan 13 next year.) New Idria Rd. branches off from Panoche Rd.
toward the east end of the valley and heads south through Griswold
Canyon, through Vallecitos Valley, up over Syncline Divide and then up
San Carlos Creek into Idria.

Road conditions vary from excellent to fair with a couple short steep
sections of dirt/gravel and a muddy section within the last mile of
Idria. Traffic is almost non-existent, about 1 motor vehicle every 20
minutes on average.

Between Panoche Valley to Idria I had the pleasure of a rare experience
of stopping by the road and hearing nothing but my ringing ears as my
brain tried to "turn up the RF gain" to hear something. No sounds of
airplanes or distant cars, although contrails were visible in the
distance.

If you want to enjoy a long road ride away from auto traffic, I
recommend this route. Round-trip distance to Idria from Paicines is
about 105 miles. Climbing is about 3500 feet outbound, 1500 inbound.

http://tinyurl.com/6xxny

--
-- Bill Bushnell )

Bill Bushnell writes:

Ron Bobb and I got a chance this past weekend to ride out and back
to Idria, the site of an abandoned quicksilver (mercury) mine (one
of the largest, the other being Almaden) at the southeastern corner
of San Benito County. We started at the store in Paicines, a
cross-roads about 10 miles south of Hollister, CA.

We took Panoche Rd. up Tres Pinos Creek, over Panoche Pass into
Panoche Valley. 30 miles from Paicines in Panoche Valley is the
"Cold Beer Bar" that is open Wednesday through Sunday, although the
owner told me he was around the other days, just not officially
open. (He'll be closed Jan 3 through Jan 13 next year.) New Idria
Rd. branches off from Panoche Rd. toward the east end of the valley
and heads south through Griswold Canyon, through Vallecitos Valley,
up over Syncline Divide and then up San Carlos Creek into Idria.

Road conditions vary from excellent to fair with a couple short
steep sections of dirt/gravel and a muddy section within the last
mile of Idria. Traffic is almost non-existent, about 1 motor
vehicle every 20 minutes on average.

Between Panoche Valley to Idria I had the pleasure of a rare
experience of stopping by the road and hearing nothing but my
ringing ears as my brain tried to "turn up the RF gain" to hear
something. No sounds of airplanes or distant cars, although
contrails were visible in the distance.

If you want to enjoy a long road ride away from auto traffic, I
recommend this route. Round-trip distance to Idria from Paicines is
about 105 miles. Climbing is about 3500 feet outbound, 1500
inbound.

http://tinyurl.com/6xxny

Interestingly the state is considering closing the entire area to
visitors not for the mercury but for naturally occurring asbestos in
the soil of those hills. The off-road vehicle playground brought
this out when air samples in the heat of the summer showed
unacceptable levels of asbestos in the dust that the motorcycles and
ATV's licked up.

Meanwhile, I found the area a beautiful trip in the spring when the
greenery is green and wildflowers abound:

================================================== ===================
Paicines-Idria-Paicines ride

On Sunday, 27 April 2003, Ray Hosler, Brian Cox and I drove south from
Palo Alto to Hollister and down HWY25 to the Paicines grocery store
(680ft), to start our ride. We headed south on HWY25, appropriately
named the "Airline Highway" past The Pinnacles State Park and to the
junction with Coalinga Rd.

http://tinyurl.com/aup8

Although the sky was not cloudy, a thin haze muted the sun so that our
shadows looked more like those of vampires (transparent) and the
profuse but sensitive California poppies remained mostly closed. The
road gradually climbs from Paicines along the west side of an
agricultural valley, the San Andreas Rift Zone, of lush greenery and
wildflowers, including all colors of Lupine, Owls Clover, Paintbrush,
Buttercups, California Poppies and orange Sand-dune Wallflower.

We first passed finely manicured vineyards with vines so perfectly
trimmed on support wires, it seemed like computer art, all vines being
nearly identical and in the same stage of growth. High deer fences
kept browsing wildlife from pruning the crop. Clusters of bee hives
with two or more honey supers were in the fields every few miles.
Where these bees were collecting honey was not apparent from the crops
we saw, this being primarily grassland.

We passed herds of grazing cattle, some entirely bulls others mostly
cows, but to our surprise about a mile and a half past San Benito, we
saw six Prong Horned Antelope off by themselves foraging in rich green
grass in a large dry lake. A farmer told us they had been imported
many years ago and have survived poaching until now. The road,
although not open range, has many cattle guards that oddly are
announced by "One Lane Bridge" signs. Later in the ride we were
surprised to see such a sign actually followed by a one lane bridge.
Besides wildflowers we saw Magpies, Acorn Woodpeckers, Orioles,
Meadowlarks, Bluebirds, Kestrels, Red-tailed Hawks, Turkey Vultures,
and many Kingbirds in the Panoche Valley.

On two occasions, as we continued up Rabbit Valley, all part of the
San Andreas rift zone, we noticed sets of zig-zag ladder-like cracks
running diagonally at about 15 degrees across the road, from
earthquake shear. At the next junction we turned southeast onto
Coalinga road and headed into the hills crossing a divide at 2115ft
from which we descended into Lorenzo Vasquez Canyon (2000ft). We
climbed up this narrow lush green canyon finally making a few steep
hairpin turns to cross another divide at 2907ft before descending to
Hernandez Reservoir, whose waters were so low that we saw only a green
grassy expanse where its upper end (2400ft) should have been.
Meanwhile the sky became bright blue as we rolled into the valley.

A mile or so farther, we crossed the San Benito river through one of
the many well paved concrete fords on Clear Creek County Rd109 that
heads east into Clear Creek off road vehicle area. Although the fords
are paved, the road is not and it is about as rough as unpaved mining
roads can get except that the rock is not loose. The road climbs in
fits and jerks to a junction at 3400ft from which it climbs steeply to
the summit above Idria. We met a couple of MTB riders dashing down to
their truck who had some rude things to yell about roadies as they
went by. Other than that, we saw no bikies.

The terrain is unusual and striking, with warnings about asbestos in
the soil (and dust) and mercury, which is what was mined at the New
Idria mine in Idria, San Benito County, the original Idria being in
Slovenia where mercury was mined from 1850 to recent times. Some of
the slopes above Clear Creek are barren domes of what looks like
greyish brown gravel, but they are fairly solid, so much so that
motorcycle tracks going straight up in M/C hillclimb fashion do not
leave more than a trace and these form no gullies from rainwater.

The road gradually levels off as it approaches the 4400ft summit where
Roads head north and south while the main route, down to Idria, is
open only to motorcycles and bicycles. BLM considers it too hazardous
so it is closed to cars. We rode around the gate and realized that
this would be tough in the other direction, the road being steeper and
looser and with tighter curves. The view into San Carlos Creek is
striking for the steep canyon and its depth, with mine tailings here
and there. The first view of the Idria is shocking. The rusting hulk
of a factory and all the buildings in town along with a huge junk yard
of machinery make this an obvious toxic waste site of grand
proportions, much more so than the New Almaden mines in Santa Clara
County. Almaden is in Spain and also started mercury production in
1850.

http://www.pinnaclenews.com/oldsite/...2/svlife1.html
http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=10...81&s=25&size=l

We descended into town skirting a second gate to get on the paved main
street of Idria (2500ft) County Rd119. The New Idria mine began
operations in 1854 and closed in 1971. Today the boarding house and
general store look untouched since the mine shut down. With lack of
heavy traffic the weathered and rough pavement of the main street was
without holes. Next to the factory, a large cinnabar-red (Chinese
red) pond drains into Carlos Creek making it a stream of tomato soup
for many miles. Huge piles of cinnabar (mercury sulfide) ore surround
the town.

A gradual descent on Idria Road took us to the Vallecitos valley along
Tres Pinos Creek at about 1600ft. We realized that the weather
forecast for southerly winds did not come true as we rode into the
usual northwest wind blowing directly at us. Over here, summer had
already set in with dry grass but at least the air was cool. The road
climbs ever so gradually to 2000ft through a broad valley with sparse
vegetation. That doesn't seem to bother cattle ranchers whose herds
roam these grazed off fields.

Besides "The Aermotor Chicago" windmills dotting the landscape, a few
oil wells were slowly pumping their wealth into tanks not far from the
road. Gradually descending along Griswold Creek, the road turns north
into Griswold Canyon where we finally got a tailwind and could sit up
no hands coasting down to the Panoche valley (1200ft). The road turns
west and climbs gradually past the Panoche School and on to Llanda
(1420ft) where we stopped at the first opportunity to get food and
drink. Because we were prepared to do this ride without finding a
store, we didn't need much but it was nice to sit on the bench and
drink a cold drink with the stuff we brought.

http://www.aermotorwindmills.com/aermotor-home.htm

A few miles up the road enters Payne Canyon along Panoche Creek and
climbs to Panoche Pass (2100ft), a broad summit in Antelope Valley.
With the wind, the descent was hard to detect at first but it beat
climbing into the wind. We were getting into greener landscape as we
rode down along Tres Pinos Creek. The narrows of the canyon required
that the road make a few climbs on the way to the main valley. These
were opportunities to check whether there was and short hill sprint
left in the legs. We did alright and rolled into Paicines at about
18:30 for a drive home. As we drove north we could see rain coming in
from the coast with the first showers as we reaches San Jose.

This was an interesting ride, that for me was mainly the Clear Creek
and Idria experience. The total of 7620ft of climbing in 112mi does
not reveal the effort.

================================================== ====================

Jobst Brandt

Palo Alto CA

In ba.bicycles Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
Bill: Nice writeup & photos. Amazing how similar some of the landscape looks
to what you find on the Tour of the Unknown Valley
(www.ChainReaction.com/unknownvalley04.htm). Looks like you made it back
just after it got dark.

Yes, we left at about 9:10a and returned about 5:05p, almost but not quite
dark enough to require headlights. We did use taillights for the last
hour of riding.

The inland hills are similar, but I find that there are fewer trees (esp.
oaks) and more desert-like vegetation such as sagebrush in the south of
the state. What I found remarkable and unusual was the absolute silence
of Vallecitos and Panoche Valleys, much like Death Valley on a windless
evening.

While it is too early for wildflowers, we saw alot of green grass poking
through last year's crop, and we saw a bobcat, a roadrunner (alas, just
after I had put away my camera after shooting the picture up the road
before entering Griswold Canyon), and a few camera-shy hawks--birds often
know when they're being observed and usually don't stick around to find
out what's going to happen next. At times I felt like royalty as we
passed cattle near the road. They invariably rose to their feet, stood at
attention, and pointed eyes, ears, and snouts in our direction as we rode
by. We must have triggered a prey-flight response in one steer that had
somehow found its way outside of the barbed fence. He ran alongside for
1/4-mile before he discovered that if he simply stopped, we'd get further
away.

I just did a quick plot of your loop- is this it?

We rode out and back via Panoche Valley. I wanted to ride the loop you
describe, but we didn't have enough time. Jobst did a write-up of his
trip on this loop about a year ago. The loop is a bit longer than what we
did and includes an extra 2000 foot dirt-road climb over Clear Creek
Summit to enter Idria from the south. (Dan Kingstone-Hunt, the
"caretaker" of Idria claims that only the descent from Clear Creek Summit
into Idria is dirt, but Jobst described dirt on the climb and descent in
his report.)

www.ChainReaction.com/idria.htm Might be interesting to try one of these
days! Aside from the start, and Cold Beer Bar, were there any other places
for food or water?

There's the Antelope Fire Station just west of Panoche Pass. It was
closed last weekend, but I suspect one could find water there during the
summer months. Panoche School is a few miles east of the Cold Beer Bar,
but the entire property appeared to be secured behind a locked cyclone
fence when we went by. One might also be able to get water at the Whimsey
Mine. Dan gets his water piped down from a tank at the summit rather than
from San Carlos Creek. On Saturday I started with 1 gallon and had gone
through all but a few sips by the end. But, on our ride the temperature
didn't rise above 65F.

--
Bill Bushnell

Bill Bushnell wrote:
Ron Bobb and I got a chance this past weekend to ride out and back to
Idria, the site of an abandoned quicksilver (mercury) mine (one of the
largest, the other being Almaden) at the southeastern corner of San
Benito County. We started at the store in Paicines, a cross-roads about
10 miles south of Hollister, CA.

We took Panoche Rd. up Tres Pinos Creek, over Panoche Pass into Panoche
Valley. 30 miles from Paicines in Panoche Valley is the "Cold Beer Bar"
that is open Wednesday through Sunday, although the owner told me he was
around the other days, just not officially open. (He'll be closed Jan 3
through Jan 13 next year.) New Idria Rd. branches off from Panoche Rd.
toward the east end of the valley and heads south through Griswold
Canyon, through Vallecitos Valley, up over Syncline Divide and then up
San Carlos Creek into Idria.

Road conditions vary from excellent to fair with a couple short steep
sections of dirt/gravel and a muddy section within the last mile of
Idria. Traffic is almost non-existent, about 1 motor vehicle every 20
minutes on average.

Between Panoche Valley to Idria I had the pleasure of a rare experience
of stopping by the road and hearing nothing but my ringing ears as my
brain tried to "turn up the RF gain" to hear something. No sounds of
airplanes or distant cars, although contrails were visible in the
distance.

If you want to enjoy a long road ride away from auto traffic, I
recommend this route. Round-trip distance to Idria from Paicines is
about 105 miles. Climbing is about 3500 feet outbound, 1500 inbound.

http://tinyurl.com/6xxny



Hey, that's funny. I heard about Idria (US). I live in Slovenia (EU) and
we have Idria too. And wierdest, we have mercury mine too.

Here's some photos from rides around Idria:
http://tabla.xenya.si/gallery/album54

Info on Idria:
http://www.rzs-idrija.si/stran2ang.htm

you can contact me for more info:
info(at)feltna.com

M.

On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, FeltnA wrote:

Hey, that's funny. I heard about Idria (US). I live in Slovenia (EU) and
we have Idria too. And wierdest, we have mercury mine too.

Indeed, our Idria is named after your Idri(j)a:

http://www.snwburd.com/bob/etymology/idria.html

Here's some photos from rides around Idria:
http://tabla.xenya.si/gallery/album54

It looks nice and green!

--Ed

--
Ed Swierk