Upper Upper Bidwell Part 1

I was planning an adventure for a long time.
I needed to get out and challenge myself a little. For several months I’d had the idea to discover what’s on the other side of Upper Bidwell Park. For those of you not from Chico, Bidwell is a huge “park” that starts in the city, and reaches way, way outside the city into the hills. Most of it is pretty wild, and after a few miles there are many places were almost no one goes. It’s filled with (okay, I mean it’s possible to find) caves where Indians lived, old stone walls, snakes, deer, and even mountain lions (probably not in Bidwell park, but certainly up in the hills). Well, I’d been many miles into it, and explored a lot of the park over the years, but I never found any official end of it, though I knew that sooner or later there had to be a fence or end to the park. And what’s after that, I wondered? How wild does it get? This seemed like the perfect opportunity for adventure. So for months I thought about a trip into the hills, over at least one night, to see what I could see.
When school was in session I couldn’t find the time, and when winter vacation came my work schedule made it difficult to get away for a few days. There was really only one weekend when I could do it. I planned to leave Friday morning, walk on the park road to the end, and then climb up to the top of the valley and walk along the ridge for as long as possible. It seemed like a good plan. But as this weekend started getting closer, there were weather reports about record cold weather coming. On Thursday, the weather report said that Friday and Saturday night would be in the teens (-8 C) with a strong wind. So basically, it wasn’t idea weather to be miles into the hills at night. It reminded me of one of the Christmas hikes from Karlstejn, when all the news said to stay inside because of snow storms, and we were planning to walk 25K through the countryside at night for fun… turned out to be absolutely beautiful weather, though.
So I wasn’t going to let the weather stop me! That’s right, I’m that crazy (or that desperate, perhaps. I needed a little excitement that badly!)! I also had some experience walking in cold weather, and I knew that if I kept walking I wouldn’t get cold… at least, wouldn‘t freeze. So my new plan was to walk into the hills, keep walking until night, see if I could find a place to sleep, and if I couldn’t then just keep walking until sunrise. I’ve done this before, and knew it would be hard but possible.
So Saturday night I packed (as lightly as possible!!), and tried to get up early Friday morning, planning to walk to the park from my house. But my parents caught me. Needless to say, they weren’t thrilled about the idea of me wandering into Upper Bidwell on a night of record cold. This might also be the time to say that it’s illegal to camp overnight in the park, that the land after Upper Bidwell is government or private land with no trespassing allowed, and that mountain lions sometimes attack people in California. My parents and I both knew all this, so it’s a testament to how cool my parents are that they didn’t argue too much, just insisted that I take a cell phone, emergency equipment, and my mom drove me to the end of the Upper Bidwell road. Great parents, huh?
Well, I was off in nature by 9:00, and started walking along the side of the valley. I couldn’t find a good trail, so it was a little slow. And of course I had to focus on avoiding poison oak, which is harder to see in the winter. I continued on in this way for two hours, waiting for something exciting to happen… It didn’t. I saw some deer, enjoyed the scenery, climbed a rock or two, but nothing too interesting.
I finally came to the top of the valley near a very large rock formation, which had a face on the side of it (see right). I explored the “eye-caves” on the rock, and from the top saw that I’d reached the end of Bidwell park. Ahead of me on the ridge was a fence, and on the fence was a sign. When I got closer to the sign I read: “Boundary: Ecological Reserve. Entry permit required. Property of California State University, Chico.” Well, this was it, I’d found what comes after the park, and I still had a full day left. If I was serious about finding adventure, it was clear what had to be done. I quickly jumped over the fence, and started walking on. Now I was on government land, and I had no idea what I would find there. That definitely promised to make things more interesting. With the wind blowing powerfully into me, I moved forward to discover… something.
To be continued….