Forks of salmon

DISTANCE

0 MI

162KM

ELEVATION

0 '

3237M

IDEAL TIRE

0 C

All tarmac

DIFFICULTY

0 /10

Damn long day

Pitchy. Sinuous. Grand.

Rugged. Breathtaking. Humbling. Life-affirming. And oh so socially distant. We chose Forks of Salmon as Double Dagger’s first ride story, because it is the archetype of what a mythical road ride is in 2021.

I’ve occasionally thought about what would happen if someone with loads of cash purchased a vast, remote parcel of land, and built a network of roads over it, for the explicit purpose of shredding on road bikes. It’s a potent vision, but I honestly doubt anyone could do better than the great State of California did with this route in Siskiyou County. Forks of Salmon is an amusement park for roadies, just without the crowds, or the easily- accessible junk food.

That’s pronounced just like it looks: Sis-Ski-You County. This is Northern California, about an hour south of the Oregon border, and just across the Interstate 5 corridor from Mount Shasta. The area around Etna, CA—where this ride launches from—has not been discovered by real estate developers, or Instagram influencers. It isn’t the next Bend, Oregon or Asheville, NC.

When we show up in Etna

Past sundown, already exhausted from two days of big rides and road-tripping from Portland, we don’t bother exploring. We check into our motel, clean our bikes, lay out kit, pockets loaded with snacks, and drop into an endorphin-soaked sleep, bleached bed sheets and rattling AC units encasing us, a simple, rural silence outside our rooms.

The morning arrives chilly and bright. We’ve timed this perfectly; it’s going to be a banner autumn day in the mountains. We munch breakfast burritos and wash down doughnuts with coffee at The South Fork Baking Co. Glycogen stores topped off, and caffeine absorbed, it’s time to start.

We roll west out of Etna, and soon begin to climb, slow dancing up a creek drainage, the morning sun rising at our backs, gently sifted through dense forest canopy. The road wiggles and pitches, gradually narrowing, and at a sharp left turn, reveals its true nature; a gut punch of a climb, the road ramped and precarious, looking like it could crumble and slide off the mountainside at any moment. But this is no time for morbid shit like that, it’s time to focus on ourselves, our breath, our cadence. This climb isn’t one to fight. We make friends and give it a hug, in the grandparent gears.

Eventually the sky widens, the grade relents, and we see the top. We look back down the climb, to the East, a cascade of hillsides, rocky protrusions, and fall foliage beneath us, and it’s clear; we’ve already taken a big step into this day, and it’s barely even started.

regrouping at the top

We take in the view of what will be the next 3–4 hours of our ride. The Salmon River’s north fork plows an obvious and direct path west, toward the Pacific Ocean. We will follow this fork to where it converges with the river’s south fork some 20 miles from where we stand, then cross the river to follow the south fork back up to the same ridgeline, reaching it much later in the day. The view is both exhilarating and daunting; it’s not often that we can see such an expansive part of a ride as it’s happening. I try not to think about the distance, and just take in the scene.

The descent begins

And we instantly plummet up to 40+ mph, which feels a bit weird with the heart rate now very low. The road is just as perilous as it was on the other side, a strip of pavement hugging the edges of a questionably stable section of rock. I recall being on rim-brake carbon hoops at the time, and trying to pump hard and let off, alternating levers so as to avoid melting a brake track in the middle of remote mountain nowhere. We come out of a hairpin right turn, dropping into tree cover. The grade flattens slightly, visibility up the road improves, and we hit the gas gleefully. Our machines at last feeling planted and secure. The road is still deceptively steep, and the calmed forest air combines with gravity to keep us sailing downward, over small rises and around nicely banked turns. Eventually we reach the river, the euphoric section of the descent ends, and the road takes on a more challenging character, with a long series of short kickers followed by equally steep downhills. The temptation is to try to hold high speeds over the top of these small rises, and some will be able to do this with ease, for a while, but that’s a dangerous game this early in the ride.

We come across some friendly cows and stop for another photo and snack break. We pass through Sawyers Bar, one of the small communities nestled along the banks of the Salmon River, the road here is barely wide enough for one car, and visibility is poor at times. It’s a place wholly unaltered by the passing of time and it passes by in an instant. After trending down in elevation for another hour or so, we reach a bridge and turn left, crossing the Salmon River. We are at the furthest point from our starting point in Etna, and will now begin the journey back up river to the ridgeline at the high point of the Marble Mountain Wilderness. While there are respites, this is a gradual climb that will take several hours, with a net gain of six thousand feet. Not that this ride is about numbers, which it certainly is not. And so it goes, we climb along a shelf of pavement, carved into cliffs overlooking the Salmon River’s north fork. The situation feels truly remote, and borders on disorienting, were it not for the constant push of gravity against and the curves in the road following the wild path of the river below us. I ride close to the edge and glance down the shadowy cliffs to the river rocks below. I see a naked human jump into the river and I am envious. The temperature has risen significantly since we crossed the river, strong sunlight and extreme geology splattering hot and cold pockets of air along the road, with near zero humidity to buffer the sudden changes. The fall foliage is glittering gold and amber, with an infinitely rich blue sky above to contrast. The vibe is dreamy and we pedal through the early afternoon.

Previous slide

Next slide

Licking The Plate Clean

After a resupply in Cecilville, which is never to be counted on, we begin the most challenging part of the day. While our first ascent of the Marble Mountains was heaving and twisting horse track, the second time over the pass will be a slow burn from Cecilville on a perfectly engineered state highway. One of the better named segments on Strava, “The C-Monster” never tilts above 5%, but the meandering path of the road, always revealing another gradual ramp around it’s countless bends, makes it a practice in self control and patience. As we plod along, the shadows begin to creep across the tarmac, and the temperature begins to drop. At the summit, we see a small viewpoint, still protruding into the waning afternoon sun. We regroup here, relieved to have the C-Monster behind us.

The descent back into Scott Valley is wide open and smoothly paved, and we spend most of it tucking low on our bikes, the turbulence drowning out the sound of our freehubs. After crossing Highway 3, we ride north on a lovely farm road as the sun begins to set. This has been a big ride for all of us, and for some of us, it’s been a step up to a new level of endurance. The faces in the group prove this, and I am relieved that we made it through and had a rewarding day. Dustin beats me width by a tire to the town line of Etna, and we bump fists to cap off a perfect day of riding.

Text by Bennett Shane.
Photos by Dustin Einig, Bennett Shane & Ben Guernsey.