3 PONDS & SALMON??
Day 52 – 39 degrees & foggy this morning. One more day of exploring & then we must leave; gotta find a dump station somewhere. (We now know we can make it at least six nights without dumping, something we needed to know before future BLM camping in the desert.) Some heavy rain is coming this way beginning early tomorrow a.m. So today we’ll wait till the sun burns the fog off, pay our $7.50 for tonight, and head out to find three ponds.
The campground hosts were driving through the campground in the golf cart supplied by the Forest Service. They saw Rob outside & stopped to talk. We hadn’t seen much of them since we got here almost a week ago; they arrived a few days ago, and when we saw them they looked at us like deer in the headlights. We thought they were just shy, but turns out they have just started their first gig as campground hosts. I’d be nervous, too. We’d been curious about this at other campgrounds & Rob got the scoop from this couple. They came here from Missouri, having applied online for the position. They’d been asked, how soon can you get here, we need you right now, & two weeks later they arrived after packing up their belongings, selling things, and driving across country. They were here a day or two, then a ranger came out & showed them what they’d have to do. They work 20 hours per week; the rest of the time is their own to do what they choose. They can leave, they don’t have to stay & monitor things, 24/7. At some campgrounds, you have to clean the bathrooms & showers, Ick, Eww. But at most, you just have to empty the trashes, separate the recycle, and when a camper checks out, clean up any trash they’ve left behind & ready the site for the next campers. You sell wood (which has been chopped & delivered by a service); you deal with complaints; you help campers, make them feel welcome & safe, & provide information when asked questions. You do not handle the payments, bookings, & reservations for sites. In return, this couple got a large campsite with electricity, water, sewer, laundry facility, propane, & the golf cart for six months until the end of their contract. If it works out, they can renew every year. These folks recently retired & were looking for a way to travel cheaply until his pension & Social Security kick in. At other campgrounds, like Harris Beach where the campground is very large and popular, they have more than one campground host position – three at Harris during the summer – to divide up the responsibilities. We met a couple at Quosatana in Oregon who do it full-time with a different gig at a different place every 3 months or so, & they take a month off in between each job to leisurely travel to the next job. Interesting…..
We left around 10:30 when the sun peaked thru the fog. Intending to take the Old Gasquet Toll Road and find the three ponds, as recommended by the forest rangers. What a drive! We started out driving east on the 199 and turning north at Patrick Creek Road, going beyond the Shelly Creek campsites where we’d driven the other day. The narrow, winding road was still a bit worrisome due to the rock slides but was nothing compared to what we’d encounter later. We drove over a bridge past Shelly Creek. The road was soon no bigger than some driveways with hairpin turns. People had said, drive to the three ponds; I wondered, well was there a sign that says “the three ponds” & how will we know when we get there? What differentiates them from anywhere else? There was plenty of water – running down the mountains across the road, under bridges, streams, waterfalls, rivers, creeks, etc. But sure enough, after one almost 360-degree turn followed by a huge dip in the road, there were three gorgeous ponds, flowing one right after the other into the next pond, surrounded by huge trees, and places where people had obviously camped before. A little paradise by the road, sun filtering through the clouds & trees into pristine ponds. Gorgeous. Since we could barely get the Honda up there on these bumpy roads, unfortunately we would never get the RV up there. But it was a place where camping would’ve been an unbelievable experience. We parked the car and walked around the ponds, looking for salmon. At the third pond we saw some small gold/red fish, smaller than salmon but bigger than goldfish. Rob took pictures. They weren’t spawning but just swimming around. Were these young salmon or something else?
Three Ponds campsite, Old Gasquet Toll Road, Gasquet, CA
Three Ponds campsite, Old Gasquet Toll Road, Gasquet, CA
Goldfish?! Three Ponds campsite, Old Gasquet Toll Road, Gasquet, CA
The Old Gasquet Toll Road was a stagecoach road back in the day. It climbs several thousand feet up into the mountains. These days it is barely maintained and used primarily for power line maintenance. It begins in Gasquet & climbs into the hills along the sides of a mountain, one lane (barely) of dirt road, mudslides, rock slides, pot holes, etc. Old Gasquet Toll Road culminates where it meets Patrick Creek Road & Holiday Road just beyond the three ponds. Supposedly during the right circumstances, you can see the salmon spawn there. These two roads continue north into Oregon, with Holiday Road passing by Upper Elk Camp Ridge (at the end of the 9 mile Elk Camp Ridge backcountry hike which climbs from 834 feet to 3740 feet) & continues to High Dome & Upper High Dome at more than 3800 feet elevation.
After the three ponds we continued on Old Gasquet Toll Road, heading to Gasquet. This was probably some of the best scenery we’d seen yet in the Smith River area. The road, however, was the most treacherous we’d done thus far. If a truck had been coming up from the opposite direction, I don’t see how we could’ve passed each other. We stopped often to view the hills, trees, and the Smith River far below.
When we finally reached Highway 199 again hours later, we stopped at the ranger station to see if the fish we saw were possibly baby salmon. After looking with the ranger through their books and showing her the pictures Rob took, it was decided that these were gold fish that were probably left there by someone – larger than the usual ones in a fish tank due to the size of the pond in comparison. Oh well.
Back to the RV, we had a late lunch & visited with the girls, then went down to the Day Use Area, located below the campground, with our chairs & sat out by the River. Beautiful day, the sun was shining & there was a nice breeze. A man and his dog walked in from the campground; he sat down on the rocks by the River & let his dog play. A little later we were approached by a woman & her two little black & white terriers. She said that she & her partner & the dogs were camping at Panther Flat in a Winnebago (we’d seen them drive in). She hung out for awhile & chatted – people you meet camping sure are friendly. She told us that they travel yearly from a campground in northern OR near the Washington border where they spend their summers. Then in the fall they travel along the coast, eventually spending their winters in Nevada where they have a home. She recommended a campground to us in Trinidad, CA – Azalea Glen RV Park; since we were going to spend time in that area in a couple of weeks, we said we’d check it out. It was getting near dinner time so we went back to the RV. This has been a nice, quiet campground in a beautiful setting. The Smith River area, and of course the redwoods, are stunning; we hope to come back again. We’ll miss it when we leave. The kitties like it here, also; there’s definitely not the amount of activity there was back at Harris Beach. They would prefer to have power so they could lie around on their heated pads, though.