We have three weeks to kill before needing to be back in the San Francisco Bay Area for a family function and have zero desire to spend it in Snivilization and so decided to head East towards the first large hunk of green we see on a map. That happens to be the Stanislaus National Forest. Over the years I have been to Yosemite dozens of times and spent many a summer day at a family cabin on Pine Mountain Lake in Groveland so we’ve spent a bunch of time being near and driving through the Forest but not much time actually in it. We intend to remedy that oversight during these few weeks.
During our time in the Stanislaus National Forest we did so much that to put it all in one post would just be too much. Instead we have decided to break our adventure posts up and link to them individually from this main Stanislaus National Forest page.
We stayed at two developed campgrounds (The Pines and Anerson Flats).
We took a hike up to a Fire Lookout Tower and took the long, slow drive down Forest Route 1N10 to check out the Lumsden and Lumsden Bridge Campgrounds.
We took a day and explored Yosemite Valley.
We spent the majority of our time dispersed camping off Forest Service roads outside of Groveland. From there we had several hikes into the aftermath of the devastating fire that swept through this area in 2013.
We are amazed at how much we saw in these couple of weeks and knowing how much more there is that we can explore next time we are in the area. We look forward to it.