You really have to have a reason to be driving north of Covelo towards Humboldt County. In our case we did, as there is an interesting rockhounding site to investigate. The oak woodlands were beautiful and empty of people. Much to our surprise we met 30 split-window pre-1968 VW Vans putt…putt…putting up the road.
Why, a curious soul might ask, would such a caravan be out in the middle of no place? We asked the owner of the first van we found dead by the side of the road. He was waiting for the “fix-it” guy to come back from the procession ahead to help diagnose the problem and get him back on the road.
The driver explained once a year word went out to aged VW van owners about a backroads trip from the Clear Lake area to Mount Shasta to ski (if you were athletic) or for companionship and conversation about how to keep your VW alive. I would assume this group was headed to Alderpoint, then who knows where, headed north. The group has been taking a different route every year for 25 years now.
These were not beautiful cosmetically restored VWs. Most looked like beat to shit backcountry/desert specials with brackets and platforms on top for essential supplies and ever present gas cans. These were well used rigs and they had citizens band radios for communicating.
We passed the stretched out VW caravan, then stopped by the new modern bridge over the North Fork of the Eel River to have a picnic lunch. Soon, coming down four miles of 10% grade road to the river, came the vans. They parked inches apart filling an entire lane from one end of the bridge to the other. The other traffic lane remained open if any other autos needed to pass by. But please note: We were so far out in the boonies in three hours of backroads travel we saw maybe four vehicles other than 30 VW Vans.
Back on the bridge everyone exited their van to take photos of all the other vans so we wandered over to talk to them. I was especially interested, as I am a Burner and at Burning Man there is a VW Van camp that hosts a “High Tea” yearly. It is a special event for parents whose children brought them to Burning Man. My son took me and we drank tea in china cups, ate crustless cucumber sandwiches and pastries, and talked about how we came to be there. It’s a lovely event and there, just outside of Mina, I met some of those same hosts from the Burn. We call this “Playa Magic,” when you meet fellow Burners in truly unusual places.
We waved goodbye to all 30 vans as they chugged off up the road to Mina and we turned around and headed back to Covelo. Researching them on the computer when I got home, I found they have a Facebook page but are very private and you don’t find out a whole lot, and their maps from 25 years of back country touring are not published. They just enjoy 500 miles of back roads in the dead of winter in their vintage tin cans and offer advice on how to prepare for such an expedition.
And the rocks we were looking for? Didn’t find much there on the Eel River at Mina. Being part mountain goat would have helped as the steep climb down canyon walls to get to the river bed were beyond my capabilities. But east of Covelo before you get to Indian Dick ranger station on the north side of the road was a pull out with an easy ramble down to the creek bed and there were many colors of jasper, possible jadeite in green, purplish chert, and all kinds of sparkly quartz veins in all sorts of rocks. It was a good day.
BILL GULDAGER: I have had maybe 5 old VW vans, oldest being a 1954 double door. I still have a 56 VW Baja, a swing axle rock climber, and a 1971 single cab with a 2180 engine.
ED NOTE: The Mina Road outta Covelo to Alderpoint is not only stunningly beautiful but, to me, encapsulates the true history of Mendocino County, a kind of geographic trip back to the days of genocide and vendetta and, lately, a backroad smuggler's route for the dope industry. Always carried a gat in the back country east of 101 myself. It's wild out there every which way.
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