Page: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - Home

DAY 3 - OROVILLE TO BUCKS LAKE, 56 MILES Oroville is a mid-sized town, but we were definitely out of the "city" now with no need to concern ourselves with traffic or finding little backroads. We could map out this route without the aid of Google - just roll out of town on Hwy 162 which becomes the Oroville Quincy Highway after about 10 miles. This road would take us all the way to Bucks Lake except for one little detour on Bald Rock Road to get around a portion of the highway that was closed by a mudslide last winter and is still undergoing repair. The weather was perfect again as we headed off into the mountains. The road started climbing almost immediately as we headed for Oroville Dam and then got significantly steeper as it turned into the Oroville Quincy Highway. Another 5 miles and we hit the closure at Bald Rock Road. We actually could have ridden through the closure as only a small portion of the road was damaged, but we didn't know that for sure and felt safer taking the detour even though it added about 4 miles to a very gruelling ride. Oroville's about 200 ft. above sea level and Bucks Lake is around 5,550 ft. I was guessing the summit between the two was maybe at 7,000 ft. But what I didn't know was that the road had several ups and downs before the ultimate summit and so we probably ended up doing nearly 9,000 ft. of climbing before we finally rolled into Bucks Lake thoroughly exhausted. Highway 70 is the main route between Oroville and Taylorsville/Quincy and it avoids the higher elevations, making a gentle climb to 3,500 ft. over a distance of ~50 miles as it follows the course of the Feather River. But it also takes 99% of the automobile traffic and has very little in the way of shoulders to ride on. So while way more strenuous, the Oroville-Quincy Highway was by far the better bike route. Almost no traffic, and beautiful mountain scenery the whole way. We rolled into Bucks Lake quite late in the afternoon, settled into our motel, and had a nice dinner at the Lakeshore Marina restaurant. It was the first time John or I had ever had chicken-fried steak. Surprisingly it turned out to be the perfect comfort food to end a record-setting day of climbing. By 8:30pm we were both fast asleep. NEXT

Suspension Bridge - Lake Oroville Oroville to Bucks Lake

Bucks Lake Road

Bucks Lake