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Dreary I-80

Truckee River, Painted Rock (10/21/18) Robert Kermen

Truckee River, Farad (10/21/18) Robert Kermen

Donner Lake (10/21/18) Robert Kermen

S. Yuba River, Big Bend, I-80 (10/21/18) Robert Kermen

Dogwood belt, CA-20 (10/21/18) Robert Kermen

St. Canice Church, Nevada City (10/21/18) Robert Kermen

To someone crossing the Sierra Nevada for the first time, Interstate-80 is a thrilling experience.

After all, it’s a route of legends: Notorious Donner Pass. The Pony Express. The trans-continental railroad. The Lincoln Highway.

However, for those who drive it frequently, it’s a dreary source of anxious sameness.

You are always attentive to its steep, winding descent and the trying nature of eighteen-wheelers and impatient motorists competing for space on the all-too-narrow and constantly-being-repaired interstate.

So, there’s little time or incentive to be distracted.

Robert Kermen drives it regularly to Nevada and breaks up the tension of doing so by searching for scenic detours, escaping from the tension of driving I-80 and seeing the route anew along the Truckee River, at Donner Lake, Big Bend and on CA-20 through Nevada City and Grass Valley.

What he has found is anything but dreary.

Leaving Nevada, he is always “impressed with the bright, intense, and saturated colors of the cottonwoods that provide a stark contrast to the neutral colors of the high desert.”

Pulling off at Farad, he lingers to watch fly fishermen working riffles on the Truckee before it drops into Nevada and golden cottonwoods reflected in the bluer-than-blue river between painted Rock and Wadsworth in Nevada.

At Big Bend, along the South Yuba River, he finds hikers and bikers mixing with long-haul truck drivers and motorists beneath a canopy of golden yellow.

Just after exiting onto CA-20, there is what Kermen calls the “Dogwood belt” with both sides of the highway lined with peaking pink Pacific dogwood, positively prepossessing.

Grass Valley provides a “bright and colorful” welcome back to the Sierra foothills, “especially near the St. Canice church.”

I-80, dreary? 

  • Truckee River – Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
  • Donner Lake – Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
  • Kingvale, I-80 – Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
  • Rainbow Lodge, I-80 – Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
  • Cisco Grove, I-80 – Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
  • Bear Valley, CA-20 – Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
  • Grass Valley, CA-20 – Near Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
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