"You'll never see anything unless you get out and go there," a wise father once told his adult children. Though he didn't know it, he was paraphrasing the Traveler's Credo: There is no discovery without exploration.
With that philosophy in mind, we embarked on a road trip for a first-time tour of Plumas County, Calif., a 2,618-square-mile area of rolling hills and mountains, gorges and meadows, more than 100 lakes and 1,000 miles of streams and rivers. It's where the Cascade and Sierra Nevada ranges converge. The main industries are logging, ranching, farming and railroading (gold and copper mining once thrived), though the shift is toward tourism as an avalanche of visitors discovers the county's beauty and samples its recreational opportunities.
Trout fishing and hunting are very big, as are hiking, rafting, kayaking and biking. There are far more campgrounds and recreational vehicle parks than motels; three-fourths of the county is national forest land.
We wanted to map a route that will take visitors through the annual cavalcade of fall colors as the leaves turn. We did that easily enough, but we also came across something that urbanites have largely lost touch with: small-town America and the solitude of the high country.
If you follow our route, you're guaranteed to see one of the nation's most vivid shows of fall colors. Quaking aspen, birch, dogwood, black cottonwood, black oak, Western redbud, big-leaf maple, Indian rhubarb, snowberry, poplar and willow are only some of the trees and ground covers whose leaves will turn shades of red, yellow and orange from now until mid-November. Caution: Not all the foliage turns at the same time. There are variations every fall, determined by species, altitude and nature's whims.
"We've got a variety of elevations, from 2,000 to 8,000 feet, with varying microclimates and a lot of water," says Suzie Brakken, who, as director of the Plumas County Visitors Bureau, serves as a cheerleader for fall color tours. "Those ingredients make it possible for (more than 100) species to show their colors. The colors are contrasted by the evergreens and the sky, so you get a green-and-blue canvas that makes the colors pop out."
From Sacramento, Calif., we take I-5 north to Highway 70/99 and continue north on 70 through Marysville, with the goal of continuing past Oroville and on northeast toward Highway 89. Then we'd take Highway 36 to Chester and Lake Almanor in the north county, about 180 miles distant.
We soon leave the herds of brontosaurus-looking big rigs behind and enter farm country. Between Marysville and Oroville, we pull into the Sodaro Orchard and meet Sara Baggett-Sodaro, whose family has farmed here since 1951 (530-743-7735).
"We grow 28 varieties of peaches and nectarines," she tells us.
She produces a knife and cuts into a white peach and a yellow peach and hands over segments, which are juicy, sweet and unlike anything found in a supermarket.
Back on the road, we drive through Oroville and continue on Highway 70 (a k a the Feather River Scenic Byway) toward Plumas County. The road gets twisty and narrower and the evergreen forest thickens as we parallel the dramatic Feather River Canyon, a gorge created by water wearing down rock.
Suddenly, we feel that something is wrong and it takes a minute to figure it out. There is no traffic. We recall that there are only eight folks per square mile in Plumas County and only three traffic lights.
This is what solitude is like.
Eventually, we cross bridges built in the 1930s and drive through three tunnels blasted through the granite mountains.
We cross the river on a one-lane bridge built in 1912 and pull into the rickety Belden Town Resort and Lodge. There's a general store, a big bar and restaurant, and an outdoor deck and picnic grounds overlooking the river. It's a fine place for a lunch break (530-283-9662).
We leave Highway 70 for Highway 89, 22 miles south of Lake Almanor, and cruise through the Indian Valley, a lovely meadow set against a backdrop of gentle hills. It is part of the ancient Worldmaker's Trail once used by the Mountain Maidu Indians.
We stop in Greenville, a town that swelled to 35,000 souls during the Gold Rush and now claims 2,500 residents. Downtown is dominated by the Sierra Lodge-Trading Post complex housed in a century-old building (530-284-6154). Parts of the building facing the street are hand-painted in rich murals depicting historical scenes.
Manager Tracy Ingle shows us around the eclectic collection inside the Trading Post — gold-mining gear, vintage clothing, rifles, old whiskey bottles and more.
"Here's the highlight," says Ingle, pointing to five huge, restored and framed paintings by Roberto Lupetti (1918-1997). During his remarkable career, the Italian artist helped restore the Vatican's Sistine Chapel.
This series of striking paintings, titled "A Day in the Life of a Cowboy," once formed a single mural that hung in a Las Vegas casino, which was razed in the 1960s. The mural was then moved to a resort near Monterey and later found its way here.
Lupetti was enamored of the West, especially the cowboy and American Indian lifestyles, and did dozens of paintings depicting them. These show cowboys on the range and around their camp.
Moving on, we exit Highway 70 for the hamlet of Taylorsville (population 154), which celebrated its 150th birthday in 2003. It's the gateway for leaf-peepers headed to the Genesee Valley and Antelope Lake.
A few businesses housed in wood buildings form the downtown; on the outskirts are rodeo grounds, two museums (530-284-6511), a one-room schoolhouse (1864) and the historic Indian Valley Creamery.
The Taylorsville Tavern looks inviting but isn't open yet, so we wander into the general store (circa 1852) and chat with owner John Taborski, who's lived here for 26 years. The store counter is dominated by a three-drawer, brass-and-oak cash register manufactured in 1910. It's quite a machine.
We continue on Highway 89 to parallel the west shore of Lake Almanor. It's dotted with resorts, walking trails, campgrounds and boat launches. Highway 36 leads into Chester, a town on the north shore.
We're spending the night at the Bidwell House Inn, a gorgeous, well-decorated bed-and-breakfast nestled in a grove of wind-tossed cottonwoods and aspen ($80 to $170, 530-258-3338). From here, it's only a half-hour to the southern gate of Lassen Volcanic National Park.
We settle in and then drive to the Peninsula Grill for dinner (530-596-3538). The chef is John Gamboni, who spent 15 years as the sous chef at the Sunnyside Resort near Tahoe City, and returned home to open his four-star restaurant.
Gamboni is positioned well: The three big players on the ritzy peninsula are the upscale golf communities of Lake Almanor Country Club, Foxwood and Bailey Creek. Lake Almanor itself has become a major stay-and-play destination for veteran travelers.
The next morning, we nose around the Bidwell House kitchen as cook Grace Marion and assistant Cristine Espindola prepare excellent ham-and-cheese omelets and from-scratch apple puff pastries.
Between bites, we talk with innkeeper Kim James, who managed a San Francisco modeling agency before moving here 12 years ago with her husband, Ian.
The hottest local topic is the Dyer Mountain Resort, she says, a $35 million project in neighboring Lassen County, first proposed in 1999. The 6,800-acre year-round resort, now stalled by lawsuits and infighting, would feature ski runs, golf courses, a 4,000-unit community and office space, used one way or another by a projected 10,000 people a day.
We get on Highway 36 and go east, pick up County Road A13 across the peninsula and cut over to Highway 147 paralleling the east shore of the lake.
Our first stop is the Dorado Inn, built in 1955 and an example of one of the many old-time lodges around the lakeshore (off-season — that's now — rates run $90 to $125; 530-284-7790).
"Our main clientele is people from Sacramento, San Jose and the (San Francisco) Bay area," says innkeeper Calvin Westra, who runs the Dorado with his wife, Cheryl. "It's definitely made up of multigenerational families, which is typical (of lodges) around Almanor."
We make our way back to Highway 70 and cruise into Quincy, the county seat. Quincy has the look and feel of a fictitious town in a TV series. It's a hybrid of Cabot Cove ("Murder She Wrote") and Mayberry ("The Andy Griffith Show"). A visitor's first impulse is to want to move here.
The Thursday-evening farmers market on the lawn in front of the Quincy School (1905) is less a place to buy local produce and crafts than it is a town social. A hundred or so locals mingle and chat and proudly watch their children do cartwheels on the lawn.
The white, three-story courthouse (circa 1920) serves as the town square, set on an immaculate swath of grass and surrounded by maple trees. Benches beckon visitors to sit a spell and observe the slowly passing scene. Stroll into the courthouse and you'll stop in your tracks at the sight of the massive columns and the marble staircase and floors that work together to create a stately ambience.
Behind the courthouse is the Plumas County Museum, where we find a sprawling outdoor area of mining displays (including an authentic gold miner's shack) and two indoor floors of mostly donated curiosities featuring dolls, firearms, remedies (Grove's Tasteless Chill Tonic) and Mountain Maidu Indian baskets (530-283-6320).
For leaf-peepers, two excellent nearby side trips are the drives to Bucks Lake and the logging town of Leporte (look for the road signs).
This night, we stay in a cute cottage at Ada's Place in a charming residential neighborhood. The cottage has all the amenities, including a private deck and a quietly burbling fountain ($100 to $120, 530-283-1954).
For dinner it's Cafe le Coq, inside a former residence built in 1912. Patrick le Coq was the chef at Dixon's restaurant in South Lake Tahoe until he relocated to Quincy and opened his fine-dining house in 2004, with partner Donata Smith.
It's 45 degrees at 7 a.m. and we're glad the Morning Thunder Cafe in Quincy has a wood-burning stove and hot coffee drinks (530-283-1310). We fuel up on breakfast and point the car toward upscale Graeagle in the Mohawk Valley. Originally, Graeagle was a logging town known as Davies' Mill. In 1958 the town was acquired by the West family, and the Wests developed it into the resort it is today. In the summer the town swells with owners of second homes who practically live on the six area golf courses.
Before we hit the series of stores and shops that constitute "downtown" Graeagle, we take a side trip on Johnsville Road to visit the museum at Plumas Eureka State Park (530-836-2380).
The two attractions are the little museum in a building dating to the Gold Rush era, and the original multistory stamp mill at the end of a nearby dirt road. The mill is a dominating structure whose job once was to crush ore.
Next, we track down the tiny town of Blairsden (follow county road A14 in Graeagle). En route, we pass two landmarks — the wood-frame, 70-year-old former schoolhouse and the long-abandoned Blue Anchor Dairy building, made from stones in 1927 by the California Fruit Exchange.
We drive over a one-lane green bridge and find a big surprise waiting in Blairsden — the Village Baker, which takes breads, pastries, cookies and cakes to the level of art (530-836-4064).
Next door is Gumbas Italian restaurant, where waitress-hostess Kristen Hartwig, 17, tells us that the best thing about living in Graeagle is this: "It's pretty in the summer."
It's pretty all year round, actually. So pretty that it has gone the way of many mountain communities, says Graeagle real estate professional Leah West, of the founding West family.
"The values of land and housing have gone through the roof because of what we have — small-town charm, four seasons and a shared sense of community," West says.
Clearly, it's time to go home. We could drive through the scenic Lakes Basin Recreation Area and wind up in Auburn, but we choose to go the quicker route, via Highway 89 to Truckee, then via Highway 80 to Sacramento.
We've explored enough for now, but we sure like what we discovered.
Allen Pierleoni can be reached at apierleon@sacbee.com; Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.shns.com.