Driving the Forestdale Divide Road

This past Saturday we went hiking high up in the Sierra Nevada mountains above the Carson Pass. The hike is an adventure, of course, and I'll blog about it— soon. First I want to share the continuing adventure of just getting there.

Like any good adventure, the whole journey is part of the adventure! ...Okay, the first hundred-some-odd miles of driving weren't particularly adventurous. We got that part of the trip out of the way by driving Friday Night to Jackson, in the foothills. That left us with a more enjoyable drive Saturday morning up the western side of the Sierra Nevada, driving through the scenic Carson Pass and making a few stops along the way. Then, 191 miles after leaving home, the adventure notched up to the next level. We left paved roads behind.



We turned off Highway 88 at Red Lake, just over the far (eastern) side of the Carson Pass. I think we may have stopped to visit Red Lake once before, but if so it was years ago so we stopped for a visit again Saturday. Red Lake is at about elev. 7,870' (2,400 m). Beyond it Red Lake Peak reaches elev. 10,040' (3,060 m).

Our purpose in stopping here wasn't just to appreciate Red Lake and the peak beyond it but to begin driving the Forestdale Divide Road. It's a 4x4 trail that cuts through remote high country south of Carson Pass. It begins here at Red Lake and ends about 6 miles south at Upper Blue Lake. (Yes, whoever named lakes around here was big on colors. But at least the Blue Lakes are actually blue, unlike red green lake. 😅)

Watch on YouTube

The Forestdale Divide Road is one I've seen marked on a detailed biking map I own of the area. No, I haven't owned or ridden a bike since my early 20s, but I've had this biking map for years. (It's also extremely useful for hiking and 4x4ing.) And for years I've seen this road marked there and marveled at the contour lines it passes through. I could tell it traverses some stunning remote country. And as you can see at around the 2/3 point in the video when we stopped at the top of the Forestdale Divide to get out and walk around, it is truly stunning.

Here's a still photo from the Forestdale Divide in case you're wondering if it's worth watching the video. (Hint: It totally is. Though maybe watch it on YouTube for better resolution.)



In beauty I walk.

Even when "I walk" actually means I drive. 🤣

Aviator Taxies to the Hangar

"Well, folks," airline pilots tend to say when they're about to share bad news over the intercom. Well, this aviator has flown its last flight (for now) and has landed in the great hangar in the sky. The aviator I'm talking about is the American Airlines AAdvantage Aviator card from Barclays Bank. I closed the card recently because I don't see it being worth keeping for another year. Let's run the numbers.

I opened this card account 13 months ago with a lucrative sign-up bonus. All I had to do was pay the $99 annual fee and make one charge in the first 3 months to earn a whopping 70,000 American Airlines miles. Nevermind that I already had three-quarters of a bazillion miles on AA; here was a cheap way to get MOAR! So I signed up, was awarded a ridiculously generous credit limit of $30,000, bought myself one lunch and paid the annual fee, and tossed the card in my desk drawer for what I thought would be the next 11.5 months. Oh, and I did reduce the credit limit from $30k to a more modest $5k. There's no value in having a huge limit on a card I don't use.

The card didn't exactly sit in a drawer for the next 11.5 months. It did see one spurt of activity last winter when AA and Barclays offered a brief, small spending multiplier. I charged about $1k on the card to earn 3k miles with that offer.

All told, I earned 73,000 miles in just over a year from the Aviator card. Valuing AA miles at 1.1 cents per point, those miles are worth $800. Subtracting out the annual fee of $99 I paid up front leaves a net of $700. And subtracting out an opportunity cost of 2% for the $1,100 in charges I put on the card (2% is what I could have earned from my no-annual-fee, cash-back cards) leaves me still with a net of $675. That's a pretty decent haul for a card I barely used all year.

And then I canceled it. Why? Because as good as the $675 net win was, that was mostly from the signup bonus. For the next year the card only pays 1 mile/dollar on most charges. At $.011 value per mile that doesn't out-earn a 2% cash-back card, and it charges a $99 annual fee. Pay money upfront and get less in return than a free card? Haha, no. Canceled.