Ride Along with OTG on a 300+ mi Adventure Through our Local Forest

Mendocino Grand Circuit If you'd like more information about the 315 mile Mendocino Grand Circuit, be sure to visit the Route Guide Page. Chances are, if you keep close tabs on our YouTube channel or the articles published on the website, then you know our home base is in beautiful Northern California. For those of us who affectionately call NorCal home, there's so much to see and experience here. Whether you want to head to the rugged and wild North Coast, walk through a redwood forest with the world's tallest trees, bask in the fog that clings to the coast during the summer months, or head to the High Sierra or Southern Cascades—the point is, if you're into experiencing the outdoors on a year-round basis, there's always somewhere to go and something to do.

And one of our favorite places to explore is the Mendocino National Forest, only a couple of hours north of San Francisco and a place we consider our local forest. Sure, it may not have the granite monoliths and jagged peaks of the High Sierra or the snow-capped summits of the Southern Cascades like Lassen and Shasta, but it does have all of the country charm and raw beauty that places like Mendocino County are famous for. Think golden rolling hills that glow at dusk, a slower pace of life, and mountainsides draped in fir and pine, mixed with oak, madrone, and chaparral.

It's rich with history as well. The gentleman bandit Black Bart used to roam these hills, holding up stagecoaches in exchange for short but eloquently written poems. The pioneer James Hull was mauled and killed by a grizzly bear on Hull Mountain, where his body is still buried. And these lands are the ancestral homes of the Yuki and Pomo people.

But most of all, while the popularity of camping and overlanding has grown immensely since COVID, Mendocino National Forest still sees a fraction of the use compared to the Sierra and Southern Cascades. And perhaps best of all, the forest is filled with thousands of miles of dirt roads and trails, the vast majority of which can be easily explored in a crossover like a Subaru or RAV4!

So come along with OTG as we take on the 300-mile Mendocino Grand Circuit on a five-day adventure through the Mendocino National Forest!