Since moving to SF, my roommate Tucker has not stopped talking about his Chunderdome: a massive tent extravaganza that can fit an infinite number of people inside, along with all their hopes, dreams, and aspirations, and then some extra space to boot.
But our roommate group has been a busy one, unable to take the Chunderdome out for a spin until this past weekend. Finally, the roommates were all free for a camping adventure! We packed up our things, invited all our friends, bought a ton of food, and were off.
Clear Lake, here we come!
Friday, May 1st, 2026
The best part about planning the Chunderdome trip was… that I didn’t actually plan anything at all. Unbelievably nice. I spent most of college planning such trips and dealing with all the many moving parts and pieces on the trips themselves, and then thru-hiking all of last summer where I had to plan weeks (even months) ahead. So the fact that I just had to pack a camping bag and Venmo some money over to the actual planners was an 11/10 experience. Highly recommend.
We had 12 people going on the trip:
Tucker, Roommate #1 (Chunderdome owner)
Alex, Roommate #2 (aka Sasha)
James, Roommate #3
Me, Roommate #4
Brooke
Alec
Alex #2
Audrey
Audrey #2
Jacob
Tina
Tyler
An epic group, needless to say. We piled into 4 cars for the drive up; 4 cars fortunately made it back.
The four cars all left at different times; I headed up with Roommate #2 Alex and Tyler at “7 pm”, meaning 8:30, which was ironic because we were the last group to leave but the one with the tent. We made it to the campsite (some undeveloped land in the mountains east of Clear Lake) around 11 pm and promptly proceeded to set up the Chunderdome extravaganza.
It lived up to the hype: giant, beautifully orange, and really fucking cool. It’s also deceptively spacious and can fit an entire army of campers inside.
The Chunderdome was also a pain in the ass to set up - giant poles, confusing layout, sky-high ceiling, clips all over the place. It was a blast. The tent poles were each easily 20 feet long, there were 10 such poles, and the roof once set up was 10 feet off the ground. Utterly insane. Some of the higher clips were too far up to reach by one person, so we threw some folks up on some shoulders and tried our best to not break any necks. We succeeded in the neck-preservation but not in the clipping-the-poles-in part, so instead we did the “let’s pull the pole back out and use a long stick to thread it (read: smack it) into the clips” method instead. A time-honored method, I might add, that worked perfectly.
With the Chunderdome set up, we chillaxed by the campfire, played a few games of Blokus, and started the monumental task of consuming the ample amounts of drinks we brought on the trip. Good work team.
Saturday, May 2nd
Despite the later night on Friday, our group woke up surprisingly well-rested; sleeping out in the woods after weeks of city life will help with that! A slow, relaxed morning ensued, which was greatly improved by the addition of an egg breakfast. The only significant downside was the lack of coffee; we’d brought an Aeropress and were all ready to go, except we forgot to bring the beans. I’d say lol but the lack of coffee meant I was crying on the inside.
Quickly, it got rather warm despite our higher elevation and was plenty dusty despite it being only early May. A hike was proposed, then discarded, before we all agreed that swimming in the lake was quite the fantastic idea. We all piled into the cars and sped down the dirt roads to the shores of Clear Lake, then spent another 30 minutes driving exactly halfway around it to the largest public beach in the area. The hills were beautiful, the oaks stunning, the weather perfect; an all-around lovely drive over with Sasha and Tyler. The best part was the stop at the gas station for a much-needed drip coffee - day-saving.
We arrived at the rather murky Clear Lake right around noon and proceeded to spend the rest of the day relaxing and hanging out at la playa. A quite small playa, I might add, even though it was the largest public beach anywhere along Clear Lake’s 100-mile-long shoreline.
It was a delightful afternoon, passed by without a care in the world: We drank plenty of drinks that weren’t exactly water, then played Blokus. We swam, then we tanned and hammocked. We saw a dead floating fish. We pulled the empty lifeguard tower chair over to our area to sit like royalty high above our peasant empires. We enjoyed yummy chicken burritos while nearly being blown over by the crazy wind, then cheered when it died down.
Later, James took us all fishing out by the rocks, having brought his fancy fishing rod from home and his tackle box full of elaborate hooks and lures. Not wanting to be left out, I convinced him to fashion me a fishing rod out of my cycling water bottle, 10 yards of fishing line cut from his reel, and a small hook he’d bought at the gas station we stopped at earlier in the day. Armed with that beauty and a small can of worms (acquired at the same gas station), our group spent a few hours fishing, enjoying brewskis, lounging on the warm stones, and swimming out to unhook the lures as they got caught on the reeds.
And I’m happy to report that though James has much more fishing experience and a significantly nicer rod than I, we caught the same number of fish: 0.
Headed back to our campsite once it got cold and windy again, then spent the rest of the evening eating yummy food, desserts, and washing it down with drinks. The best part were all the stories, jokes, and laughter - stories about work, Walgreens, teaching students math, failing hard, and mushrooms (in no particular order). The campfire safely roared high thanks to copious amounts of wood and pine needles chopped and stacked as darkness fell. Perfect night.
Most important of all - would you rather watch a tree grow? That’s the big question.
Sunday, May 3rd
An earlier night last night, earlier morning today. We had run out of propane after dinner yesterday but were luckily in a forest; that meant plenty of wood, which meant plenty of things to burn. James cracked 10 eggs in a pan, Sasha and I made sure the fire was nice and cozy, and breakfast was saved:
The time came to FLIP the eggs. The stakes could not have been higher (our entire breakfast) but James succeeded with AMAZING finesse:
After munching on those yummy eggs and drinking some yummy coffee, we packed up the Chunderdome, packed up the cars, and headed home, racing back along the dirt roads along the mountain ridgeline.
Immediately we saw a snake. I love catching snakes; Tina fears them like the plague. Naturally I had to catch the snake and chase after Tina with it, giving her a minor heart attack and receiving strong reprimands from Brooke et al. Completely worth it.
The next three stops on the way home, in order, were:
Feeding sheep on the side of the road and getting yelled at by the farm owners (lol)
“Old Faithful”, a mini geyser that erupted right after we arrived. The staff tried to charge us $15 to get in, we said no way, then watched the geyser erupt over the parking lot hedges anyway (they were rather short) and got yelled at by the staff again (lol again)
A mini Petrified Forest, which is apparently the largest such collection of Petrified Trees in all of California, and a collection I didn’t know existed until our group found it on the map driving home (mega lol)
Our three cars pulled into the Petrified Forest parking lot, disturbed a large anthill, dutifully explored the gift shop, then arrived at the entrance gate: $14 per person.
Quite the steep price to see a few ancient trees, even for an enthusiastic budding geologist like myself. Fortunately we had a large group and I love a good haggle, which set us up for success:
“Hi there! Do you have a group pricing discount?”
“Yes we do! It’s $50 for 5 people.”
“Can you do $80 for 10 people?”
Shrugs, slightly blushes. “Yeah sure.”
Damn. With how easily she accepted that $80 drop, I should’ve haggled it down to $60. Oh well!
We strolled around the trees, 7/10 experience. Pretty neat but the Petrified Forest NP in Arizona is significantly cooler. It was definitely a neat experience, but calling it “cool” might be a bit of a stretch.
Back at the cars, we ate some sandwiches under the delightful shade of an oak tree, Tucker almost smashed James’ petrified fish rock he bought for a much-too-high-in-my-opinion price, and then we parted ways into two groups: Tucker’s car back to SF, the other two toward the ocean and to Bodega Bay. Bye bye Tucker et al!
Bodega Bay was lovely - we buried some logs, dug our toes into the sand, and eventually I convinced everyone to jump into the freezing ocean because… “why not”? Sandy, exhilarated, and content with a fantastic weekend, we headed back to SF, unpacked the car, vacuumed the infinite grains hiding between the cracks, and called it a day. We’re already planning the next Chunderdoming adventure, perhaps with some backpacking backpacks - stay tuned for v2!
Hugs,
Dennis :)
P.S. This time last year I was just starting to thru-hike the PCT - crazy! Throwback to when I was bald:
Gallery:
Some trees grow quite fast!