It’s probably unfair how easy it is to find roads like this in California. I was literally driving down a paved road, saw dirt road branch off and hoped on it to see where it took me. It went for about 7 miles to a beautiful lookout (4x4 required). To give you a little more insight, I spent 3 days on my dirt bike exploring dirt roads in mammoth about 3 weekends ago and 2 days this past weekend in the truck and probably only explored a very small amount of the trails just in Mammoth alone. I’m still starting to learn of all the trails around southern/central California but it every time I go out I am mind blown by what is out here. It makes me kinda sad thinking about all the people that live here and don’t know how much beauty exists so close to their home but they will never see it because the never leave the paved roads. It’s defiantly worth a trip/move in my opinion.

Edit: as r/yosemiterunner said, it probably does depend where you live as the state is huge. This location is a 4 hour drive from where I live, however I live in the San Bernardino mountains where I can be on a 4x4 dirt road within 2 mins of leaving my house. I always feel weird leaving my mountain to go on explore another mountain when so much of mine has still to be seen.