W.
SUMMARY OF TRIPS
Mount Shasta from the Eagle Creek Divide (see Trip 28)
Introduction to the Area
Imagine for a moment that you’re driving north on I-5 south of Redding, California, on a glorious spring day, after a north wind has cleared the air above the upper Sacramento River Valley—a day when you can see for a distance of more than 100 miles. As the freeway crests a ridge, the frosted cone of Mount Shasta directly north suddenly enthralls you and your passengers, the majestic peak towering into the sky above the surrounding lowlands. Over to the northwest, a row of snowcapped peaks above the lower ridges behind Redding intrigues you. Most of your riders may be surprised to see snowy mountains toward the Northern California coast, but those in the know may recognize the Trinity Alps, and soon regale the group with interesting accounts of past experiences in one of the state’s most diverse mountain ranges. With the possible exception of fishing stories, the tales they tell about these mountains are probably true.
The Trinity Alps, along with the nearby Whiskeytown Unit of Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area, the Russian and Castle Crags Wildernesses, and Castle Crags State Park—all within a remote and diverse range known as the Klamath Mountains—make up the scope of this book. This range of about 8,300 square miles encompasses a large area of northwestern California and southwestern Oregon, extending from the Sacramento Valley all the way north to the Willamette Valley. The area is deeply dissected by rivers, with the Trinity Alps Wilderness, Russian Wilderness, and Whiskeytown NRA drained by the Trinity, Scott, and Salmon Rivers, and Castle Crags drained by the upper Sacramento River.
The Trinity Alps forms the centerpiece of this guide, an area of about 525,000 acres of splendid wilderness and near-wilderness. The federally designated Trinity Alps Wilderness, set aside by the U.S. Congress in the California Wilderness Act of 1984, contains a half million of those acres, an area of more than 780 square miles. The wilderness includes all of the 234,000 acres previously protected as the Salmon–Trinity Alps Primitive Area, plus, obviously, a great deal more land.
Compared with the Sierra Nevada or Cascade Range, the Trinity Alps is a much smaller mountain range in both height and expanse. However, bigger is not necessarily better, as the Alps are filled with rushing streams, high waterfalls, gorgeous mountain lakes dimpled with trout rises, glaciated granite peaks, remnant glaciers, and cool green forests—plus some unique features all their own.
What the Alps don’t have, unlike other popular mountain ranges in the state, is hordes of people. Positioned in remote northwestern California, hundreds of miles away from any large population centers, the Alps tend to attract crowds only in a few areas. Part of the purpose of this guide is to inform the reader about some of the lesser-used places that, in many cases, can handle more visitors than some of the more popular areas.
View over Trinity River Canyon
Photo: Luther Linkhart
The Whiskeytown Unit is one of three parcels of land surrounding artificial reservoirs built as part of the Central Valley Project in the 1960s comprising Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area. Whiskeytown Lake is a 3,250-acre reservoir that doesn’t suffer the effects of drawdown like Shasta and Trinity Lakes, which makes Whiskeytown a popular summertime destination for boaters and water-skiers. Encompassing nearly 42,500 acres, the land around the reservoir boasts 24 trails that are well suited for day hiking and mountain biking. With elevations ranging from 1,200 feet at the lake’s surface to 6,029 feet at the summit of Shasta Bally, Whiskeytown can be quite hot during the typically sunny afternoons in summertime. Therefore, spring and fall tend to be the most pleasant seasons for trail users. Four of Whiskeytown’s trails are included in this guide—three to picturesque waterfalls and one to the view-packed summit of Kanaka Peak.
The Russian Wilderness, also set aside by Congress in 1984, is much smaller than the Trinity Alps, at a mere 12,000 acres. However, within that more diminutive acreage is a biological diversity that makes the area unique. The concentration of 17 distinct conifer species in the Duck Lake Botanical Area distinguishes the Russian Wilderness as one of most biologically diverse areas in the world. In fact, some smaller plants here grow nowhere else in the world. The area straddles a divide between the Scott and Salmon Rivers, and elevations range from a little more than 5,000 feet to 8,196 feet at the summit of Russian Peak. This compact wilderness also boasts 22 lakes and numerous trails, including a section of the famed Pacific Crest Trail.
The 4,000-acre Castle Crags State Park and adjoining 10,500-acre Castle Crags Wilderness combine to form the final backcountry area covered in this guide. Situated along a stretch of the upper Sacramento River and just off I-5, the park is open year-round to campers, picnickers, sightseers, and outdoors enthusiasts. Ranging in elevation from around 2,000–3,000 feet, the lands within the park are towered over by the Castle Crags, a series of dramatic, granite spires, some of which exceed 6,000 feet in elevation. With 22 miles of trail, Castle Crags State Park offers plenty of opportunities for hikers. Castle Crags Wilderness, also set aside in 1984, contains the namesake crags and surrounding higher-elevation backcountry. Nearly 28 miles of trails, including a 19-mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail, offer opportunities to visit a wide variety of terrain, including high-elevation lakes, flower-covered meadows, and the crags themselves. While defined tread leads to the base of the crags, a more intimate visit requires basic off-trail skills.
The Klamath Mountains yield their inner secrets and pleasures only to hikers, backpackers, and equestrians willing to head out on 500-plus miles of trail. Automobile-bound visitors to resorts near the lakes and rivers see only a fraction more of the mountains than they would see from their car windows on I-5. The general purpose of this book is to inform and inspire those willing to forgo the comforts of their vehicles to get out onto the trails.
Natural History and Environment
GEOLOGY
If you crumple a piece of paper into a ball, and then spread the paper out partway so it’s still crumpled and creased in all directions, you would have an approximate model of the topography of the Klamath Mountains. Although the Trinity Alps do form a generally east–west divide, and the Russians form a north–south divide that separates the Scott and Salmon Rivers, the area’s contorted ridges, canyon, and peaks seem to run helter-skelter in all directions.
The metamorphic rocks in the Trinity Alps area are some of the oldest in California.
These mountains are only vaguely related, geologically, to the Coast Range to the west, and not related at all to the volcanic Cascades beginning with Lassen Peak and Mount Shasta to the east. They are, in fact, the southern part of the Klamath Mountains, which include the Marbles and Siskiyous farther north. The Klamath Mountains harbor some of the oldest rocks in California. These rocks originated as offshore sediments, largely volcanic in origin, which were repeatedly uplifted, folded, and combined with the
