With three days for a solo roadtrip, I headed to the far northeast corner of
the state for a visit to the Warner Mountains. I had visited the area briefly
10yrs earlier with my son on a county highpointing mission. There are two of
them located in the range that I tagged, but that was all I did. This trip
would give me a chance for a longer visit to explore more of the range, tag some
prominence summits and give the Jeep another workout. I screwed up when I was
transferring files from my travel laptop to my server and accidently deleted all
the GPX tracks I'd saved for the day. Oops.
Peak 5,530ft
I was up early, before 4a to leave San Jose and the Bay Area in the dark with
no traffic whatsoever. I had driven north to Redding on Interstate 5 and then
north on SR299 before .
On my way to the Warner Mtns along SR299, I took a detour to
visit a couple of minor range highpoints in this part of the state. Indian
Spring Mtn is the highpoint of the Whitehorse Mtns and I attempted to reach it
via a road heading north from SR299 through the small town of Day. The pavement
ends at Day and unfortunately so did public access on the continuing road north
where I found it gated at a boundary between private and national forest lands.
There are other ways to reach it, but they were no longer convenient from where
I was, so I gave it up. All was not lost, because Peak 5,530ft, a P900 was not
far from where I got stopped. I drove back down to Day, then east on dirt Widow
Valley Rd (Forest Rd 94) up to the crest of the Big Valley Mountains. I followed
lesser roads northwest along the crest to get me within about 2mi of the summit.
The area is a mix of forest and private logging lands, leaving a somewhat
confusing mix of roads that can differ significantly from the maps. I found
myself driving around on barely discernable roads with heaps of loose dust in
with piles of slash and earth to confound navigation.
Figuring I was close enough for a hike, I parked the Jeep and
. Starting off cross-country through the grassy forest
understory, I soon found (no longer driveable) that I had
been attempting to negotiate before losing it. The road, quite
, was better than the cross-country otherwise,
and neatly took me , meandering from one side to the
other before reaching the in about 45 minutes'
time. Haze,
trees and tall brush obscured views, leaving this one pretty much a bust.
Widow Mountain
Widow Mtn is the highpoint of the Big Valley Mtns, located at the southeast end
of the range. I drove back out to Forest Rd 94 and then attempted to continue
on other roads along the crest to Widow Mtn, but found the road deteriorating
badly with heavy brush encroachment. I was discovering that the limitations of
the Jeep were rarely tested by the roadbed, but almost always by the
encroaching brush. It seems the hunters who frequent such roads have been
slowly migrating from trucks and jeeps to ATVs over the past several decades.
Where the Forest Service doesn't maintain roads, the hunters only keep logs
and brush cleared for the narrower width of an ATV. It makes sense, of course,
with less work on their part, but I'm finding the Jeep too wide to fit on
many of these older roads. I ended up driving back out to Day, then south a
few miles before trying another road heading east up into the range. It was a
very good road until it hit a quarry, after which it, too, became too overgrown
to continued. I had to drive all the way back out to SR299 and approach the
summit from the southeast. Good roads could then
be taken all the way to
where a telecom tower is located. is just east of this
point in the brush where one can find a Barbara/Gordon register
. Lots of the usual names can be found - ,
, - along with entries from local hunters
and firefighters. There was not far from
SR299 that needs to be passed through (Sierra Pacific Industries land) on the
way to the summit. On the way back I noticed a small sign tacked to a tree
that the area was currently closed to the public due to fire damage.
Mt. Bidwell
I would spend the next three hours after leaving Widow Mtn in driving highways
(SR299 & US395) and backroads to the far northeast corner of the state where
Mt. Bidwell is located, the northernmost P900 in the range south of the Oregon
border. Only two miles from the border in fact, but all the driving was in
California. I drove in from the west on County Hwy 2, an excellent dirt road
that services campgrounds at Lily and Cave Lakes before turning south and
exiting the range at Fort Bidwell. Not far past the campgrounds, lesser roads
can be used to get closer to Mt. Bidwell. I ended up getting within a mile and
a half before my road disappeared and I ground to a halt. Had I turned on
another road a little earlier (there's for the Moonlight
Mine found at the junction), I could have driven all the way to the summit. I
found this better option about ten minutes after and
heading uphill. follows along the broad NW Ridge through open
country with swell views off either side. Though the topo maps shows mines
pockmarking the area, there seems to be little of this. Cattle grazing, however,
is rampant in the range and seems to be its main use. The highpoint is found
atop a broad plateau
rural and forest lands in three states. I found no sign of a register among the
many competing summit boulders. The outing, about 3mi in total, took just under
an hour.
Sugar Hill
This one is a drive-up with an unmanned lookout located at the summit. The peak
is found on the west side of the range overlooking the massive Goose Lake that
straddles the CA/OR border. My route to reach it was poor, a meandering series
of roads starting on the west side,
going wide around the north and east sides of the peak before finishing up from
the south. I found brushy roads I probably shouldn't have pushed through on,
stacks of for purposes unknown, better roads where I
didn't expect them and ultimately wouldn't recommend the route as there are
shorter ways to reach it on better roads. At , the lookout
has been festooned with solar panels and telecom antennae, the entirety of it
surrounded by an impressive fence worthy of a state pennetentiary. There is
located outside the fence to the south, with views
and much of the range stretching to
.
Buck Mountain
I spent another hour driving between Sugar Hill and Buck Mtn, though separated
by less than 7mi. There were excellent roads connecting the two, but these
weren't obvious and I spent more time getting lost on lesser roads where I was
once again stopped by brush. Grazing and logging are evident everywhere,
recreational use less so. There is no road to Buck's summit, but the good one
I traveled got within a quarter mile as it passes by on the east side. I
and made the short cross-country jaunt up steep,
to with poor views. More
interestingly, I found a
good deal of obsidian on the slopes (as I did on Mt. Bidwell, too), some of it
mixed with a brown coloring that made for .
Little Baldy
Bald Mtn, a P1K, lay another 7.5mi to the south with very good roads found
along the way. I passed a sign for Little Baldy and decided to visit it on the
spur of the moment though it had little prominence. A rough road leads to
within a quarter mile of which lies atop a plateau
overlooking the of the range. It was a pleasant
little summit with , particularly at this time of day less
than half an hour before sunset. could be seen about 2mi to
the south and I was hoping I might yet make
it to the summit, even if after sunset.
The topo map shows a road nearing the summit from the north and it was this
spur road I went off in search of. What I found was a very rough track, used
by motorcycles and ATVs, but not really suitable for the Jeep. This would have
made for a 2mi hike each way, more than I was going to do at this time of day
with evening coming on swiftly. The good road I had taken towards Little Baldy
continues around the east side of Bald Mtn, coming within about half a mile. I
decided this would be a better plan, one suitable for the first thing in the
morning. I found a nice flat area to camp about 3/4mi northeast of Bald Mtn,
off the maintained road and very quiet. I had eaten a couple of pieces of pizza
for lunch earlier and decided that would suit me for dinner as well - I hadn't
really done that much hiking today. I did have a beer and some salty
snacks though, tiding me over quite nicely until morning...
Continued...