Continued...
The last of a 3-day road trip in Northern California found me camped below
Indian Spring Mtn, the highpoint of the Whitehorse Mountains in Siskiyou County.
Like much of the land in the area, the range is a mix of Forest Service and
private timber interests. A network of roads runs through the range but not all
of them are negotiable. Others have reported using these roads to get within
a short distance of the summit on the southwest side, followed by some awful
bushwhacking. Having driven in the night before, I found a section of road
to negotiate even in the jeep (it doesn't help that I've nearly worn the
tires to the bone already) and was barely able to extract myself. I was at a
saddle on the NE side of the peak, half a mile from the summit. I decided it
would have to do when I got up in the morning. The rest of the peaks that
occupied me until the early afternoon were all much easier affairs, some trivial
drive-ups.
Indian Springs Mtn
Half a mile of brutal bushwhacking is really too much, at least for me, and if
it had been this bad the whole way I would have given up close to
and
wait for another time when the mud was dry later in the season. But though
going up fairly steeply, the first 2/3 of the effort had enough breaks and short
openings to keep me motivated and , trees helping provide
some of these small clearings. The trees gave out for the last third as the
gradient began to roll off. well
made for
quite a challenge. How my pants didn't end up in shreds is a bit of a mystery.
At one point I came upon what I thought was an old road or trail. Turns out it
was a cut made along running perpendicular to my route
of
travel. I stood forlornly looking at what would make a decent trail for a minute
before continuing through the heavy stuff towards the summit. Things eased up
near the end and by the time I was within a few hundred feet of the summit I
could walk around with ease. In hindsight it wasn't as bad as I had feared it
might get, though still no picnic - I spent just shy of an hour to cover that
half mile distance. I found a register in a pair of nested red cans at
, left by Barbara and Gordon . I
recognized all of the names in the four pages of entries, the last being Dennis
Poulin . Views were decent if one walks to the periphery of
the summit area, well to , Whitehorse Flat
Reservoir much closer to . After a few minutes, I gathered
up my courage to return back through the brush. Upon reaching
cut for a second time, I got the idea of following
it east downhill. It wasn't the direct line back to the start, but if I could
reach the road below, it would be
way easier. I dropped some 300ft in
elevation fairly quickly in this fashion until I found the cut made a sharp turn
to the south, now traversing across the east side of the peak. Evidently (and
later I confirmed this) the forest boundary takes a
, leaving me no
more cut brush to follow. Drats. Still, it wasn't all bad as the brush was
easier to descend over than it had been going uphill, and it took me only 10
more minutes to reach below. The return
was just over half
an hour from the summit, almost half the time it had taken for the ascent. I
was thrilled with my success and looked forward to easier going the rest of the
day.
Hambone Butte
This was an easy bonus on my drive back west to SR89. A good road runs along
the west side of the peak with a spur road leading to a cinder pit up that
side of the mountain, ending just . The
cross-country hike to takes a few minutes. Bighorn Bill had
left a register here , making two additional visits before
someone else gave it some love. No views to be had.
Peak 4,136ft
After Hambone, I continued driving west towards SR89, taking a second detour to
visit Bear Mtn. This P1K has a lookout and an easy drive-up, normally. Today, I
didn't get more than a few hundred yards before finding snow blocking the road.
The elevation was barely 4,600ft, but there was of the white
stuff to
drive the road. As I was more than five miles still from the summit, I gave up
the effort for another time. Once on SR89, I drove south towards my next P1K,
Soldier Mtn. Peak 4,136ft was an easy bonus on the way, found on the west side
of the highway. The dirt road reaching up the south side of the peak made for a
challenging drive, but it got me of the summit.
An easy walk along an went up the south side to
. No register or views at the summit.
Soldier Mtn
Like Bear Mtn, Soldier Mtn has a fire lookout atop its summit with an
leading to it. At over 5,500ft, I expected to get blocked by snow
much as I had on Bear Mtn. Oddly, there was no snow to be seen all the way to
the top. I was stopped about half a mile from the summit by
. Upon inspection, I found the gate not locked and was
able to drive to a only a few hundred yards below the
summit. This one was locked so I had to park and walk
. I climbed up the stairs to the viewing deck of
the lookout, taking in in , a nice
little peak.
Fort Mtn
This bonus peak is found just west of Soldier Mtn. After driving a few miles
back down the lookout road, I turned west onto a spur road and drove this up
to within 1/3mi of the summit. The road is , so if one
is adverse to pinstriping, better to walk it. One of the reasons I have a white
jeep is to hide the pinstriping, so I drove it up as far
. The walk to the summit is , no real
brush to contend with. is in a small rocky patch in the
forest with no views.
Haney Mtn
This is off SR299, east of SR89. There are
at the summit and . A fire
had burned over the top recently, leaving it charred and a bit forlorn-looking.
appears to be among a set of rather large cairns on the
north side. I found a nearby. Immediately to
the higher Saddle Mtn,
a summit I had dismissed on this trip since it looked to have no roads getting
very close and tons of brush covering it on all sides. Now that I was looking
at it, the brush didn't look
that bad, and I figured it was worth a
closer look while I was in the area.
Saddle Mtn
I drove back down to SR299, then north on Glenburn Rd just as I entered the
town of Fall River Mills. About a mile to the north, there was an unsigned,
open gate that gave me access to a spur leading up to the saddle between Haney
and Saddle Mtn,
unimaginatively called "The Saddle" on the topo map. The road had been recently
cleared of brush, but it was incredibly dusty, with dark red/brown earth
billowing up behind me as I drove this somewhat rough road for about mile to
The Saddle. Probably visible for a few miles, I wondered if it would attract
attention. I'm pretty sure it's all private property here, but no one came up to
chase me off. under the shade of the largest tree there, then
started off. The first quarter mile is easy
all uniformly
about 6ft tall, almost like a xmas tree farm. I noticed there was
of
sorts through the grass and I followed this, hoping it might help get through
the brushier parts. It soon became evident that this was a use trail that had
been traveled more than once, and it did indeed get me through the heaviest
sections where others had already trampled down the brush. What a great
find, I thought, as I continued following it up the steep south slope of the
mountain. It was about 1,000ft of gain and took just over half an hour. Where
the gradient rolls off towards the top, the brush becomes more sparse and
added some . I found an
lying on the ground
and a makeshift register in a Gatorade bottle nearby. I didn't recognize any
of ,
guessing maybe it's a locals sort of summit. I was thankful that
they had done the trail-breaking work for me, making this one way easier than I
had expected.
Lookout Mtn
This P1K is located north of SR299 and the town of Burney. A drive through the
leads to a rough road leading north along the west side
of the mountain. A very rough road then forks right to climb steeply up that
side
to within about half a mile of the summit. From the satellite
view, the summit appears to be a brushy nightmare, so getting this far was a
big accomplishment. It appears that old logging roads fork off in different
directions going higher and I thought I might get equally lucky as I had on
Saddle Mtn. Alas, it was not to be. I tried various ,
finding them ending in footpaths which eventually petered out in vast areas of
in the oak & pine understory.
There was far too much of this noxious stuff to ignore, forcing me to turn
around on my various attempts to get higher. I was only about 1/3mi from the
summit but still had probably 300ft of gain and no way to avoid the poison oak
that I could find. Had it been earlier in the day I might have given it more
time, but as it was 3p and I still had six hours of driving ahead of me, I
decided to .
Perhaps some adventurous soul reading this will take
pity on me and clip a route to the summit that I can follow. Now, wouldn't
THAT be sweet! :-)