This was the beginning of a short four day trip to Northern California. Today
was mostly a travel day, leaving me about half a day to tag some
orphaned prominence summits in the Trinity Mountains north of SR36 and south
of SR299. The area is a patchwork of BLM/Forest/private lands so I wasn't sure
that I'd be able to get to any of them. I managed to get two of the three peaks
of interest, leaving Bluenose Peak undone due to locked gates.
Two Rock Ridge/Lookout Peak/Peak 5,675ft
These three are clustered near each other about nine miles up dirt Bully Choop
Rd from the south, starting at paved Platina Rd. The road can be navigated by
high-clearance, but is too rutted for passenger vehicles. All three peaks lie
on private lands, mostly Sierra Pacific timber. Bully Choop Rd and several spur
roads are nicely open to the public. Two Rock Ridge is just a local highpoint on
Lookout Peak's SW Ridge. The road conveniently goes across
between the two points and it takes just a few minutes to visit
.
Lookout Peak is most easily approached from , utilzing an old
firebreak running up the North Ridge. The hike takes less than 15min with mostly
open views. Heavy haze in the Sacramento Valley east and
south. To rises the most dominant peak in the area, Bully
Choop, just over 3mi away. Peak 5,675ft is found about a mile northwest of
Lookout Peak. An old firebreak runs up , with an
reaching it conveniently from my starting point.
An even better view of can be had from .
Bluenose Peak is only 3mi west of Peak 5,675ft, connected by a ridgeline
separating Trinity and Shasta Counties. A road follows along this ridge,
originating from near Two Rock Ridge where there is a locked gate, signed for
No Trespassing. I had thought this was all timber company property, but there
may be a resident living just down the road near Cold Springs. I decided the
better option would be to approach Bluenose Peak from the southwest.
Peak 4,757ft/Peak 4,625ft/Bluenose Peak
I drove all the way back down to Platina Rd, then west to SR36 at Platina, then
further west for some miles. When I saw a sign for Deer Lick Springs, I turned
off the highway and headed up Harrison Gulch Rd, a well-maintained dirt forest
road. It climbs northwest into the range, and after a number of miles I turned
right onto Deerlick Knob Rd, another good road that climbs NE along the crest
of the Trinity Mountains towards Bluenose Peak. There are a number of lesser
summits along the road that can be climbed fairly easily. The two unnamed ones
I climbed both had more than 300ft of prominence. I was feeling a bit lazy, so
I skipped the other 3-4 that had less than this amount. Peak 4,757ft had some
brush to wade through at before reaching an old firebreak
along the South Ridge that made the rest of the climb a snap.
was a pretty
trivial climb, taking all of six minutes, no brush. I returned to the jeep
hoping to get to Bluenose Peak next. About half a mile northeast of Peak
4,625ft, I came to a fork, turned right, then came to another fork
after a short descent. Here my luck ran out when I came across a locked gate
(unsigned, at least) on the fork continuing to Bluenose Peak. At this point I
was still 4mi from Bluenose and did not feel like starting an 8mi hike at
three in the afternoon. I decided this would better be done with a bike and gave
it up for now.
Peak 4,668ft
Though only 13mi west of Bluenose Peak, this unnamed P1K would take me more than
two hours of additional driving to get to. I descended northwest to Browns
Creek and Deerlick Springs Rd, then north to the pavement of Highway 3. I turned
left and followed this southwest to Hayfork Valley with Peak 4,668ft rising up
to the south. The peak and surrounding areas are in the Trinity National Forest
with two ways to reach it. I tried the shorter route from the east off paved
Wildwood Rd first. A forest road heads up from Hayfork Creek and the pavement
at Staffords Crossing, but the road was recently washed out about a mile up
Carrier Gulch. I then drove all the way around the mountain to approach from
the west, via a forest road that starts near the Hayfork Airport, going up
Kingsbury Gulch. Kingsbury Rd is decently maintained though high-clearance is
recommended. I drove more than 10mi up this road to get within a quarter mile of
the summit where the road reaches on the southeast side of the
summit. I could have driven the jeep to the top (it looks to have been done at
least a few times), but chose to walk through open
forest to the top. There are some views of Hayfork
Valley to the northwest. It was nearly 5:30p by the time I finished up. I
showered where I'd parked before heading back down the mountain and then driving
to Weaverville where I got dinner. Later that evening I drove to the Canyon
Creek TH in the Trinity Alps. Big day planned for tomorrow...
Continued...