Continued...
Today was a potpourri of peakbagging efforts, including some nice trail hiking,
some bushwhacking, some drive-ups and a whole lot of exploring of forest roads
in the Six Rivers NF of CA's North Coast. All-in-all a much more pleasant day
than the previous one that was overly weighted to bushwhacking. The objectives
focused on a pair of CC-listed summits and a trio of prominence peaks, with a
healthy sprinkling of bonus peaks that were enroute between the main peaks.
The weather continued to be very pleasant with highs in the low 60s, quite
comfortable for hiking.
Chimney Rock/Peak 5,728ft/Sawtooth Mtn
This was a very enjoyable loop hike in the Siskiyou Wilderness covering a bit
under 8mi, most of it on trail, though hard to follow in places. There is no
trailhead kiosk or sign where the road meets the Wilderness boundary, one sort
of has to know where
to look to find the two trails that enter the Wilderness here. One trail is
actually the old section of the Gasquet-Orleans Road that was closed to
vehicles and absorbed into the Wilderness when it was created. I used the G-O
Rd, mostly paved, from Orleans to reach the starting point. At
, I headed off on the to the southwest as
it gradually climbs to reach
marking the boundary between Del Norte and Siskiyou Counties as well as the
Smith and Klamath River drainages. All three summit lie on the crest as well. I
left the road at the crest to follow a faint trail north along the ridge. It
doesn't seem to get much traffic and becomes to hard to follow in places where
the forest was burned badly in the 2015 Gasquet Complex Fire. I had only to
follow it a short distance before leaving it to make my way cross-country
through moderate chaparral to reach my first stop, . It
turned out
to be easier than it looked, no more than class 2 from the north, though there
are certainly more challenging ways to reach it if one chooses. High clouds left
somewhat muted though the summit was open. One can see the
from all three peaks, with some fog creeping up the lower
valleys in that direction. I left here before heading off to
the next summit.
The hike to Peak 5,728ft is a short one from Chimney Rock, as it's really just
the higher end of a short stretch of about 1/5mi in
length. The aren't appreciably different though the higher
unnamed summits lacks the rocky features of Chimney Rock. I continued
from this point along the ridge, finding
(but not really any sort of obstacle) as I went off
in search of the faint trail I had left earlier. With the help of the GPSr to
show me where to expect it, I was able to and keep to it for
the most part. I did lose it in several places where it was hard to discern in
the heavily burned areas, but I kept to the general course as it follows lower
on the west side of the crest. At a saddle with Buck Camp Ridge, my GPSr
batteries unexpectedly failed, though it shouldn't have been all that
unexpected. I've been using the same rechargeable batteries from Garmin for more
than five years now and with nearly a thousand recharges, they have slowly been
coming to the end of their useful
life and don't work so well in colder temps. I've learned that if I tuck the
receiver in my pants, it will stay warmer and extend the number of hours I can
get with them. As backup, I carry a couple of spare batteries, but when I went
to dig these out of my pack's zippered waist pouch, I found that one of them had
gone missing. Hmmm. Seems I might have to finish this one without the benefit of
the GPSr. This turned out to not be a real problem since I had the general lay
of the land. Fog that was as I was ascending Sawtooth Mtn had
me a bit worried about finding myself in a whiteout, but the fog only threatened
and eventually began burning off later in the hike.
There is a trail junction along the crest near a small, unnamed lake. This was
the other trail that I would use to return to the start. I continued on the
trail along the crest until it began a descent on the
east side about a quarter mile south of Sawtooth Mtn. The climb to Sawtooth's
summit from the trail is a , one of the few such
opportunities one gets in the North Coast region, more reminiscent of Sierra
scrambling. Upon reaching the summit I immediately noticed there was a point
that appeared higher about a quarter mile along the
crest. I found several
at the southern point, but couldn't located the benchmark which I suspect to
have gone missing. I went over to investigate the ,
taking less that 15min to scramble between the two. A combination of
differential GPSr readings (warming the receiver had brought it back to life)
and a hand level suggest the northern point is higher by about 6-8ft. I left
at the northern point before retracing my steps back to the
trail. A good deal of fog wafting up from the canyons below during this time
muted what would otherwise be pretty good views.
Upon returning to the trail junction at the outlet of the small lake, I turned
left and followed this alternate trail, now a shortcut to return to where I'd
parked.
sees much more traffic and is far better defined, but there
were still places where I managed to lose it in the burned sections of forest.
The trail is more pictureque than the outbound one, going by several additional
and crossing a couple of streams and that were
quite green and . I found very easy to follow
where it began to descend to Elk Valley where I'd parked, eventually getting me
to the jeep just after
11:30a. A very pleasant way to spend five hours, this one.
Peak 5,080ft/Peak 5,173ft
These two bonus peaks are located at the end of the of
G-O Rd, just outside the eastern boundary of the Siskiyou Wilderness. They are
both short hikes from the pavement, only encountered and
fairly .
I spent about an hour all told visiting the two points before starting back
down the road where I found other distractions on my way to Black Mtn, a P900
and my next main objective on the drive back to SR96.
Peak 4,159ft/Lonesome Ridge/South Lonesome Ridge
These next three peaks were all located a short distance off Forest Road 13, not
far from its junction with G-O Rd. Peak 4,159ft has going
over its summit from the northwest. Though no longer driveable, it makes for
and it took all of 12min to reach the not-so-interesting
which is just
the highpoint of the road going over it. Lonesome Ridge is about a mile to
the northwest. A decent road goes very close to the summit, but it was blocked
by near FR 13. Still, it took only ten minutes to
to . A grouse flew down from a tree to
give me his ,
perhaps confusing me for an eligible mate. He danced around for nearly a minute
before finally realizing he was getting nowhere and flew off. South Lonesome
Ridge proved a near drive-up, requiring me only to walk about 150ft to find
above where I'd parked.
Trail Mountain
This summit is located close to the Cedar Camp Rd/G-O Rd junction. A short, easy
bushwhack up from leads to
buried in forest cover. There
was an empty pair of nested orange cans found at the highpoint, just as I'd
found on nearby Vans BM the day before. I suspect these were once part of a
Bighorn Bill register collection, perhaps pilfered by rodents for their
nest-building paper contents. Without much prominence, I didn't think it worthy
of leaving a register and returned to the jeep, taking 8min for the roundtrip
effort.
Prospect Hill
This was another easy bonus further down G-O Rd. An
makes for a short, easy hike to the summit where an old
lies abandoned. The highest point is atop a rock
nearby which offers a slightly better, but still .
Black Mountain
This P900 lies less than 2mi from SR96 and the Klamath River. There is no road
leading to the summit, though one can drive around it to get within a quarter
mile. Because of the low elevation, I was expecting this might be a nasty bit
of bushwhacking. I was pleasantly surprised to find that not far from
on the northeast side of the mountain, I came across
a well-groomed that had been cut up .
It allowed an ascent to
to be made in less than 15min. The trail is not well-marked where it joins the
driveable road below, and it's purpose was a bit hard to determine. It may have
been someone's pet project and since abandoned, but that was just a hasty guess.
The summit was buried in trees and offered no views, to no real surprise.
Peak 2,913ft
After returning to SR96, I went over
in Orleans to begin exploring
parts of the forest on the other side of the Klamath River. Following Dennis
Poulin's PB directions for Hopkins Butte, I made a first stop not far from
the river to take a crack at Savorum Mtn, a P1K. Starting up from a saddle on
the of the mountain, I found the road shown on the topo map too
overgrown and choked with brush to make much use of. The forest understory on
started off quite promising and I made good progress, climbing up
more than 400ft, almost half the elevation gain but not quite 1/3 the distance
to the summit. Then things went sour in a hurry with thick, dusty
that had me discouraged quickly. I just didn't have
the strength nor motivation to press on, so I turned around and gave up. I'll
have to do this brutish one some time in the future when I have a better frame
of mind.
I continued driving up Skelton Butte Rd which would take me to both Hopkins
and Shelton Buttes in 6-7mi. About halfway up the road I came to a halt where
a huge tree had recently fallen on the road, completely blocking it. In way of
consolation, I decided to pay a visit to nearby Peak 2,913ft, off a spur road
that forked just before the blockage. I drove to a saddle on the east side of
the peak and had to park before hiking the remaining distance up
that led to the summit. It was a quick 10min roundtrip effort to the summit
covered in forest and without views.
Hopkins Butte
Back to the jeep, I began perusing my maps for an alternate route to Hopkins
Butte. I found one that worked, but it was a very long diversion, more than
10mi of extra driving on winding forest roads. It was nearly 7p by the time I'd
made my way to the ,
2/3mi north of the summit. The topo map shows
a road continuing up the ridge for about half the distance, but it was too
overgrown to be of much use, even on foot. Instead, I found better going in the
adjacent forest to the east. It
as I'd hoped, but it was much
better than it could have been, taking me about 30min to cover the distance to
the summit. The last few hundred yards had clearer forest understory and were
as I found my way to the highpoint. With only
, I left on this P1K under a small pile
of rocks I collected from the forest
floor. I returned pretty much the same route, finding it easier to stay off the
old road I had tried to use at the start.
Shelton Butte
This last summit of the day lies a few miles northwest of Hopkins Butte. It
used to be home to a fire lookout, but now just sports a small
.
Pretty much any vehicle can make the drive up to this one, no
hiking involved. It was almost 8:30p by now and time to call it a day. Since
the higher elevation offered a cool respite from
the higher temperatures down by the river, I decided to spend the night
atop Shelton Butte. With only a modest amount of bushwhacking on the day, I
found it far more enjoyable than the previous day...
Continued...