Continued...
Weaver Bally Lookout
I had spent the night parked in a clearing off Weaver Bally Rd about halfway
up the mountain. This surprisingly well-maintained dirt road climbs 5,000ft from
Weaverville to the 7,000-foot summit of Weaver Bally Lookout in 9mi. The last
two miles are a narrow, one-lane stretch cut into the steep mountain slope.
Normally this drive would be treacherous at this time of year with snow and mud,
but with another dry year across the state the conditions were extremely
favorable and I had no trouble driving my low-clearance van to the end of the
road where it is just below the summit. I managed to drive to
and walk the short distance to the summit before 7a, a few minutes
. does not have much prominence but
its location at the SW end of a
high ridge gives it a commanding view over the Trinity River drainage. The sun
was making an effort to rise above the clouds that partially blocked its rays from
the edge of the eastern sky. Fog hung over and the lowest
valleys below, creating a serene, early morning landscape. To
rose
the higher summits of Weaver Bally and Monument Peak and it was to these that
I next turned my attention.
Weaver Bally
The lookout may have made the
CC-list but as I was to find out, Weaver Bally
itself is the better candidate. Rising 500ft higher than the lookout, Weaver
Bally is located about 1.5mi to the northeast, about half the distance to
Monument Peak which marks the highpoint of the 8mi-long ridgeline. There is no
trail leading to the summit, but its high elevation above treeline, subjected
to sometimes harsh winter conditions, makes for mostly open terrain. The north
side is somewhat more brushy, but not a serious challenge vegetation-wise. The
East Weaver Lake TH is located at the small parking area on the ridge just
before the gate to the lookout. The trail winds its way around the east side
of Weaver Bally to East Weaver Lake before climbing to the saddle between
Weaver Bally and Monument Peak. I started along this trail for only a few
minutes, until I reached a worn
about the 1987 fire that struck the
area. The ridgeline was bulldozed before starting a backfire to combat that
blaze, but there is little evidence left of the firebreak. Just behind the sign
a use trail cuts through the manzanita and it was this that I followed off
the main trail to begin the ascent to Weaver Bally. The use trail continues on
and off most of the way to the summit, but the terrain soon
enough that the use trail isn't critical. About 15min up
is a to Betty and Wayne Funk (an
online search showed they lived and died in Weaverville, but not much more)
erected around the turn of the millenium. It has overlooking
the Canyon Creek drainage and the higher Trinity Alps to . It
was a delightfully , bringing me to
in about 40min. Almost 8a by this time, fog still filled the lower valleys to
the and . Snow could be seen on the northern aspects
of the ridge, but so far there had been no snow on the route. An
holds a geocache located among the summit rocks. To the north rises the higher
Monument Peak with a 700-foot drop to the saddle mentioned earlier.
Monument Peak
After packing away the geocache/summit register I headed down the
,
taking about 25min to descend through shin-high manzanita lightly vegetating the
sunnier SE side of the ridge. I noted the trail at
but since it was
perpendicular to my line of travel I did not get to make much use of it. The
ridgeline continuing up to Monument Peak is more forested than Weaver Bally and
I found the fairly tame even with the presence of
as I climbed above 7,000ft. The snow was not more than a few
inches thick and not slick enough to be treacherous. Many of the trees have been
with small
metal tags, circular in shape and stamped with a number. Perhaps some one was
counting trees as part of a research project. There is a bit of scrambling and
some mild bushwhacking in the highest reaches, nothing difficult and all good
fun, allowing me to reach the summit just after 9a. This is the closest view I've
had of Thompson Peak and the other high summits of the Trinity Alps, about 13mi
to , and it is a fine sight. To is the jagged
ridgeline atop which
sits Gilbert Peak and behind it can be seen the massive form of Mt. Shasta. Though
I've traveled over mostly bare ground, I seem to be surrounded my snowy slopes.
Snow covers the NW side of to the south and the
of
the ridgeline stretching east and forming the headwaters of Rush Creek. Directly
below me to Monument Peak drops off dramatically for
2,500ft to Rush
Creek Lakes, all the slopes covered in snow. The highest lake which sees the
least sun is frozen over. It is a grand view spot, made more pronounces by all
the snow. Still, these are drought conditions for February - on a normal year it
would have taken far more effort to reach Monument in winter and the snow would
have been far more extensive. I was surprised to find no register here, though
there is a USGS .
I retraced my route back with Weaver Bally and then made
an executive decision to modify the return (it's easy to do when there's no one to
question the choice). Rather than go back up and over Weaver Bally, I decided
to take the East Weaver Lake Trail back to the TH. What I didn't fully
appreciate until I had started down it a good distance is just how far the
trail drops before reaching the junction for the climb back up. In fact,
it drops some 700ft before having to climb back up the same amount which was
strikingly similar to the gain and loss I would have had going back over Weaver
Bally. I had little to complain about since I had a trail to follow and I was
covering new ground. The junction I reached was unsigned and the trails weren't
all that well-defined, but the GPS had it nicely depicted and I avoided what
could have been a costly mistake if I'd missed .
Turning right, I
was now on the East Weaver Lake Trail proper, pleasant enough as it crosses a
couple of on its way past
before starting a steady
climb up and over a subsidiary ridge off the east side of Weaver Bally. I had
some concern because I could see a good deal of snow on this north-facing slope
and I had no snow gear with me. Luckily avoids the snow
for much of the climb by staying on the sunnier
before making a long traverse across the . As expected,
the snow was a bit sketchy
here across a steep slope where one could ill afford to slip. I managed this with
some cautious footsteps, kicking steps in the hard snow in a few places. Once
over the crest of the east ridge, the trail moves to the sunnier
southeast-facing slope that, in sharp contrast, is completely snow-free. An easy
walk along the got be back to
and the van by 10:45a.
Rocky Point
This minor named point is only a few minutes off the Weaver Bally Rd, so I
stopped on the way down to tag it as an easy bonus. As the name suggests, it is
a small that sticks out from the forested slopes,
offering overlooking Weaverville and the surrounding country.
Little Bally
I drove back down to Weaverville, turned west on SR299 and continued to Junction
City about seven miles in that direction. I turned off the highway and started
up Canyon Creek looking for a 4WD road depicted on the topo map leading to the
summit of Little Bally.
There are two summits in the Trinity Alps area with this name. The higher one in
the Whiskeytown Unit I had just visited the previous day. This second one lies
at the lower SW end of Tunnel Ridge, the same ridgeline that rises to Weaver
Bally and Monument Peak. My original, ill-conceived plan, was to climb this from
the bottom past Little Bally and all ten miles to Monument Peak. The plan was
poor not because of it's length or elevation gain but because there is no road
or trail for the 3mi stretch between Little Bally and Weaver Bally Lookout,
making the prospect of dayhiking this brushy ridge extremely difficult if not
impossible.
I had some trouble locating what I thought would be an obvious road. It was not.
The old road starts at a gate located just south of the junction with Clear
Gulch. There is for one or two cars in front of the
permanently locked gate. A
is located just across the gulch with dogs barking at anything in
the vicinity. There are no signs of any sort - you have to know where you're
going ahead of time on this one. The south side of Clear Gulch along which the
road starts is BLM land while that to the north including Little Bally is part
of Shasta-Trinity National Forest and the Trinity Wilderness. The old jeep road
hasn't seen vehicle travel in decades but appears to get some foot traffic,
probably hunters during deer season. The trail requires mild bushwhacking
throughout its 3mi length. The first segment that follows the creek upstream is
in dense with a lush understory that contains some poison
oak to watch out for. The after half a mile can be
difficult in times of high water, but I found little trouble in keeping my feet
dry today. Once on the north side of the creek the road switchbacks and begins
to climb as it makes its way onto Tunnel Ridge over much .
It is not a particularly scenic hike. Most of the route is at too low an
elevation for much in the way of and is a
regular annoyance. Animals and some people have kept the the
route serviceable, but pleasant it is not. Buckthorn in the lower reaches gives
way to manzanita as one climbs higher. Some pine forest offer short respites.
It took about an hour and a half to reach the summit where there are, finally,
. One looks upon the SR299 corridor along
the Trinity River. To you can just make out the
lookout tower at Weaver Bally. The brush between the two and the difficultly of
the route is fully evident - executing it will be left as an exercise for some
future adventurer (I'd really love to hear a tale of someone trying this). The
went much faster and by 2:30p I was back at the van.
Red Hill
For a final bit of fun I went searching through the Junction City backwoods
looking for this named summit along the south side of the Trinity River. There
are all sorts of twisty roads and more homes than one would think this part of
the state could support, but eventually I found my way to the gravel part of
Lake Rd past a lying just south of Red Hill's "summit". It
appears
to have no prominence at all, but probably looks more hill-like when viewed
from the north across the Trinity River. The earth here is a bright
which probably lends itself to the name (why does nothing get named "Orange
Hill"?). After this small diversion it was time to call it a day, hiking-wise.
I stopped in Weaverville for some refreshment and dinner before heading east
back to Buckhorn Summit where I would spent the night.
Continued...