Continued...
The last day of my NorCal trip was mostly tame, focused around a couple of P2Ks
on the north and east sides of Mt. Shasta. Ash Creek Butte was easily the
better of two with more rock and views, and combined with its lower sibling
as a bonus peak, it made for an enjoyable outing.
Deer Mountain
This P1K is found just east of US97 and north of The Whaleback. It is wide and
squat, forested, and altogether unimpressive. One can drive to within a mile of
the summit on the east side utilizing various forest roads. The topo map shows
the road continuing, but these have been abandoned for years, blocked to
vehicle traffic. I had spent the night parked at the end of the road and was up
in the morning to start hiking by 6a.
I attempted to use what remained of
going around the northeast side of the summit, but it was too choked with
manzanita to make it worthwhile. I simply headed steeply uphill through the
forest understory where the wasn't hard at all. It took a
little over half an hour to make my way to where I found a
register left by Bighorn Bill , the second of his registers I'd
found in the past few days. Most of the entries were from hunters, not
peakbaggers, but the most recent visitor was less than two
weeks ago. There are no views from the summit, but one can get views through
the trees of at several locations along
. Roundtrip time was just under an hour.
The Whaleback
This is one of the lamer P2Ks in the state, but it
does have a pretty
fantastic view of Mt. Shasta only 12mi to the southwest. One can easily drive
to within a mile of the summit on the north side utilizing Forest Road
42N24 and then spur road "A" that goes around the north side of The Whaleback
and Pt. 7,981ft. Dean Gaudet on PB incorrectly states that this spur road is
signed for "motorized vehicles prohibited". The road and Section 25 north
of Whaleback are owned by Sierra Pacific, but the sign just says vehicles have
to stay on established roads. Most of Section 25 on the topo has been logged,
making an ascent from the north easier, albeit not so aesthetic. I took about
30min to make my way up through , into the forested
section that includes the summit, and across to at the
southern end. There is a cairn, register and presumably a benchmark under
the rocks somewhere. I found but wasn't about to go
digging for the benchmark. Another had 40 pages
of entries, a mix
of surveyors, fire fighters, hunters and peakbaggers - quite the popular summit.
In addition to the (partially obscurred by clouds
today), there was a hazy view of which looked more
promising than Whaleback.
Peak 8,122ft
This is a subsidiary summit on the east side of The Whaleback with more than
600ft of prominence. It has no outstanding features, an unassuming summit in a
clump of trees and marginal views to and
. But it
makes for a fairly easy bonus peak while you're in the area. I
on the forest road between the two peaks, near its end where a locked gate is
signed "Road Closed". It took about 25min to reach and a
bit less for the return. On the way up, I kept to the left to avoid brush found
on the west side
of the peak and this worked out quite nicely. On the return I boldly tried
to take a more direct route and ended up wallowing in brush wet from the
nighttime dew and got fairly soaked from the waist down. Plain dumb.
Peak 7,895ft/Ash Creek Butte
Military Pass Rd, also called Forest Rd 19, is an excellent route between
Whaleback and Ash Creek Butte. The beginning part is paved but becomes a
well-graded gravel road that eventually intersects paved Pilgrim Creek Rd far
to the south on its way to connect with SR89. On the west side of Ash Creek
Butte, spur Forest Rd 42N70 leads up into private Section 27 which has been
heavily logged. I drove to the highest point at about 6,800ft, 700ft
below the curving ridgeline that becomes Ash Creek Butte's West Ridge. Others
have reported this a pleasant hike and indeed it is, along an open ridgeline
with swell views. When I got out of the car and checked the GPSr, I noted there
were two peaks shown within a mile. Ash Creek Butte, too, has a subsidiary
summit, this one about a mile to the north and almost 500ft lower. As it wasn't
yet 11a and this was my last planned outing of the day, I decided to make a loop
of it and visit both summits. I hiked steeply up to
the forested ridgeline, then went down the easier east side for
across to the base of Peak 7,895ft. I could just
through the trees as I started down, after which it was
lost in the forest that I traveled through until I had reached its base about
10min later. The forest only extends partway up to Peak
7,895ft's summit, becoming rockier as one nears the top. There are very
to be had from the summit, including a fine one of Ash
Creek Butte to with its rugged North Ridge. I found no
register, but there was a small, remote weather station situated just below the
summit to . I felt the peak deserving of more love, so
before continuing on my way.
Ash Creek Butte's seemed the logical route between the two
peaks, and although I wouldn't rate it as a classic in any sense of the word, it
was an enjoyable change from the more mundane routes I'd been following
through trees so far in the day. Like most of the rock in the area, it is
volcanic in nature and not terribly solid, but there was enough decent
scrambling to get in a workout and enjoy a bit of exposure in places. There were
some and other features on the ridge that I bypassed
on one side or the other, but for the most part I stayed close to
, taking about an hour to travel from one summit to the
other. At well over 8,000ft, has a commanding view of the
area - this was the highest summit I had visited in on this trip.
was peeking out from the clouds, making for
an imposing presence to the west. There is a from 1931
and yet another of . This one was completely
full, far too many pages for me to bother to photograph.
My return went down the standard route on the curving West Ridge. It sees so
much traffic that a use trail has developed. The brush on the southwest side
of the ridge is pretty rough, but the unvegetated northeast side is gravel,
sand and rock through which the use trail winds. It was even ducked regularly,
though most of those were removed as I made my way down the obvious line along
the ridge. At the 7,600-foot level, I left the ridge to begin the 1,000ft
diagonal descent down through the forest and logged area to get me
by 1:20p.
I still had almost 7hrs of driving to get home by evening, so it
was time to call it quits. Even as I was driving home I was making plans to
return again in a few days. I just can't seem to get enough of this stuff...