Bonanza King
My toes had taken a good beating over the last two days, wet and in snowshoes for more hours than they would have preferred. I had planned to do another day of snowshoeing in the Trinity Alps but decided on a tamer outing in the lower Trinity Mountains. This 40 mile-long range divides the Trinity and Sacramento River drainages between SR3 and Interstate 5. Most of it falls within the Shasta-Trinity National Forest making access relatively easy, aside from the sporadic
logging operations (
private logging interests own
a checkerboard pattern of land tracts across the range).
The range's highpoint is at the far north end, the
9,000-foot Mt. Eddy with more than 5,000ft of prominence. It's second most
prominent summit, with just over 2,000ft of prominence, is Bonanza King, located
just north of Clair Engle Lake. I picked out a route from the south about six
miles one-way, all but the last mile on Jeep roads. I did not expect to find
any significant snow as the summit reaches to just 7,000ft, so I left the snow
gear in the car when I set out around 6:15a.
My route was not optimal. As I had not done sufficient research beforehand, I
was relying on the GPS maps to find suitable roads. Some of the data in the
Garmin
database is quite old and such was the "road" I found myself starting up under
headlamp. The road quickly devolved and that first 1/3mi was a mild bushwhack
to a good logging road found traversing the slope higher up. A better route
would have been to start at 
a locked gate
down the road a little ways, but in
the end it didn't make much difference. I soon found my way to the
4WD road
depicted on the 7.5' topo after which the route becomes straightforward. The
sky began to light up with shades of 
pink and orange
around 7a in anticipation
of sunrise around 7:30a. By this time I had climbed high enough to have good
views overlooking 
Clair Engle (Trinity) Lake to the south and the
Trinity Alps to the west. There was a sublime 
sunrise on
the snowy Trinities, the only few
minutes of sunlight I would have all day before the sun hid behind developing
clouds that kept the sky overcast the remainder of the day.
It was 8a by the time I reached the main crest at 
a saddle.
The road continued
south to the lookout atop the lower south summit. I might have visited it on
the way back as a bonus peak since it was less than half a mile away, but the
snow coverage on the 
north-facing slopes
was continuous, hard and slick - it
would not be prudent without snowshoes or crampons. I would have to hope I
didn't run into such conditions on my way to the north summit about a mile in
the other direction. It was an interesting ridge traverse with some fun
scrambling, some 
snow
(luckily only short stretches where it was steep and
slick) and thankfully no bushwhacking. I spent about 40min getting to the lower
south summit, then another 15min for the somewhat harder scramble
further to the highpoint at the 
north summit. Barbara Lilley had left
a register on the
south summit in 2009 with a question mark wondering if it was the highpoint.
The others that signed in were a collection of the usual suspects -
Don Palmer, Bob Packard, 
Richard Carey, Matthew Holliman,
Ken Jones and a lone name I
didn't recognize - a hunter named Trevor White. Most of these same folks signed
into 
another register found at the 
north summit
with the notable absence of
Lilley. The summit would normally provide a good platform for views extending
west to the 
Trinity Alps, north to Mt. Shasta and
east across the Sacramento
Valley to Mt. Lassen, but today we had haze, overcast skies and very cool
temperatures. My return was via the same route, taking me almost 2.5hrs and
getting me 
back by 11:20a.
Slate Mountain
Eight miles SE of Bonanza King is Slate Mountain, a P1K with a USFS lookout tower. The East Side Rd I had been driving turned to dirt/gravel before I reached a saddle with a six-way intersection. I managed to drive the van about 2.5mi on a
secondary road before getting stopped
by downfall. Within about six
miles of the summit, it seemed a good opportunity to make use of the mountain
bike I had brought with me. Most of 
the roads
I followed were rideable with the exception of the 
steepest part
just before reaching the summit. It took just
over an hour to cover the distance to the summit. 
The lookout
was in poor shape,
but still standing. The lower half of the stairs had been removed to keep
visitors from the unsafe wooden structure. Without being able to scale the
lookout, the views were marginal and I found no register or anything else of
interest. Back I went via the same route, a breeze 
on the bike.
Blue Mountain
This P1K is found about 8mi SSW of Slate Mtn, just off East Side Rd as it climbs and continues its way through the Trinity Mountains. The hike is exceedingly short, about 15min of cross-country with some
mild bushwhacking
up steep slopes to a manzanita-covered summit without any views. Some searching
found the 
BLUE benchmark (a metal stake helps mark
the spot). Not much else to this uninteresting summit.
Trinity Mountain
You might think a summit named after the range it lies on would be the highest or have some significant prominence, but the truth is much the opposite. An unnamed point to the west is higher and it barely reaches to 4,000ft. Located near a major junction, the summit is even easier to reach than Blue Mtn. With high clearance one can easily drive to the top. I parked at
a clearing
off
the main road and made a cross-country excursion up the east side to reach the
summit in less than 10min. 
The summit
has a concrete pad that used to hold some sort of structure and has
marginal views mostly blocked by trees. The area sees
regular logging as in much of the Trinity Mountains. On the drive down the east
side of the range to Clear Creek, I was surprised to find an
oversized load on
a semi being hauled up the narrow, windy road. It looked to be some sort of
hulking, rusting piece of
logging equipment but I confess to not really knowing what the
thing was - I was more concerned with it not hitting my vehicle as it rounded
the bend on its way past me.
Shirttail Peak
Once down at
Clear Creek,
I drove south to French Gulch where I found the
gravel Cline Gulch Rd that took me to BLM lands that are part of an OHV area
north of Whiskeytown Lake. On a previous visit I had run out of time to chase
down CC-listed Shirttail, but today I had no pressing engagements needing
attention at home. It was already 4:30p by the time I tracked down
the start for the route up from the south side. A dirt road leads to
the summit in about 4mi, making the outing straightforward though not easy -
there was still some 2,500ft of gain involved. A 
locked gate at the
start keeps most vehicles off the road, though a few determined motorcyclists
have managed to circumvent it. The road leads past the Old American Mine, whose
entrance is shuttered and locked in no uncertain terms (gaining
entry would be exceedingly hard). 
Rail tracks lead out of the mine to
where tailings were dumped down the South Slopes.
Climbing higher, one gains views of Shasta Bally and Bully Choop to
the south,
though this afternoon's view was more haze than anything as the weather started
to threaten with rain. Without views, I took to photographing the
pine trees, 
manzanita blooms and other 
flowers
I found. Lower portions of the road travel through 
heavy chaparral
while further up when it moves to the west and northwest side of the mountain
it goes through some nice 
forested sections. I reached the summit
just before 6p after the road makes a spiraling ascent that goes twice around
the mountain. I expected to find
something of significance at the top to justify the road but found nothing - if
it once held some sort of structure it has been cleanly removed.
Views from there would have been nice, but again the weather was
uncooperative. I jogged much of the route down from the summit, getting me
back to the van in just over
45min. I had enough daylight to take a tepid shower and drive back out to SR299
before darkness descended. I still had something like five hours of driving
to get back to San Jose around midnight, but I didn't have anywhere to go the
next morning and got to sleep in. It had been an enjoyable three days. After
my toes healed up from the abuse they had gotten I would make plans to return
again in the springtime...