Only a few weeks after my last visit to far northern California, I was
back for more, once again chasing down P1Ks.
You'd think that with all the trouble I'd had with ticks and
poison oak I might give the area a wider berth until the memory had
faded. With the extra few weeks of warm weather, the lower snows have
begun melting off in earnest. My plan was to stay above 5,000ft to avoid
the poison oak, and hopefully the ticks as well (though I had no data to
suggest ticks are less frequent above 5,000ft), which seemed to work nicely.
Today's selection
included two P1Ks on either side of Interstate 5 near
Castella, south of Mt. Shasta. The region's monarch would feature prominently
throughout the day with gorgeous views of the snow-clad behemoth of the
north.
Grey Rocks
With more than 1,700ft of prominence, are a striking feature
south of Castle Crags. Though higher, Grey Rocks is overshadowed by the far
more impressive . Grey Rocks can only be seen for a short
stretch on I-5, catching my eye a few years ago as I was heading south.
There is no info on PB or LoJ, but luckily there is a nice page on
SummitPost by Bubba Suess. He describes it as a remote peak atop the
Trinity Divide, but a road gets to within a mile of the summit - not all
that remote, really. The paved Whalan Rd climbs from Castella at I-5,
going west up the Castle Creek drainage to Whalan Summit at 5,500ft,
this despite the sign near I-5 that says the pavement ends in 2.4mi (it
doesn't end, but it's not maintained as much past that point - watch out
for potholes). A good forest road then climbs higher to within 2mi, suitable
for all vehicles. The Jeep managed to get to the end of the road just below the
small, unnamed lake above 6,000ft. I did some to clear the
road, but found it only a short distance past this. After more
than five hours of driving from San Jose, I was able to start hiking soon after
10a.
After I'd hiked the short distance up to , I decided to take a
direct route to Grey Rocks North from the northwest since it didn't look too bad
from what I could see. Bubba's route goes around to the south side of the West
Ridge, across a brushy slope and then up to the summit from the south and east
sides, but this seemed unnecessarily convoluted. I would use much of this route
on the return and found it as tedious as Bubba describes it. The Northwest
route, by contrast, was quite fun. After going around the lake (the south side
is far easier to navigate than the north side), one climbs up to
(which makes a temporary lake during Spring runoff), then
up steeply on good (but easy) . I think it would be possible
to improve on by heading directly to the North Ridge and from
there to the summit, but I followed the line of least resistance that led me
through a gap in and then up a modestly
on the south side of the ridge. It took me just over an
hour to cover the 2/3mi to the higher north summit with fantastic views of
Castle Crags and Mt. Shasta to , Grey Rocks South to
, and the Trinity Alps in the distance to the southwest. Not
finding one, I left here before starting down.
I descended the easier slabs on and then followed the
ridgeline south towards , 0.4mi in that direction. This
was a nice traverse, dropping about 500ft to a saddle between the two.
Brush was easy enough to avoid and I took another nice class 3 route up
of the south summit, about 35min all told from the north
summit. There is at the slightly lower south summit and the
remains of a wooden survey tower. There was no register at this summit,
either, but I had no more with me to leave. My return went back down the
north side of the south summit, then a traverse through forest, brush and
boulders to avoid going back over the north summit. My route was pretty
much along the line described by Bubba on SP, and I can't recommend it as
any sort of fun with too much , brush and crappy boulder fields
to negotiate. I was before 1:30p with hours of daylight remaining.
Girard Ridge
I drove back down to I-5 and Castella, then up Girard Ridge Rd (paved
for a few miles, then decent but not great for low-clearance after that)
on the east side of the Sacramento River that cuts through the mountains
here. It was after 3p by the time I'd made my way to Girard Ridge and
then to the SW side of the
ridge's highpoint. From here, the summit is only 3/4mi
away. I started on that starts up the SW Ridge, but
this soon veers over to the west side of the summit before dropping down
gradually to the PCT. There is an old road cut going up the SW Ridge, easy to
follow in places, in others. Still, it offers
the best way to reach which is rounded, covered in manzanita
and has poor views, despite the proximity to Mt. Shasta. There is another
old cut going down the NW Ridge and I decided to follow this on a whim
because I had lots of time to kill. It , overgrown but easy
to follow, then becoming completely lost lower down in a sea of heavy
manzanita. Rather than go back or continue to fight my way along the old
route, I dropped down the north side of the ridge, soon escaping the
manzanita, trading it for steep forest understory that eventually intersected
. I followed the PCT to , then turned
left onto the Girard Ridge Trail (also called the Castle Crags Trail) which I
had started on. There were some nice views to be had of
and from this trail. Easy as pie, almost, taking a bit over
an hour.
Girard Ridge Lookout
On my way back south along Girard Ridge, I decided to pay a visit to the
Girard Ridge Lookout, about two miles southwest of the highpoint. The lookout
for overnight visitors, accessed via a spur road off the
main one along the ridge. A
is found at the road junction, so I
walked the easy 0.4mi to . I found the place deserted but
the cabin unlocked with sleeping bags and other gear . Seems that
someone was currently renting the lookout but were out somewhere else for the
day, no vehicle found outside. I signed the to surprise
the occupants upon their return. The cabin is nicely situated with a
of Castle Crags to the west across the Sacramento
River drainage.
Peak 5,145ft
I still had hours to kill so I decided to continue driving south along the
ridge towards tomorrow's destination, Tombstone Peak. On PB, others have
described the road as overgrown and undriveable due to downfall, but I
found that someone had been doing trail maintenance, though there was
still a great deal of encroaching brush to pinstripe the vehicle as I
drove a few miles through it. The going was slow, but fun in its own way,
and I finally stopped after about 2mi, having cut the distance to Tombstone
down to a more reasonable 4mi each way. I along the rough
drive to pay a visit to bonus Peak 5,145ft whose summit lies only a few hundred
feet off the road. The only views from the forested summit were to
since the slope in that direction had been logged. I stopped for the night
along the ridge just south of Pt. 4,881ft where the road starts a significant
downhill. Time for a shower and a beer, in roughly that order...
Continued...