Continued...
Day 3 of my Fall trip to the North Coast ranges was a bit of a
mixed bag. High winds that blew most of the night had dropped leaves,
branches and no small amount of trees, too. My initial effort was a
long 15mi drive to visit Lake Mtn, a CC-listed summit I had to forgo on
a previous trip because of snow. I was up by 5:30a to start my day,
driving much of the route to Lake Mtn in the dark. I had to drive over
a few trees up to six inches in diameter but ultimately got stopped
2/3 of the way up the mountain by an uphill tree that had
, blocking it.
It was too big to move or cut with my saw, so I had
to turn around. A second effort to Evan Mtn nearer the Klamath River
was stopped by private property, a third by another downed tree.
Consequently, it wasn't until 8:45a that I was able to start the first
hike. Sometimes that's just the way things go...
Cade Mtn/Slater Butte/Jackson Peak
These three summits are located at the southern end of Thompson Ridge,
northeast of Happy Camp. I had only planned to do Cade Mtn, the P900,
but found the others each not far from the previous so it ended up being
much longer before I returned to the highway and the Klamath River. A
paved Forest road climbs up Thompson Ridge, making the driving easy and
suitable for any vehicle. For Cade, I parked at , 2/3mi
to the northwest of the summit. An old runs up
the ridgeline but is fairly brushy. Still, better than trying to go up
on either side of the ridge, as far as I could tell. I expected
to be buried in forest, but was surprised to find it had an
excellent view to Happy Camp and the Klamath River
drainage. I left here before descending the same way.
At I noticed pointing up the road to
. If Barbara Lilley could spend more than a hundred days
chasing down lookout summits, so could I. Another
blocked the
road before I could reach the summit, but the walk was fairly short. In
fact, I found that the downfall was less than 100yds from a locked gate
anyway. Rather than follow the road, I took a more direct route up the slope
from the north, finding a use trail of sorts and only
to contend with. was closed up but allowed one to climb to
the observation deck for better views. With the exception of that
marred by a host of telecom antennae,
were quite fine, overlooking much of the all
over Northern California and .
at the jeep, a few more miles of driving got me to the north side
of Jackson Peak. A road shown on the topo getting close to the summit is
now , but it makes to avoid
the brushy ridgeline. At the end of this spur road I found
leading up through forest understory to . No views on this
one, but Bighorn Bill had left a register , already collecting
13 pages of entries, many of them from crews battling various fires in the area.
Peak 3,860ft
After finishing the first three summits, I drove down to SR96, stopping
at Happy Camp for a large soda, snack and some gas. As I was driving
south on the highway towards Dillon Mtn, I noticed on the GPSr an
unnamed summit on the other side of the river, towering high with 800ft
of prominence. A bridge appeared right about where it should if one
were to look for a way up, so I figured it was karma and left the
highway to investigate. I didn't really size up the driving effort
required which turned out to be 14mi each way. Not sure I would have
even started had I known this, especially considering the odds of
downfall blocking the road somewhere. Luck was with me and I found the
road clear all the way to the north side of the summit, only 1/3mi
away. I used an now closed to vehicles to hike closer, then
up to the - as good as any
summit I visited today. Seemed worth a register for such an obscure peak, so I
before heading back.
Dillon Mtn/Peak 3,800ft
I drove back down to SR96, south a few more miles, then a 9mi drive to
Dillon Mtn, about half of the road paved. I only a few hundred
yards from the summit on where the road ends in a
clearing with great views off to . It took only a few minutes
to hike up to which had so-so views, much of them blocked
by high brush. Peak 3,800ft was a bonus peak a few miles from Dillon, only a
short bit of driving off the route to Dillon. The
I used to reach the summit was helped by , but the very
top was and a bit slow-going. There was a single,
sitting close to the summit that had survived the fire that took out most of
the other trees. Good view of from the summit, but
otherwise not terribly interesting.
Ukonom Mtn/Peak 4,580ft
Once again I drove back down to SR96 and then up the east side, another
9mi drive to Ukonom Lookout. I think I drove about 100mi today and perhaps
15,000 vertical feet - well done, Jeep. The first five miles of the Forest road
was paved, then good dirt to Ukonom. There was just over
half a mile before , necessitating another short hike. This
was closed up for the season, but also nicely constructed to
let visitors on the observation deck. As one might expect from a lookout sitting
atop a P1K, were outstanding. To the south was a last bonus
peak only a short distance off my route, Peak 4,580ft. From Ukonom,
looks like it has an inverse mohawk, a clearcut path neatly
forged through the forest . I on the
northeast side of the peak where the spur road gets closer, but
found the effort fairly heavy with brush. It probably would have been
better to make the longer hike up the clearcut from the northwest, but
I made my route work. Trees block most of the views, but there is a nice
one down the Klamath River drainage.
It was too cold where I'd parked (41F) to take a shower, so I drove
back down to the highway and river where it was ten degrees warmer at
a very fine campsite riverside. Nice!
Continued...