It had been two years since I was last in far Northern California, and time
for a return. With only two days for a short trip and a long drive, I
decided to leave San Jose in the wee hours of the morning to give me as much of
a full day as possible. My main goals were a collection of P1Ks and P900s in
the Shasta-Trinity NF east of Mt. Shasta, but I would manage only half of the
agenda I had in mind for the two days. The main problem was that many of the
forest roads were still closed even though there was almost no snow on any of
the places I wanted to visit. It seems that Sierra Pacific Industries has
installed a lot of new gates and has limited public vehicles on their property.
About an hour before sunrise, while cruising north on Interstate 5, there was
on the eastern horizon - a
vertical "flare" of light where the sun would come up, looking like a
flashlight had been shone up into a dusty attic. It persisted until just before
the sun came up, first time I noticed such a thing. I looked it up later and
found it is called a "sun pillar", caused by light reflecting off falling
ice crystals high in the atmosphere. Who knew?
Skunk Hill
My first two efforts were to reach Peak 4,416ft and Bald Mtn, both P1Ks south of
property and I had little chance of success. The access roads off Squaw Valley
Rd were gated at the pavement. Bald Mtn is located in the NF, but I found it
8mi from
the summit where the route goes through Sierra Pacific property. The road may
never be open to the public vehicles. I didn't want to do a 16mi hike for the
one peak, figuring I'd come back with a bike sometime in the future. My
consolation was , a minor summit just opposite where I
encountered the locked gate. The distance was short and an
ran up the northwest side from a saddle where I parked.
I spent less than 30min for the roundtrip effort, finding , no
obvious summit, but no bushwhacking, either.
Grizzly Peak - Pigeon Hill
After to the Jeep, the next hour and a half were spent on
various efforts to reach Grizzly Peak, some five miles east of Lake McCloud. I
had tried to reach it from the south two years earlier, but was stopped by snow
on the road in May. My first effort this time was to return to that route, using
Forest Route 11 that climbs the Hawkins Creek drainage from the dam at Lake
McCloud. I found the road blocked by a washout two years ago when trying to
descend to the lake, and found out today that the road has not yet been
repaired.
Letting Google Maps make the second effort, I drove out to SR89 heading east,
then south on dirt Tate Creek Rd. This ended in a locked gate at the boundry
with Sierra Pacific property a little over a mile from the highway. My third
effort took me futher east on SR89, then south on FR39N06 and Grizzly Peak Rd.
The name of the road was encouraging and I managed to drive roughly half the
distance until I was stopped by another . Now past 11a, I
was itching to get at least one P1K today. As I was driving up the road I told
myself I'd hike it if I could get within five miles. When I was stopped by the
gate, I noted my GPSr showed 5.01mi to my destination. The gods were laughing
at me. It would be more than what my GPSr showed in reality as it was simply a
rough route estimate, but I decided to go for a hike.
It wasn't the best of hikes, mostly because I'm not fond of road hiking. It was
warming quickly and would be in the high 70s before I was done. I took about
60oz of Gatorade which sufficed, though I would be dehydrated before I was done
four hours later. The route would entail about 2,000ft of gain, including a
side trip to Pigeon Hill on the way back. The road has numerous forks, but goes
all the way to the summit of Grizzly Peak. Most of the route travels through
private forest with little shade when the sun is overhead. Views of
can be seen occasionally, as can in
the last two miles. Once the ridge was attained in , the
route had some spectacular views along the ridge separating the McCloud River
drainage to and the Pit River drainage to .
A lookout tower once stood on , but is no more, just
some concrete from the foundation. A small and antenna are
to one side. I had planned a rest at the summit, but was inundated
with annoying flies that drove me away after only a few minutes.
Pigeon Hill is located a mile and a half northeast of Grizzly Peak, only 1/3mi
from the roadway. parallels the road for a short distance
between it and the summit. This came as a surprise as I was nearing Pigeon Hill
on my way to Grizzly, and I followed it hoping it might go over Pigeon Hill. I
found it never gets more than about 100ft from the road here, and the brush on
of the summit is horrendously thick. On the way back
from Grizzly Peak, I took another shot at it from the southeast corner, where
offered easier travel. This lasted only a short time
and I spent more than 30min through some
- a lot of work for a minor summit. The summit is open
to among a , hardly worth the
effort to reach it. On the way back, I did a better job of avoiding bushwhacking
by taking a less direct path that veered more to the north. This took me through
areas that had been logged in the decades past, the brush not as thick as
encountered on the ascent. It was nearly 4:30p by the time I
to the Jeep four hours after starting out.
Bear Mountain
I was hot, tired, and not all that enamoured by situation. A cold beer on the
drive out helped considerably. It would take me an hour to drive back out to
SR89 and then further east to Bear Mtn. This summit lies in the national
forest, though part of the five mile dirt access road travels through Sierra
Pacific property. The road was in good condition, but 3/4mi from
the summit. I spent 20min walking to the summit
where a decommissioned next to a telecom tower. The
lookout was locked but the observation deck open. The looked
much like it did back when it was in service. I saw along the
road and a bare mattress inside suggests they might rent this one out, though
covid19 probably put a stop to that in the past year. Views overlook a sea of
forest as far as the eye can see. Mt. Lassen can be seen far to
, and the ever-present Mt. Shasta can be seen to
. I wandered around the rocks outside the lookout, finding
but no register. Upon leaving, I decided to shortcut the
road with an all-cross-country descent off the southwest side. Oddly, this was
the most fun I'd had all day. It was clear that I prefer wandering through
more than I do walking on roads and bushwhacking. It
helped revive my spirits further as I returned to the Jeep by 6p.
Toad Mountain
Back on paved Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway, I headed north, intending Harris
Mtn to be my last stop. Along the way I noted a Toad Mtn about two miles south
of Harris Mtn and made a detour to visit it. I was able to drive forest roads
within a quarter mile of the summit on the north side where the road was
by a downed tree. I parked here and to the
summit cross-country through forest, taking about 15min to reach
. A small pile of rocks held a Bighorn Bill register
. Unfortunately, both cans that held it had rusted through
and the small notepad had no plastic bag to protect it. It did not appear to
have seen another visitor since it was left. I left that
I was
carrying, placing it in the rusted tins with the older notepad. A fairly easy
summit that few folks ever visit.
Harris Mountain
This last summit would take more work as I only managed to drive within 2/3mi
before getting by downfall. There are no old logging roads that
I could discover and the the ascent was steep and moderately brushy, taking more
than half an hour. Once on the peak's , I found large
boulder features along the route and a suprisingly of
smaller ones forming the highpoint at the top, surrounded by forest. A battered
from 1946 was found on one of the boulders. I found no
register and was disappointed that I had forgotten to bring one myself. It was
8p and while I was at the summit, time to head down. I
used an alternate route to the southwest, somewhat steeper but no real brush to
contend with, to
the Jeep in less than 20min. I drove only a short ways back to the better
Forest Route 13 before deciding it was a decent place to spend the night. It
would take another hour before it would begin to cool down below 70F. With
dinner and other chores, it wasn't until 10p before I was in my sleeping bag.
Not really sure why it took so long to get to bed, but it wouldn't take long
for me to be asleep...
Continued...