Category: Mt. Shasta Area

Southern Oregon & Northern California

Post author By derwoodynck
Post date November 6, 2023
9 Comments on Southern Oregon & Northern California

Several years ago we set a goal for ourselves to hike all 500 featured hikes in William L. Sullivan’s “100 Hikes…” series of guidebooks (post). In 2020 we completed the first of these books covering the Central Oregon Cascades (post). We followed that up by completing a pair of books in 2021 starting with Sullivan’s “100 Hikes/Travel Guide Oregon Coast and Coast Range” 3rd edition (post) followed up by “100 HIkes/Travel Guide Northwest Oregon & Southwest Washington” 4th edition (post).

Generally speaking in order to check a hike off our list we need to have hiked a substantial portion of Sullivan’s described hike or visited the main attraction(s) he identifies for the hike. For 66 of the hikes we followed the books described route. For the other 34 hikes various factors contributed to us not completing all of each featured hike. For some we started at a different trailhead, others had portions of trail(s) closed when we visited, and several had longer options that would have required multiple days to complete. In some other cases we did slightly different routes, sometimes by accident.

The area covered by Sullivan in this book, as the title suggests includes parts of Southern Oregon and Northern California. It contains his southernmost featured hike, Caribou Lakes. In general the area covered in Oregon begins just North of Roseburg extending East to Highway 97 (with the exception being Klamath Falls which is included in his Eastern Oregon book), South to California, and West to Marial on the Rogue River. In California the area extends south to the Trinity Alps Wilderness, West to the Siskiyou Wilderness, and East to the Mount Shasta Wilderness.

The hikes inside the red lines represent the location of the featured hikes.

In addition to the three wilderness areas in California mentioned above the featured hikes included visits to the Marble Mountain, Castle Crags, Russian, and Red Buttes Wilderness areas in California. Wilderness areas in Oregon included the Red Buttes (OR & CA share this wilderness), Kalmiopsis, Wild Rogue, Soda Mountain, Mountain Lakes, Sky Lakes, Rogue-Umpqua Divide, Boulder Creek, and Mt. Thielsen.

In addition to the 15 designated wilderness areas there were hikes in two National Monuments – Oregon Caves & Cascade-Siskiyou, and Crater Lake National Park.

#1 North Bank Ranch-Hiked 6/5/2015 6/25/2023

#2 Fall Creek Falls-Hiked 6/13/2022 8/7/2022 6/25/2023
Fall Creek Falls
#3 Little River Waterfalls-Hiked 8/7/2022
Yasko Falls
#4 Boulder Creek-Hiked 9/7/2020

#5 Twin Lakes-Hiked 6/14/2022

#6 Fish Lake-Hiked 9/3/2022

#7 Buckey and Cliff Lakes-Hiked 9/3/2022

#8 Umpqua Hot Springs-Hiked 6/13/2022

#9 Toketee and Watson Falls-Hiked 6/13/2022

#10 Lemolo Falls-Hiked 6/13/2022

#11 Cowhorn Mountain-Hiked 9/15/2016

#12 Miller and Maidu Lakes-Hiked 8/1/2012

#13 Tipsoo Peak-Hiked 10/2/2014

#14 Thielsen Creek-Hiked 8/8/2020

#15 Mount Thielsen-Hiked 9/23/2012

#16 Diamond Lake-Hiked 9/5/2020

#17 Mount Bailey-Hiked 8/12/2012

#18 Boundary Springs-Hiked 6/13/2014

#19 Park Headquarters-Hiked 7/31/2023

#20 Garfield Peak-Hiked 7/31/2023

#21 Discovery Point-Hiked 9/19/2022

#22 The Watchman-Hiked 8/12/2012 7/31/2023

#23 Wizard Island-Hiked 8/1/2023

#24 Mount Scott-Hiked 10/2/2014

#25 Plaikni Falls and The Pinnacles-Hiked 7/30/2023

#26 Crater Peak-Hiked 7/30/2023

#27 Annie Creek & Godfrey Glen-Hiked 7/30/2023 7/31/2023

#28 Union Peak-Hiked 9/17/2022

#29 Upper and Lower Table Rocks-Hiked 6/9/2017 (Lower) & 5/26/2022 (Upper)
Lower Table Rock

View from Upper Table Rock
#30 Lost Creek Lake-Hiked 6/9/2017

#31 Takelma Gorge-Hiked 10/15/2020

#32 Natural Bridge-Hiked 10/16/2020

#33 Union Creek-Hiked 10/17/2020 9/20/2022

#34 Abbott Butte-Hiked 10/17/2020

#35 Hershberger Mountain-Hiked 10/16/2020

#36 Muir Creek-Hiked 5/27/2018

#37 Rattlesnake Mountain-Hiked 9/6/2020

#38 Seven Lakes West-Hiked 9/9/2023

#39 Seven Lakes East-Hiked 9/9/2023

#40 Blue Lake Basin-Hiked 9/18/2022

#41 Mount McLoughlin-Hiked 8/27/2016

#42 Fourmile Lake-Hiked 8/26/2016

#43 Sky Lakes via Cold Springs-Hiked 9/24/2022

#44 Sky Lakes via Nannie Creek-Hiked 9/24/2022

#45 Fish Lake-Hiked 10/7/2018

#46 Brown Mountain Lava Flow-Hiked 8/28/2016

#47 Lake of the Woods-Hiked 10/7/2018

#48 Mountain Lakes-Hiked 8/25/2016

#49 Soda Mountain-Hiked 6/3/2015

#50 Pilot Rock-Hiked 7/29/2017

#51 Mount Ashland Meadows-Hiked 6/3/2015

#52 Lithia Park-Hiked 6/2/2015

#53 Bandersnatch Trail-Hiked 6/17/2022

#54 White Rabbit Trail-Hiked 6/17/2022

#55 Grizzly Peak-Hiked 6/5/2015

#56 Roxy Ann Peak-Hiked 5/30/2022

#57 Wagner Butte-Hiked 6/4/2015

#58 Siskiyou Gap-Hiked 6/16/2022

#59 Jack-Ash Trail-Hiked 5/27/2022

#60 Sterling Ditch Tunnel-Hiked 6/10/2017 5/2/2023

#61 Jacksonville-Hiked 6/8/2017

#62 Enchanted Forest-Hiked 6/11/2017

#63 Observation Peak-Hiked 6/15/2022

#64 Collings Mountain-Hiked 6/8/2017

#65 Applegate Lake-Hiked 6/8/2017 5/29/2022

#66 Red Buttes-Hiked 10/27/2015

#67 Frog Pond-Hiked 6/18/2022

#68 Azalea Lake-Hiked 10/26/2015

#69 Sturgis Fork-Hiked 10/7/2023

#70 Grayback Mountain-Hiked 10/9/2023

#71 Oregon Caves-Hiked 10/30/2015

#72 Mount Elijah-Hiked 10/7/2023

#73 Sucker Creek-Hiked 10/26/2015

#74 Tanner Lakes-Hiked 10/8/2023

#75 Bolan Lake-Hiked 10/8/2023

#76 Polar Bear Gap-Hiked 7/1/2022

#77 Raspberry Lake-Hiked 7/3/2022

#78 Devils Punchbowl-Hiked 7/2/2022

#79 Rough and Ready Creeks-Hiked 5/12/2017

#80 Babyfoot Lake-Hiked 10/9/2023

#81 Eight Dollar Mountain-Hiked 5/4/2023

#82 Illinois River Beaches-Hiked 5/4/2023

#83 Grants Pass Nature Trails 5/3/2023

#84 Rouge River Trail East-Hiked 5/1/2023

#85 Rogue River Trail West-Hiked 6/24/2023

#86 Paradise Lake-Hiked 6/28/2016

#87 Sky High Lakes-Hiked 6/29/2016

#88 Campbell Lake-Hiked 6/27/2016

#89 Paynes Lake-Hiked 7/24/2017

#90 Russian Lake-Hiked 8/24/2022

#91 Hidden & South Fork Lakes-Hiked 8/26/2022

#92 Trail Gulch Lake-Hiked 8/25/2022

#93 East Boulder Lake-Hiked 8/23/2022

#94 Kangaroo Lake-Hiked 7/23/2017

#95 Deadfall Lakes-Hiked 7/25/2017

#96 Caribou Lake-Hiked 7/27/2017

#97 Castle Lake-Hiked 7/26/2017

#98 Castle Crags-Hiked 7/26/2017

#99 Black Butte-Hiked 7/28/2017

#100 Mount Shasta Meadows-Hiked 8/22/2022

In our minds this was by far the most challenging area to finish even though we did so before completing Eastern Oregon. The difficulty with Eastern Oregon mostly revolves around distance from Salem and the size of the area covered. The Southern Oregon-Northern California area is smaller and the hikes not as far away, but it involved a lot of trails that frankly don’t see the level of maintenance that most of the other areas receive. While we’ve encountered rough trails, all over poison oak is much more prevalent down south which doesn’t invite pushing through overgrown tread or bushwacking around obstacles. This area has also been hit harder by fires over the last couple of decades leaving extra work to reopen them as well as remove additional blowdown as the dead trees fall over. When the conditions were good though the scenery and diverse plant and wildlife made for some spectacular hikes. There are many that we’d love to do again and several non-featured hikes that we have in our future plans, so we aren’t done with area yet. Happy Trails!

California Hiking Mt. Shasta Area Trip report

Mount Shasta Meadows – 08/22/2022

Post author By yunckrunner
Post date August 29, 2022
4 Comments on Mount Shasta Meadows – 08/22/2022

We had planned a five day backpacking trip in the Wallowas but then a red flag warning for the possibility of abundant lightning the first day followed by more chances of thunderstorms over then next two derailed those plans. That trip would have checked three more featured hikes from the remaining twenty one hikes on our to-do list from the Eastern Oregon area. With all twenty one of the those hikes being located in the NE corner of Oregon (15 in the Wallowas and 6 along Hells Canyon) there were no alternate plans we could look to in that area to continue making progress toward or 500 featured hikes goal (post) so we turned to the Southern Oregon & Northern California book instead. For that area we still had thirty one featured hikes left including five hikes in Northern California, one at Mt. Shasta and four near Carter Meadows Summit west of Callahan, CA. A clear forecast and no wildfire closures provided a green light so we booked a last minute room at the Etna Motel in Etna, CA and once again headed south this year.

When we reached Yreka, CA instead of taking Highway 3 to Etna we stayed on Interstate 5 and continued south to Mt. Shasta and made our way to the Upper Panther Meadows Trailhead. We had tried to do the hike here in late July 2017 but a late snow melt that year had kept the gate to this trailhead closed so we had hiked from Bunny Flat instead (post).

Lupine at the trailhead.

A line of smoke over the Castle Crags (post) and Mt. Eddy (post).

Castle Crags

From this trailhead we followed the Everitt Memorial Highway uphill a quarter mile to the South Gate Meadows Trailhead.
Green Butte and Mt. Shasta

Here we hopped onto a rock lined trail and climbed a half mile to a pass where we entered the Mt. Shasta Wilderness.

Common buckeye

Red Butte from the pass.

Mount Eddy from the pass.

Heather standing at the wilderness boundary.

From the pass the trail descended 0.6 miles to a signed trail junction at The Gate below Red Butte.
A dry spring along the trail. Ideally we would have been doing this hike (and trip) in late July for more wildflowers but sometimes the circumstances dictate when and where we wind up.

Approaching The Gate.

Shastarama Point and Thumb Rock

Gray Butte

The trail junction near The Gate. The trail to the right would be our return route to make a loop through Panther Meadows, but for now we went left following the pointer for South Gate Meadows.

We followed the trail downhill through boulders from Red Butte then into a forest that provided the first real shade of the hike.

A paintbrush and aster.

Penstemon

Some haze to the south but we could make out Lassen Peak which is one we rarely ever get to see.

Lassen Peak

Just under three quarters of a mile from The Gate we arrived at South Gate Meadows.

Primrose monkeyflower

From the meadows use trails head both up and downhill along South Gate Creek (aka Squaw Valley Creek). Sullivan showed a “monkeyflower spring” a half mile uphill and a “circular meadow” four tenths of a mile downhill. Not knowing when we might be back we decided to do both starting with the downhill first.
The use trail crossing the creek.

In sight of the circular meadow.

Marsh grass-of-Parnassus

Paintbrush

After a quick visit we headed back up to South Gate Meadows.

Back at the meadows.

We then took a use trail up along the eastern side of the creek which brought us to the spring.

A pair of common buckeyes.

Primrose monkeyflowers and paintbrush

Not the “monkeyflower” spring but a smaller one along the way up.

The “monkeyflower” spring.

A couple of monkeyflowers and a buckeye.

I climbed a bit above the spring to check out the view.

Heather arriving at the spring.

We took a break here and one at the little spring we’d passed on the way up and then headed back toward The Gate.
A Clark’s nutcracker also taking a break.

Two types of monkeyflower and bog St. John’s wort,

One last pass through South Gate Meadows.

Red Butte

Shasta knotweed

Back at The Gate.

From The Gate we followed the pointer for Panther Meadows. This trail brought us through a barren landscape before climbing over some glaciated rock and entering a forest.
Mt. Shasta from the trail.

Red Butte

Glaciated rock.

Mt. Shasta and Sargents Ridge.

Into the forest.

The trail left the wilderness along the way.

Just over three quarters of a mile from The Gate we arrived at a junction with the Gray Butte Trail. We had considered taking this 0.9 mile detour but it was already 2:20pm and it was also fairly warm so we decided to skip it this time around.
The junction with Gray Butte behind the trees.

From the junction the trail gradually descended a half mile to Panther Meadows.

Another Clark’s nutcracker. They are boisterous birds and other than first thing in the morning we get a kick out of listening to them.

Stream flowing through the meadows.

Gray Butte from Panther Meadows.

At a junction on the west side of the meadow near Panther Meadows Campground we followed a pointer for Upper Panther Meadow.

We followed this trail just over a third of a mile uphill to another junction where we turned right and followed a path across the creek.

We kept right for 0.2 miles to reach Panther Spring.

After visiting the spring we backtracked a tenth of a mile and turned right for a third of a mile back to the Panther Meadows Trailhead to complete the loop.

Picnic tables at the trailhead.

With the two side trips at South Gate Meadows and some other wandering the hike came to 7.4 miles with approximately 1900′ of elevation gain.

From the trailhead we drove to Etna and checked into our motel then made a quick run to Ray’s Food Place for some food for the week. It was a nice start to the vacation made even better when we saw that the Callahan Fire which had started on 20th just 6 miles east of Callahan had been fully contained at less than 10 acres. That one had the potential to do a lot of damage (and put a nix on the rest of our hikes). Our plan for the next day was to hike to East Boulder Lake as that was the closest to where the Callahan Fire was and therefore most likely to be closed if that fire were to spread but thankfully it sounded like that wasn’t going to happen. Happy Trails!

Flickr: Mount Shasta Meadows

Tags California, gray butte, Green Butte, hiking, Mount Shasta, Mt. Shasta, Mt. Shasta Wilderness, Panther Meadows, Panther Spring, Red Butte, Shastrama Point, South Gate Meadows, The Gate, The Thumb, Upper Panther Meadows Trailhead

California Hiking Mt. Shasta Area Trip report

Black Butte, Horse Camp, and McCloud River Falls

Post author By derwoodynck
Post date August 4, 2017
6 Comments on Black Butte, Horse Camp, and McCloud River Falls

We’d spent five days hiking in the greater Mount Shasta area but it wasn’t until the sixth day that we made it to the mountain that we’d been seeing every day during our hikes. In truth we were holding out hope that the Everitt Memorial Highway might be opened by the end of the week so that we could drive up to the Panther Meadow Trail but that wasn’t in the cards this trip as there was just too much snow still left over from this past winter.

Our plan had always been to do multiple hikes on the day we visited Mt. Shasta and with our other two hikes a go we looked to Hike Mt Shasta for ideas for another trail on the mountain and chose the Horse Camp Trail.

We started our day at the Black Butte Trailhead where we found a caution sign posted by the Forest Service.

The slide referenced in the notice was said to be a mile and a half up the the 2.6 mile trail so we figured we could at least get most of the hike in and if it didn’t look too dangerous we could do the whole thing.

The trail began in a the forest climbing steadily as it wound around the cinder cone.

We’d gotten an early start which was nice not only for the views but for the temperature as well since we’d be gaining over 1800′ feet if we made it to the summit.

As we emerged from the trees we had a front row view of Mt. Shasta over our shoulders.

While Mt. Eddy lay straight ahead partly covered by the 14,180′ volcanoes shadow.

It was a little late in the year for many flowers along the trail but there were still a few as well as some other interesting plants.

2017-07-28 06.22.39

2017-07-28 06.25.40

After 1.3 miles the trail came to a switchback revealing a small rocky gorge in the butte.

Mt. Eddy was now behind us as we continued to climb with the summit of Black Butte in the sunlight above.

Our timing was good as we were in a great spot to watch the Sun rise over Mt. Shasta.

As neat as that was to see the Sun was soon directly on us and things heated up quickly as we clambered over the rocky trail.

We were beginning to wonder if the Forest Service had made up the slide because we’d been hiking long enough that we were sure we’d gone further than a mile and half and hadn’t seen anything yet. It turned out that the slide was closer to 2 miles along the trail.

With a little caution it was passable but it didn’t look like it would take much for it to get a lot worse. After passing the slide we came to a second switch back where the trail began to climb more aggressively toward the summit.

After a third switchback the trail began a series of shorter switchbacks up to the summit where the foundation remains of an old lookout tower.

Mt. Shasta’s shadow had been replaced by that of Black Butte, but the 6358′ butte couldn’t reach Mt. Eddy.

Meanwhile the position of the sun made it nearly impossible to look at Mt. Shasta.

There was a nice cool breeze at the summit and we lingered there awhile before heading down. After completing that hike we hopped in the car and drove to the Bunny Flat Trailhead which is where the Everitt Memorial Highway was gated closed.

We had several options from this trailhead including Horse Camp, Green Butte, or a loop visiting both. Given the heat and the fact that we were beginning to run out of gas in our legs we opted for the short (1.6 mile) trail to Horse Camp, the site of the Sierra Club Foundation’s Shasta Alpine Lodge.

After filling out a wilderness permit we set off on the trail heading directly toward the mountain.

After a short distance we turned left following a pointer for Horse Camp.

The wide trail passed some patches of wildflowers as it climbed for a mile to a junction with another trail coming from Sand Flat.

The trail steepened as we entered the Mt. Shasta Wilderness but leveled out some as we arrived at the Shasta Alpine Lodge.

We sat in the shadow of the lodge for a moment then explored the area a bit.

Behind the lodge climbers were getting last minute instructions before heading up the summit trail.

Next to the lodge was a spring and spigot for water.

We declared victory here deciding to leave any other hiking on the mountain for our next visit. We returned to Bunny Flat and headed for our final stop of the day at the Lower McCloud River Falls picnic area.

For this hike we were using a recently obtained guidebook written by Bubba Suess from Hike Mt. Shasta, “Hiking Northern California A Guide to the Region’s Greatest Hiking Adventures”. The book covers all of Northern California and has some amazing looking hike which we hope to get to at some point.

The picnic area is located off of Highway 89 about 15 miles east of Mount Shasta City. Similar to our visit to Castle Lake we were getting a late start due this being our third hike of the day and we found the parking area packed with people trying to escape the heat. We walked over to a signboard with a map and then set off towards a viewpoint of the Lower Falls.

A little creative camera work produced a human free photo of the falls.

We left the crowds at the falls behind and followed the River Trail upstream toward the Middle Falls.

We passed by Fowlers Camp which was busy with campers as well as a doe searching for edibles.

At the end of the camp was a pointer for Middle Falls.

The Middle Falls were quite impressive and although there were a number of people around it wasn’t nearly as busy as the Lower Falls had been.

From the base of the Middle Falls the trail climbed via switchbacks above the river.
2017-07-28 12.26.07

The next .3 miles were level offering a somewhat obscured view of Mt. Shasta.

After a total of 2 miles we arrived at the Upper Falls.

We continued on a short distance to admire the narrow gorge the river passed through above the Upper Falls.

2017-07-28 12.35.56

We returned the way we’d come and drove back to Mount Shasta City having completed 10 hikes in 6 days in California including visiting 4 wilderness areas that we had not previously been to. We’d seen our first rattlesnake, a bear cub and its mom, several deer and lots of other wildlife. We had experienced amazing scenery on all of the hikes and really couldn’t have asked for a better trip. The one negative happened after we’d showered and changed and headed out for an early dinner.

We chose a small Thai restaurant (the food was excellent) and when we were greeted we were informed that they couldn’t serve us any water. It turned out that the city had issued a boil water warning the day before due to some tests of the city’s drinking water that came back positive for E-coli. We’d been drinking the water all week, lots of water. It’s been five days since our last drinks and so far we seem to have escaped unscathed but we could have done without that scare. Happy Trails!

Flickr: Black Butte, Horse Camp, and McCloud River Falls

Tags black butte, Bunny Flat, California, hiking, Horse Camp Trail, Lower McCloud River Falls, McCloud River, McCloud River Falls, Middle McCloud River Falls, Mount Shasta, Mount Shasta City, mt. eddy, Shasta Alpine Lodge, Upper McCloud River Falls