Category: California

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California Hiking Klamath Mountains Klamath/Siskiyou Mountains Oregon Siskiyou mountains Trip report

Red Buttes Wilderness Day 1 – Sucker Creek Trailhead to Azalea Lake

After spending two days in Crescent City, CA hiking in the Redwoods we headed up Highway 199 to the Oregon Caves Highway 46 and drove to the Sucker Creek Trailhead. We were planning on spending 4 days and 3 nights backpacking in the Red Buttes Wilderness. The wilderness was established in 1984 and encompasses 20,323 acres mostly in California but with some of that area located in Oregon. Running through the wilderness is the crest of the Siskiyou Mountains which include some of the oldest rocks in the region. These began as ocean bottom sediments eventually becoming metamorphic rock uplifted by the North American Plate scraping the ocean floor as it drifted westward across the Pacific Plate.

The trailhead sign was set back behind some vegetation and at an angle such that we missed it the first time by and very nearly did the same as we came back down the road, luckily my wife spotted it just before we drove past again.
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The trip had a real wilderness feeling to it right from the start. The trail had the appearance of a less traveled path and the trail signs we did see seemed to have been there for decades.
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There were also a few downed trees to navigate our way around or over.
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After about 2 miles of climbing we entered a series of meadows where the tread became faint.
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Just under 3 miles along the trail we spotted the Sucker Creek Shelter in a meadow below us to the left of the trail. We followed a fairly steep path down to the shelter to check it out and take a short rest before continuing on to Sucker Gap.
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Sucker Gap is located at a saddle on a wide ridge with a four way trail junction. We followed the pointer for Steve Fork.
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Two tenths of a mile beyond Sucker Gap we took a 100 yard side trail to our right and visited Cirque Lake.
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Beyond Cirque Lake the trail began a 2 mile descent to a trail junction where we would head back uphill on the far side of the valley to the Azalea Lake/Fir Glade Trail.
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We climbed back up out of the valley only to once again begin descending down the opposite side of a ridge. The vegetation was vastly different on this side of the ridge with plenty of manzanita bushes making up the majority of the underbrush.
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We even spotted a butterfly in the area.
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We switchbacked downhill for a bit before reaching the junction with the Azalea Lake/Fir Glade Trail where we again took a right.
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The Azalea Lake Trail climbed to a pass with some great views above Phantom Meadows.
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After passing around the south ridge of Buck Peak we got even better views including Azalea Lake, Mt. McLoughlin, and our first views of Red Buttes.
Azalea Lake and Mt. McLoughlin in the distance
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Red Buttes, Kangaroo Mountain, and Desolation Peak from left to right.
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We followed the trail down to Azalea Lake and headed around the west side of the lake where the designated hiker camps are. (Horse camps or on the east side.) We hadn’t originally planned on staying at Azalea Lake and had intended to continue on to Lonesome Lake which was another 2.3 miles away, but we were running late and after taking a wrong path leading away from one of the campsites we decided to call it a day and set up camp.
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Figurehead Mountain
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It turned out to be a great decision. The lake was very peaceful with small fish occasionally jumping and the pine needle covered ground made for the most comfortable night we’d spent in the tent. It had been 13.1 miles from the trailhead to the lake including our little side trips and we hadn’t seen another person all day. What we had been seeing was a lot of poop, more specifically bear poop but we hadn’t spotted any that day. We went to bed tired but relaxed wondering what the next day’s trails would bring. Happy Trails!

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9319235@N02/albums/72157660604852831

Categories
California Hiking Northern California Coast Trip report

Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park – Stout Grove and Boy Scout Tree

On the second day of our vacation we woke up to rain which seemed fitting since our hike for the day was going to be in the rain forest of Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. We decided to start our hike at Stout Memorial Grove and planned on combining several trails leading us past Boy Scout Tree to Fern Falls and back.
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We started off on the .5 mile loop through the trees of Stout Grove.
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We once again found ourselves confused when we arrived at the Smith River where we couldn’t see a clear trail on the far side of Mill Creek. We had not brought our guide book due to the heavy rain and neither of us could remember from looking at the map at the trailhead where exactly the Mill Creek Trail was supposed to be. After following a faint path into the brush and deciding that was wrong we returned to the trailhead and reviewed the map where we realized that we needed to cross Mill Creek near it’s confluence with the Smith River. A bridge is placed over Mill Creek during the summer but had been taken down for the year so we were left to cross on what we refer to as a “hiker” bridge, typically a jumble of small logs and other pieces of wood.
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Once we crossed Mill Creek we easily spotted the continuation of the trail and the well marked Mill Creek Trail junction.
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It was nearly 4 miles from the Mill Creek Crossing to the Boy Scout Tree Trailhead. We could have driven to it on Howland Hill Rd but where is the adventure in that? The sights along the Mill Creek Trail were well worth the extra walking.
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When we reached Howland Hill Road we road walked for about a quarter mile to the Boy Scout Tree Trailhead.
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Had we had a current map with us we would have known that we could have avoided much of the road walk by continuing on the Mill Creek Trail as it recrossed the road twice more before the Boy Scout Tree Trail. The redwoods were magnificent along the Boy Scout Tree Trail but we also had to look down along the way as there were other, smaller sights to see in the forest.
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We took the short, unmarked, side trail to Boy Scout Tree at the 2.4 mile mark of the Boy Scout Tree Trail where we found the massive tree.
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The trail continued another half mile to the small but pretty Fern Falls.
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The rain was letting up as we began our return hike and it seemed to bring out the wildlife which we hadn’t seen much of yet.
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By the time we’d made it back to the Smith River the rain had stopped and the clouds began to break up.
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It had been a long hike, 15.4 miles, but we were glad we chose to hike the Mill Creek Trail instead of driving between the two trailheads. After all we don’t get to see redwoods everyday. Happy Trails!

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9319235@N02/albums/72157660602039241/with/22625742012/

Categories
California Hiking Northern California Coast Trip report

Crescent City Harbor and Damnation Creek

It has been awhile since our last post but we’ve been away on vacation piling up a backlog of hikes. This vacation was our last hurrah of our hiking season and also an early celebration of our 20th anniversary. We kicked things off on Saturday by driving down to Crescent City, CA where we planned on staying two nights. After checking into our hotel we decided to walk along the harbor out to Whaler Island, which is a Del Norte island that was permanently attached to the mainland by a quarry operation.

As we walked along the harbor we were entertained by a number of different animals.
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At the far end of the Harbor we followed a path up to the top of rocky Whaler Island for some nice views of the surrounding area as well as a few small tide pools.
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Battery Point Lighthouse
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There were also a few wildflowers still blooming on amid the rocks.
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After returning to the hotel we hopped in our car and headed 10 miles south on Highway 101 to the Damnation Creek Trailhead in the Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park. Our plan was to hike 2.2 miles down to the rocky beach for the sunset, but things began to unravel a bit as soon as we arrived at the trailhead.
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We weren’t sure what exactly was meant by bridge failure but we decided to go ahead and hike as far as we could. We would still get to hike through some redwoods and we thought we still might be able to get down to the beach with a little extra effort. I hadn’t been in the redwoods since I was a child and this was Heather’s first visit so we were excited to get our first up close views of the giant trees.
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Our next hiccup came when we reached an unsigned trail junction that neither of us clearly recalled from the map (which we left in the car). We initially turned left which wound up being the wrong way and wound up on the Coastal Trail. We realized our mistake after about a quarter mile and turned around returning to the unsigned junction. In the meantime we had spotted some very colorful mushrooms.
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Back at the junction we went the other way and quickly arrived at another junction complete with signs.
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We took note of the second bridge failure sign and sallied forth. The trail began descending more rapidly and we entered the Tsunami Hazard Zone.
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We knew there were two bridges along the trail so we were curious about which one had failed. When we arrived at the first bridge we found it to be in good shape.
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Now we knew it was the second bridge that had the issue so the only question was whether we could find away to continue on the trail beyond it. When we spotted the second bridge we were surprised to find the only issue was there were no railings.
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We crossed the bridge and continued on leaving the forest behind and entering a meadow above the ocean.
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Our guide book had said there was a path down to the creek and rocky beach located in the north end of the meadow which we easily found.
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The path brought us to the edge of Damnation Creek.
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It was just past low tide when we arrived on the beach which allowed us to explore the tide pools.
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The tide pools weren’t the only source of wildlife viewing as numerous seabirds were flying about and sitting on the many rocks visible out in the ocean.
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Our final mistake was actually our first mistake in that we hadn’t brought our headlamps with us so we didn’t feel comfortable staying for the full sunset not wanting to hike back uphill in the dark. We reluctently headed back toward the trailhead watching the beautiful sunset over our shoulders.
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It hadn’t been a perfectly executed start to our vacation, but it had been a great day and we were excited to see what the rest of the week had to offer. Happy Trails!

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9319235@N02/albums/72157660179257590