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Trail Angels & The Campground Demon
If we could, we would adopt her. Amy would make the best daughter. She’s independent, accomplished, has a career, owns her home, is environmentally minded, and is a downright nice person. Amy is also an avid outdoors person and has completed the majority of the Pacific Crest Trail.
During college she attempted the PCT in one season but health issues ended the hike. Since then she’s been whittling away at the remaining sections as her life and career allows. She’s now almost done. For this year’s section – hiking south from Ashland, Oregon to Seiad Valley on the Klamath River in California – Amy asked if we’d help by picking her up at the trailhead finish point and shuttle her back to her car in Oregon. She told us we’d be her “Trail Angels.” Knowing this could possibly be as close to being angels we’d ever get, we said yes. The pickup date was July 3rd. We also monitored her progress via her InReach messages.
The July 3rd date gave us a few days of exploration on our way north from home. “The list,” it seems, never gets any shorter. On a busy Sunday morning we searched out the ancient petroglyph site on the east side of Donner Pass.
Ancient rock art on glacially polished Sierra granite, our kind of place!
The wildflowers of early summer were vibrant.
A large part of Donner Pass history is the Sierra crossing of the first transcontinental railroad.
Heavy winter snows were always an issue with keeping the trains running. A long tunnel now replaces the snow sheds and short tunnels that once were used to keep snow off the tracks. The old snow sheds have become a tourist attraction, USA style.
We’d hiked cross country up to the pass and returned to the truck by walking down old highway 40 and over the historic Rainbow Bridge.
Continuing north, and eager to leave the crushing crowds behind, our next stop was the Nature Conservancy’s Independence Lake Preserve.
Independence Lake is a jewel of the northern Sierra Nevada. Two signs of spring in the Sierra are flowering Mule Ears
and Lodgepole Pine pollen
We found Gurnsey Creek Campground off of highway 89 near empty on this Sunday. It made a quiet, convenient place to overnight.
We spent Monday in Lassen Volcanic National Park – an old familiar place for us.
Our first stop was the small Sulphur Works with its fumaroles and bubbling cauldrons.
Unfortunately, the Bumpass Hell Trail was closed.
The Park gets one of the deepest snowpacks in the nation and fully opens only after highway 89 through the Park is cleared.
Lake Helen was still covered with snow and ice.
The Lady wanted to run up the short hike to the top of Lassen Peak – on the right in the photo above. We’ve been to the top several times and have backcountry skied in this area. I suggested the hike to Kings Creek Falls instead as we’ve not done this hike before. What we did not know was the area was inside the Dixie Fire burn.
It was still enjoyable. The falls were nice and the one way Cascade trail section along Kings Creek was quite pleasant and had displays of extensive rock work. Thank you CCC's.
We stopped for lunch at Summit Lake.
We intersected with the route of the Nobles Trail and found a dispersed spot along Hat Creek – outside the Park – to overnight.
After stopping Tuesday morning at The Fly Shop in Redding for one of their economical house brand fly reels loaded with backing and 7 weight floating line, we headed to Castle Crags State Park. It was quiet and low key. The staff was very pleasant and helpful. The campground was quiet and we had our pick of several campsites. We checked out the separate riverside section of the park down along the upper Sacramento River where a historic resort and hotel once stood.
We were unable to see the Castle Crags – except from the small parking lot at the entrance. The main road, vista point, and trail were closed due to a forest health fuels reduction project. This included the majority of the PCT that runs through the park. There’s a detour. After setting up in our campsite, we hiked the trails up from there.
We are rarely in terrain low enough in elevation to encounter poison oak, but we recognized it immediately.
It was not a quiet night. The area was hammered by violent thunderstorms. Rain and wind rocked the camper. Thunder and lightning blasted the skies. Several wildland fires were ignited this night.
The Indian Scotty campground loop was empty when we selected our campsite along the Scott River early the following afternoon. We had explored trailheads accessing the Marble Mountains Wilderness most of the morning. We appreciated the shade of the oaks on this hot day. We’d already been in the river once. A truck pulled into a campsite down from us. We were surprised when a man walked up to our site, bent down to look at our tag on our site’s number post, removed it, and then yelled at us, “Where’s my tag!” We both got up from our chairs and approached him.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Where’s my tag? I was here at nine this morning. I paid for this site and put my tag on this post.”
I spoke calmly and clearly to the man. “Sir, there was no tag on this post when we arrived. We do not remove tags, we do not steal other people’s campsites. If there was a tag on that post we would not be in this site.”
“Then what happened to my tag? I paid for this site!”
I calmly listened and did not interrupt before replying.
“I cannot answer that,” I said and continued. “There was no one in this campground when we arrived. There was no tag on this post. We paid for this site and put our tag on the empty post. We did not steal your campsite.”
“Then what are we going to do?” The man demanded. He was angry and flustered.
“If you want to do something,” I offered. “You can call the Forest Service and you can call the county sheriff.”
He threw his arms in the air and stomped away. Our tag flew away. The Lady retrieved it.
We kept an eye on the man as he returned to the site his truck was parked in. In a short time a woman – wife? – approached. We again got up and walked out toward her. We expected we were going to get it from both barrels. The Lady took the lead in talking with her and, again, explained there was no tag on the post and we do not steal campsites. The wife was calm and polite. The husband moved in our direction.
“Honey,” she stopped him. “These people did not steal this campsite. Do you remember how we liked the campsite we’re in better? We got the campsite we wanted.”
“He said I could call the Forest Service!” the man yelled, again threw up both arms, and stomped away. I was now concerned for the wife as she had obviously taken our side.
“He does have a kind heart,” she offered as a sort of apology.
“Ma’am,” I replied. “I am so sorry your vacation started out this way. Will you both be okay?”
“Yes. He’ll be okay. He has a kind heart.”
We obviously kept an eye on the neighboring campsite. Another truck joined them. It looked like a set of their parents. They settled into the campsite. We went for another dip in the river and we made it a point to not walk past their campsite.
Even with the unsettling commotion with the campground demon, we slept well. We were happy to get an early start and leave the campground. This was the day to pick up Amy in Seiad Valley. Her InReach messages gave us progress reports. The wildfire starts from the big thunderstorms were now popping up. Fires in the Marble Mountains closed the PCT from Seiad Valley to Etna. There was a fire to the west of the PCT along Amy’s route. We explored along the Klamath River. In Happy Camp we found the Town Trail, a steep walk up to an overlook of the small town on the Klamath.
At this lower elevation, we also rediscovered Madrone trees.
The highpoint gave a nice view of Happy Camp. We zeroed in on the airstrip where a helitack fire crew was readying for getting on a fire.
As we waited for Amy to come down the trail into Seiad Valley, two helicopters were filling their buckets in the Klamath. One was making drops on a fire on the hillside just above the river. At least in this area, it appeared firefighting efforts were keeping fire growth at bay.
It was wonderful to see Amy again! And with lots of catching up and animated conversation as we drove into Oregon. She had paid to park her vehicle in a safe spot at Callahan's Mountain Lodge outside of Ashland. She also offered to buy us dinner in Callahan’s spacious dining room. We took her up on the offer and enjoyed a fine dinner together, interrupted only by the massive thunderstorm that rolled through.
In planning this trip, and picking up Amy, we made a campground reservation at the nearby county campground at Emigrant Lake. Amy joined us and pitched her tent and enjoyed the onsite shower facilities at this pretty urban campground. Although this was the Thursday (July 3rd) before the busy 4th of July weekend, the campground was fairly quiet and not crowded. We followed the storm from Callahan’s. Last sunlight turned the bottom of the storm clouds into fire.
Amy headed toward home and family back at Tahoe the next morning. The Lady and I headed east deeper into Oregon.
Our adventure continues. Please click here for Part Two.
Mammatus clouds!
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