Trinity Alps & Vicinity: Including Whiskeytown, Russian Wilderness, and Castle Crags Areas. Mike White
Samaritan and pick up any trash you may encounter at camp or on the trail.
How to Use This Book
Trips are numbered and labeled to show start and finish locales. At the beginning of each trip description, the following bits of information are provided.
Trip Type
This entry describes whether the trip is a day hike or an overnight backpacking trek. For overnight hikes, a range of days necessary to enjoy the features of the entire trip is also listed.
Distance & Configuration
Lists the total distance in miles from the trailhead to the end of your journey, along with the type of hike (out-and-back, loop, or point-to-point).
Elevation Change
This figure reveals how much elevation gain and loss hikers will experience from the trailhead to the ultimate destination for out-and-back trips (which should be doubled for the entire distance), and the total elevation gain and loss for point-to-point and loop trips.
Difficulty
The overall difficulty of a trip is measured as easy, moderate, or strenuous. This rating is somewhat subjective, as your level of fitness, experience, and knowledge of the backcountry will influence your particular rating of a trip’s difficulty. The ratings listed here should be fairly accurate for the average hiker or backpacker.
Season
This entry suggests the best times of the year to fully enjoy the attributes of a particular trip, including the average times of snow-free trails. The season may vary some from year to year based upon the previous winter’s snowpack and how quickly the snowpack melts in the spring and early summer.
Maps
The USGS 7.5-minute topographic maps for each trip are listed here, along with any recommended USFS or state park maps.
Nearest Campground
This listing is for visitors who may wish to camp in a developed campground before or after a trip. In addition to the main trip description, many additional side trips, cross-country routes, or alternative routes are described and are easily identifiable so as not to be confused with the main trip description.
The Trips
Each trip description begins with some general information about the condition of the trail and the features of the area you should expect to experience. Within the trip highlights are any special considerations or necessary cautions that are important to effectively plan your trip. Also, the general information includes an idea of the amount of traffic you should expect to encounter along the trail and at destinations. Each trip also includes a map and an elevation profile. For out-and-back trips, the profile shows data for the trip from the trailhead and to your destination but not your return journey retracing your steps.
Starting Point
This section provides you with detailed driving directions and distances to each trailhead, as well as information about the road surfaces and conditions. Trailhead facilities are also noted where they exist. Nearby campgrounds are listed in the trip summary information and are sometimes described in this section based upon level of use, scenery, privacy, protection from the elements, unique natural features, proximity to fishing, swimming potential, and the availability of possible side trips.
Caring for the Backcountry
Whiskeytown, Shasta, and Trinity are three separate islands of national recreation area surrounding giant reservoirs of the same names, which were set aside in 1965 and are currently managed by the NPS. Centered around Whiskeytown Lake, the Whiskeytown Unit consists of around 42,000 acres of land. The area has 24 different trails, many of which are favorites of day hikers and mountain bikers.
The wilderness areas described in this guide are relatively new to the wilderness system; they were set aside two decades after the original wilderness bill was passed in 1964. The Trinity Alps, Russian, and Castle Crags wilderness areas were all created as part of the California Wilderness Act in September 1984.
The Trinity Alps Wilderness consists of about 518,000 acres, with boundaries close to what several conservation organizations and Trinity County lobbied for over the years prior to wilderness designation. Such a designation was a triumph for wilderness proponents and nonmechanized recreational enthusiasts. The act also required that previously existing private lands within the designated wilderness boundary would be exchanged or eventually purchased. Until such buyouts are completed, any private inholdings will be nominally managed as wilderness. With more than 500 miles of trail, the Trinity Alps are a backpacker’s paradise.
The Russian Wilderness is much smaller than the Trinity Alps, with only 12,000 acres of land set astride the apex of a divide separating the Scott and Salmon Rivers. The area has a buffer of national forest land on all but the east side, land which is mostly held in private hands. With more than 30 miles of trail within the wilderness and surrounding national forest, this area is well suited for day hikers, as well as for weekend backpackers.
Castle Crags Wilderness is even smaller than the Russian Wilderness, with only about 10,500 acres of protected wilderness. This small pocket of backcountry is bordered by Castle Crags State Park to the southeast and national forest land to the northwest, but the remaining land around the wilderness is a checkerboard of private and public holdings. There are nearly 30 miles of maintained trail within the wilderness. Castle Crags State Park adds another 4,000 acres to the Castle Crags complex, and another 30 miles of hiking trails. Due to the compact size, the Castle Crags area is best suited to day hikers.
Owners of mining claims within the designated wilderness areas may continue to explore and mine their claims, and must be allowed reasonable access to do so. Fortunately, no new claims may be filed without an act of Congress. The USFS validated all existing claims in the development of the Wilderness Operation Plan, which established strict environmental regulation of all mining activities.
What these marvelous areas will look like in the future depends on how we treat them today. Since major population centers are hundreds of miles away, these areas have not been prone to the heavy recreational use that is prevalent in the Sierra Nevada. Far more people were here 150 years or so ago than now, when preservation of the wilderness was not on the minds of the early miners and settlers who ravaged the land for their own economic gain. The area has recovered quite nicely from the debacle of the mining days, thanks to a scarcity of human beings in the nearly century and a half that followed. Recreational use of the wilderness has declined in modern times—a boon to solitude seekers but perhaps not so great for the protection of wilderness itself. Without enough advocates of the wilderness who appreciate the numerous blessings the natural world has to offer, who knows what fate could ultimately befall this wonderful area.
Hikers can follow several guidelines for the preservation and health of the backcountry. A simple list of widely accepted wilderness practices follows:
• Don’t leave food or scented items in your vehicle. Bears have been known to break into cars in search of food.
• Pack out your trash, including aluminum foil, which does not burn completely.
• Start campfires only in existing fire rings. Keep fires small, and use only downed wood. Make sure that fires burn completely out before leaving the area.
Never feed or approach deer.
Photo: Luther Linkhart
• Wash dishes and bathe far away from lakes and streams—at least 200 feet from any water source. Use only biodegradable soap.
• Use only existing campsites whenever possible. If you must develop a new site, establish camps at inconspicuous sites away from the trail and remove all traces of your presence upon leaving. Camp only on mineral soil, not vegetation. Don’t build improvements such as fireplaces, rock walls, ditches, etc. Camp at least 200 feet from water.
• Filter, boil, or purify all drinking water.
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