Trinity Alps & Vicinity: Including Whiskeytown, Russian Wilderness, and Castle Crags Areas. Mike White
left along the streams remain to remind present-day visitors and residents of the extent of the 19th-century Chinese community.
The Wintu fared far worse than the Chinese. Estimated to have had a population of between 5,000 and 10,000 prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Wintu were nearly exterminated in the mid-1850s, leaving fewer than 1,000 members by 1910. Of the original nine bands of Wintu, only three remain, and there are very few reminders of their former presence within the Trinity Alps.
After the placer gold had been diminished, gold mining became big business. Capital and corporations were required to finance giant dredges, excavate deep shafts and drifts, and build miles of ditches and flumes. Such large-scale mining continued in the area through the 1930s, the most obvious example of which is the La Grange Mine. Water was transported 29 miles from lakes at the head of Stuart Fork in the early 1900s to wash away a big part of Oregon Mountain west of Weaverville. The remains were deposited down Oregon Gulch toward Junction City, the scars still visible along a portion of CA 299.
A few individual prospectors and small-scale placer miners have continued in the old way in an attempt to eke out an existence to the present day. One Mr. Jorstad, who lived in a cabin on the North Fork Trinity River, was an outstanding example until his passing in 1989. A new breed of gold miner has invaded the area more recently, using gasoline-powered Venturi dredges, wet suits, and snorkels to find gold in deep pools, areas that were out of reach to the old placer miners. Existing laws (primarily the 1872 Mining Law) and other regulations allow these miners to continue working existing claims within wilderness areas.
Ranchers
Along with the miners of the 1850s came a number of ranchers who homesteaded along the rivers, mostly in the area north of Lewiston known as Trinity Meadows, which now rests at the bottom of artificial Trinity Lake. Some of their descendants remain cowboys, still driving beef cattle to summer pasture in the Klamath Mountains.
Anton and Anna Weber, an Austrian immigrant couple, bought one of these ranches in 1922 and established Trinity Alps Resort along the Stuart Fork. The Webers are credited with naming the mountains the Trinity Alps, as they felt the mountains resembled the Alps in their native country.
Loggers and Lumbermen
The miners and early settlers, although profligate in their use, hardly made a dent in the vast supply of timber present in the mountains. However, with the coming of the railroad in the late 1800s, timber cutting began in earnest, and logging and running sawmills soon eclipsed mining as the main industry in the region.
Later improvements in transportation and mechanization increased the rate of cutting dramatically, pushing the cuts to the boundary of the former Salmon–Trinity Alps Primitive Area in many places. In spite of intense pressure on the Forest Service and Congress by timber interests, much of the wilderness was spared the loggers’ ax. Checkerboard ownership (due to land grants from the federal government as an inducement to build the Central Pacific Railroad) of some of the land within the wilderness area was supposed to have been resolved by land trades and buyouts.
Dam Builders and Anglers
Many acrimonious, and sometimes fatal, arguments took place among the early miners about water rights, but those disagreements paled in comparison to what happened when the Central Valley Project (CVP) was pushed through at the insistence of Central Valley and Southern California water users. The CVP steamrolled right over Trinity County residents and the few conservationists existing in those days, diverting water from the Trinity River to points south.
Trinity, Lewiston, and Whiskeytown Dams were completed in the early 1960s, drowning Trinity Meadows, among other things, and seriously damaging one of the finest salmon and steelhead fisheries left in California. In place of beautiful Trinity Meadows, and the opportunity to fish for salmon and steelhead, we now have the pleasure of water-skiing on red-dirt-rimmed Trinity Lake. However, all is not lost, as the Trinity River Restoration Program (trrp.net) has spearheaded efforts to enhance the fisheries habitat, and after years of serious declines, salmon and steelhead runs have shown some hope in recent years.
Recreational Enthusiasts
Except for occasional horse-mounted hunting and fishing expeditions, recreational use in the Klamath Mountains increased with the improvements of surrounding roadways in the 1920s, and a number of dude ranches and resorts sprung up around Trinity Meadows, Trinity Center, and Coffee Creek. Horses still carried most of the visitors to the backcountry until the late 1950s, when much-improved equipment and freeze-dried food encouraged a backpacking boom. Today, backpackers far outnumber equestrians. Rafting on some of the major rivers in the area, such as the Klamath, Trinity, and upper Sacramento, has become a very popular outdoor activity as well.
Rafters on the Trinity River
Access, Facilities, and Supplies
As transportation alternatives are fairly limited in this area, the private automobile remains the easiest mode of getting to the trailheads. Both Redding and Eureka have limited commercial airline service and rental cars available at their respective airports (tinyurl.com/reddingairport, flyhumboldt.org). Amtrak’s Coast Starlight train stops in Redding, Dunsmuir, and Yreka, where rental cars are available. Greyhound offers bus service between Arcata and Redding.
Highways, Cities, and Towns
Redding, Eureka, and Yreka are the closest cities of any substantial size to the areas covered in this guide. The small town of Weaverville is the point of departure for many of the trips in the Trinity Alps. The even smaller community of Etna serves the same purpose for most trips into the Russian Wilderness. The I-5 towns of Dunsmuir and Mount Shasta are the closest communities to trailheads in Castle Crags State Park and Castle Crags Wilderness.
CITIES AND TOWNS ALONG CA 299: REDDING TO WILLOW CREEK
Redding is a little more than 200 miles north of the San Francisco Bay Area, 160 miles from Sacramento, and 545 miles from Los Angeles. The city straddles the Sacramento River near I-5 and the junctions of CA 229 and 44. Plenty of options exist in this town of 90,000 people for motels, restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, and commercial campgrounds. The best place for backpacking and hiking gear is Hermit’s Hut at 3184 Bechelli Lane (888-507-4455, hermitshut.com). Shasta-Trinity National Forest headquarters is located in Redding at 3544 Avtech Parkway (530-226-2500, fs.usda.gov/main/stnf). The Whiskeytown Unit of Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area is 8 miles west of Redding on CA 299.
Weaverville is 45 miles west of Redding via CA 299. From Weaverville, CA 299 continues westbound toward Willow Creek and access to trailheads on the south side of the Trinity Alps, while CA 3 heads north from the center of town to access trailheads on the east side of the Trinity Alps.
Historic buildings dating from gold rush days line the main street of the quaint town, with exterior spiral staircases from arcaded sidewalks to second stories adding a charming touch. The redbrick Trinity County Courthouse, in the center of town at 11 Court St., is more than a century old. The old buildings in this part of town are filled with shops, art galleries, restaurants, and even a wine tasting room. Weaverville Joss House State Historic Park (630 Main St.; 530-623-5284, www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=457) boasts a Taoist temple that is the oldest continuously used Chinese house of worship in the state. Close by, the Jake Jackson Memorial Museum (508 Main St.; 530-623-5211, trinitymuseum.org) chronicles the early days of settlement and the subsequent mining boom.
Dogwoods and Trinity Lake
Photo: Luther Linkhart