Ukonom: Long Meadow

Klamath National Forest


DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3 | DAY 4


Light blue line marks the day. Click for map.


I didn't have far to go to finish and half of it was repeat miles. The prospect of greener pastures was still a nice motivation to get moving. I headed down, sometimes at an atrocious angle for a trail while noticing old bits of trail off to the side from when it didn't go directly down. There had been some work on it since the last fire, some of it on some rather large trees and some on the new shorter, steeper trail instead of restoring the switchbacks.

Long Meadow
Long Meadow certainly has a lot of little bushes for a meadow.


This time while packing I'd found I was missing a bandanna I got free at some trail work thing. Arg. I'm okay with this odd happening of finding bears every second day. That's fine as a tradition. Losing things is not good at all. At least this bit of organic cotton is biodegradable. I had no idea where it might have got dropped.

more Long Meadow
There are some grass and other herbaceous covered areas to Long Meadow, too.


When I got down to the meadow, life (or hiking anyway) was easy except for very minor route finding challenges when the trail got too close to the meadow.

holes in the dirt
There was once a big tree here and now there are only holes where the roots were.

Pyrola picta or maybe crypta
A lovely little wintergreen.

parasitic orchids
The corralroot orchids are fading and the phantom orchids are just coming in in this cluster of parasitic orchids.

meadow edge trail
Sliding into the meadow can make the trail a challenge to follow, but look for more cut logs.


Then I had the strange experience of looking across the meadow at perfectly good, maintained trail on the far side. Someone else had poked along through the meadow before me and probably a few historically. Rocks had been tossed into the crossing to make it easier to do keeping feet dry. Getting up to the trail was a little steep. It sure looked more used.

trail on both sides
Now I'm confused, because I see the trail continuing on this side of the meadow and I see good trail on the far side.

stream and pool
Just upstream of the crossing is a little pool.

looking back across the meadow
It is harder to see the trail on the other side from here.


I turned back the way I'd come to see how far the trail parallels. I was not in any rush after all. It went a while, then started to climb up and away. I finally looked at the map to see that I'd shortcut a little piece of trail that loops around further downstream. The hill was the climb out of Long Meadow to Big Meadow.

Big Meadow, except a lot of that is woody stuff
Big Meadow seems to be gathering a lot of woody things, too.


When I checked my location again, I seemed to be on the wrong side of Big Meadow and gradually getting further from the trail indicated on the map. The trail I was on certainly had young tread, but someone had cut away all the logs it crossed. Maybe it was a reroute? Nope, it was guerrilla trail.

more meadow like meadows
Haypress Meadows from an unexpected angle.

another black bear
It was fun to watch this black bear in the meadow. It must have been in the creek. It was wet and swung its legs out wide, shaking off the water, while it walked.


The trail that was so blatant suddenly became indistinct in view of official trail. The people using it had dispersed their footsteps at the very end. It just sort of snuck out of the woods. I took the right to finish the hike.

trail beside creek
Fern shrouded trail beside the creek.

meadows in the trees
Back to Stanshaw Meadows.

closeup of Corrallorhiza mertensiana
A really close look at the Pacific corralroot.

very nice trail
It's really very nice trail within a few miles of the road.

polinator for thimbleberry
A thimbleberry pollinator sat on a leaf cleaning its wings.

more meadow
More of Stanslaw Meadows.

Linnaea borealis
A ground cover of long bells, twinflower.


That was one pretty good trip only marred by the fact that I was already covered in itchy mosquito bites, watching a couple tick bites for bad reactions, and generally breaking out with poison oak from the abortive first trip.




©2020 Valerie Norton
Written 17 Jul 2020


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Comments

Jaunting Jan said…
Thank you for this trail report. It was exactly what I needed to see to know this is not a trip I'd enjoy. It's really sad to see the Marbles ravaged by fire and neglect.
Valerie Norton said…
I have to say, Ukonom Lake is an absolute jewel and there are ways to get there that are entirely on trails with little more than the occasional log to step over and a couple dim spots requiring a little extra looking. Give me two ways of getting somewhere, and I will try them both out, so I found that the north side of the McCash Loop isn't actually there anymore and there needs to be some rebuilding of trail between Ukonom and One Mile too.

However, to each their own. I personally would like to try the area again, but from someplace like the Norcross Trailhead. I think I'd want to check out Trickner Hole on the way up. I definitely think I missed out by not visiting at least Blue Granite Lake. That all gets me in range to try for Medicine Mountain. It was obviously good trail over toward Marble Mountain and I should certainly check out the Sky High Lakes area. That portion by Lovers Camp Trailhead is well used, so I'm not too worried about the trail condition there. Then I have that second route back via Rainy Valley or could do a little PCT and Kelsey Trail.

The greatest amount of trail work isn't done with a saw or clippers but by feet hitting the ground establishing and preserving the tread. Just hiking the trails helps keep them clear of sticks and rocks and any other debris, holds back the bushes a little, and just keeps things visible.

Now fire... it is a complicated thing and I try to remember that and have a complicated reaction to it. It is certainly hard when seeing the three miles or so of charred toothpicks that were once trees in the footprint of the 2017 Haypress Fire. Not only are the trees gone, but the fire burned so hot or long that the seeds in the ground died and there is very little growing. There is nothing for that one but to cry. Unfortunately, there is a little bit of too much love that helped get it that way. The legacy of ~100 years of fire suppression left many forests covered in huge fuel loads. Compounding that is that many areas end up with more trees growing than the land can really carry and all of them are much weaker than they need to be to survive the inevitable fire. Right now, it's getting hard to find a high place that hasn't had a bad burn. The current fires in nearby Trinity Alps Wilderness are lightning caused, so that's more high places getting burned. It will not stay there. The landscape was shaped by fires by Native Americans for some 12000 years before the latest years of suppression. It kept the forest floors more open and produced more meadows than are seen now. It's downright complicated. It's going to get worse before it gets better, but I do expect it to get better again. Unfortunately, that will happen on the time scale of forests, so in another ~100 years.

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