Blake Mountain and Spring

Six Rivers National Forest

Trinity National Forest

(Map link.)

Blake Mountain is the named high point of South Fork Mountain. I planned to start at Blake Springs Campground for the little wander to the top. There is no sign for the campground nor much evidence of it left. I think I ended up stopping near the south end of the old campground. It is a turnout with some actual green trees in the area and has a couple roads connecting to an old bladed road. It would have still been drivable if not for the trees across it. I started north along the road passing a couple of what looked like bladed pull-in points, as is typical of a campground. (USGS actually claims the campground was at the spring.)

The green topped trees quickly get interspersed with standing dead while going along the old road from the turnout.

There are actually three locations one might find benchmarks around this high poing. My map claimed I should find the USGS benchmark just past one pull-in, so I wandered off the faint road and into a rocky outcrop to find it.

The Blake Mountain (USGS) benchmark is unstamped.

There's not much view near this benchmark in a small rocky spot.

A mystery foundation for a building near the benchmark.

I continued on, finding the old road gets near another pullout. It also has more trees down on it to keep people from using it from that pullout.

This seems to be the peoples' best guess as to where the campground marked on the topo is. It is not on my visitor map for either forest.

Faint road continues north and I continued on it. There are more rock outcrops. I suspected the first of being the top, but there is more up to go from there. I checked out one outcrop near the road to see if there might be an azimuth mark. Guessing where the azimuth might be has never worked out for me before and didn't this time. The benchmark at the high point doesn't have one and the other two aren't in the NGS database so I can't look them up. I didn't bother to check a further outcrop, which left me wandering toward the South Fork benchmark instead of the Blake.

It's not all dead up on the mountain. I wasn't surprised to find some pussypaws at the top.

I was surprised by all the willow scattered across the mountain and leafing out.

The rock outcrop with no azimuth and the high point behind it. Plenty of fire killed trees near the top.

Having passed the high point, I wandered up the big outcrop that came up next. I didn't find a benchmark there, either. I was wondering what bit of rock they did choose when I finally took note of the rather round, lighter colored hole I was looking at. There had been a benchmark. I found a second spot that might have had another, but no actual marks.

The larger rock outcrop. I could nearly walk up it all the way.

There's a green patch in the distance to the north.

Plenty of green across Pilot Creek to where Pilot Ridge and Whiting Ridge meet.

There was once a benchmark.

The whole of the westerly view over Pilot Creek. (Click to embiggen.)

After enjoying the view through the dead trees, I headed cross country to try once more for the actual high point. Getting there was easy. At first, I couldn't find the benchmark there, either. It is not in one of the many rock outcrops. It is set in a concrete block in the middle of a flat spot that was probably where the lookout once sat. The lookout had already burned down in 1961 when the benchmark was placed and I didn't even find the usual scattering of nails to mark it.

The whole easterly view over Trinity River. (Click to embiggen.)

Found the station mark on Blake Mountain.

The description of the station and reference marks all state the distance to a tree with a triangle blaze. I wondered if I could find it. The general location indicated had six trees once, but three of them burned up. The other three are dead and I couldn't find any sign of an old blaze in the wood. It does show, even after the bark has been stripped off, if it grew a bit after the blaze.

The reference marks are both in rocks. It is a low one for reference 1 and a high one for reference 2.

I headed back. I had seen a faint old road heading down the mountain to the east where I expected the road for the spring to be, so gave it a try. The clouds (and radio) were suggesting the chance of rain for the night was actually coming through a little early, but I could see only slight rain in one direction in the distance.

Another faint road to follow. Down to the right, where the spring is, has a bit more green.

The road was easy to follow until where it just drops into the gully above the spring. From there, I just followed the gully to the green spot. I quickly found some old, wooden spring boxes, too. I was definitely where I was supposed to be.

Trees and grass and the starts of corn lilies and more green things by Blake Spring.

A pair of wooden spring boxes in the gully. There might be some real lilies, too.

Small white violets were blooming at the edge of the spring box.

More flowers getting started. The wood rushes are blooming too.

I headed back up, pausing to explore the apparent remaining camp site to see where it was along the road. It was the bit where I had decided to use the gravel beside the road instead of the expanse of potholes on the road. There were only two spots that bad.

A little better view to the northeast where there should be some high mountains.

I found ground cones near the road where they probably get a bit warmer than the surrounding area. It is a parasitic flower and the manzanita behind it is its victim.

*album link*




©2021 Valerie Norton
Written 12 Jun 2021