South Fork: More Bigfoot

Shasta-Trinity National Forest

(green line for day 3, click for map)

DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4  |  DAY 5

My hope for the day was to finish off the Bigfoot Trail section of South Fork Trinity River Trail (the non-National Recreation Trail version of the name) doing some of the far southeastern end day hiking style like I'd done most of Smoky Creek Trail. As I started, I really wanted to get all the way back to Saint Jacques Place, but figured camping somewhere near Soap Creek was more realistic. After that, it looks like two miles high and dry and then probable camping right at the end beside South Fork's East Fork. Getting a bit extra would allow for trying out Saint Jacques Trail and Snow Gap Trail on the way back. It really best fit into the trip if I did it on the way out, but I wanted to have a look at the trails first. Honestly, I wanted to check them for basic existence.

Snow Gap Trail looks good, arriving without a sign but right where they say it should.

Rough Gulch Trail, reported to start from the same junction, is less evident. It is a class 2 trail while most that people use are class 3 or 4. Class 1 is the least developed and maintained while class 5 is paved.

I quickly passed by another used camping area, a very well established animal trail I could almost believe were the two trails (Snow Gap and Rough Gulch which fords the river to go up the other side) a bit earlier than claimed. Then I got to trail with a more reliable people look even if it lacked a junction sign. Snow Gap checks out. (But good luck to any wanting to go on Rough Gulch.) From there, it looked like trail would be on a slope and dry for a while. The slope was certainly there, but it was a lot wetter than indicated. I was constantly crossing little water channels.

Trail over the steep canyon.

A constricted grisette mushroom that broke out right in the middle of the trail.

The trees on the steep have their own solutions to find sun. Pines stand almost straight, reaching the sunlight above. Oaks lean out more and more because the sun is closer over there.

One of many steep gulches with a little water.

Sometimes there's even a little waterfall.

It's also an area with a lot of tree mortality from the August Complex in 2020. Even the living stood there blackened for most the way below Murphy Place.

A view of the river past blackened trunks.

A great deal of burn around one water channel.

Saint Jacques Trail did not come along as advertised, but a quarter mile further, or so, there is the leveled shelf of a trail breaking off to climb near a ridge line.

No sign, but this must be Saint Jacques Trail diverging up ahead.

Not much further is Saint Jacques Place. There's bits of sheet metal, probably roofing, to mark where there were once buildings.

Saint Jacques trees put me in the mind of an orchard although they are not orchard trees.

There's a long wind to get down to Red Mountain Creek below it, but then it's not a little creek. I noted that it is the last water before the trail up, also mapped as dry.

Red Mountain Creek supports a thick woods just below the trail.

There's a tiny watery paradise under the umbrella plants.

Quite a big pool in South Fork Trinity River below.

A trickle of water producing a rock sink basin full of water and moss and not much else was populated with many of these damselflies.

Flowing river far below.

The river canyon below becomes rocky.

Now flowing through gravel channels.

The Dog Gulch Trail wasn't one I was wanting to try, but it was right where the map said it was too. No sign. It looked like an ATV trail. It probably was, if you are going to the Bramlet Place, the next and last bit of private property along the trail. For the general public, it's non-motorized trail. The next bit of trail looks wide too, but the crossing of the gulch has gotten too rough to connect, so there's a little parking/turn around right before it. Trail splits at the property, also without a sign. The one on the left is public, the one on the right down to the flat is property access.

None of the buildings at Bramlet Place are in good shape.

Still marked with the National Recreation Trail crests.

There's another trail that comes back up from the property, but it's covered in trees and unlikely to attract any hikers. Weirdly, there's still trail roughly paralleling the current trail after that trail comes up to meet the public trail. It goes on for half a mile until it is lost somewhere on the traverse of Soap Creek.

A massive boulder among the trees seems particularly out of place. The mystery trail passes right next to it.

There's some highly compromised trail work on the Soap Creek traverse, incidentally. You could probably drag a bike through it, but horses would require more saw work than has been done so far and probably some short but substantial tread work. Nothing quite so much as digging an entirely new trail out of the hill for half a mile, though.

There's a walkable trail in there somewhere. Really.

Spot Creek below the trail.

I was on the lookout for possible camps once near Spot Creek, but the opportunity was low. The best looked to be just past the next stream (dashed on the map, but running) where the trail pops over a small saddle. There are places, but they are closely surrounded by standing dead trees. How long will they continue to stand? Although the probability of falling is low, the consequences can be dire. I heard a few come down and it wasn't even breezy when they did.

A brown creeper came creeping around a tree.

Not much more water in the stream given a perennial line than the seasonal/intermittent one.

This water doesn't even rate a line on the Forest Service topo.

The trail changes character as it winds toward the end. It is still high above the river, but now grabs a view or two.

A millipede rippled its way beside the trail.

Getting greener.

Yolla Bolly! Well, Black Rock Mountain, but it's in roughly the right direction.

Grassy hills with dark rock outcrops for a change in geology.

Western columbine near more unmarked water.

I was very nearly to the end of the trail when I finally found something that might be campable. Maybe. And the closest good water that requires no struggle to collect would be at the end.

There might be camping near the rock or on up the hill a bit.

A whole mess of mountain quail went scrambling, one flying, up the nearby hill.

Glad I didn't have to come through this before the trail work.

And so I came almost to the end of the trail and the last bridge I was wondering about, the one crossing South Fork's East Fork. Um. There's no bridge. There's no evidence there was ever a bridge. I figured the person who had gone and marked a bridge, but not marked the one on the road, had known about the bridge. Nope. In this season, it's not quite knee-high wading through a gentle current. It'll be deeper other times.

One last crossing. Wet foot across East Fork South Fork Trinity River.

The trail as trail actually ends in the side of a short road to a dispersed camp site. With no desire to go all the way to a good site some 4+ miles back, I would just have to camp in relative luxury. Trade-off that there can be traffic noise. An ATV passed by twice in the evening. Illegal traffic at that! (While the Forest Service is quite liberal about allowing unlicensed vehicles use their roads, the nearby primary road is for highway legal vehicles only.)

Well established dispersed sites often have a bit of camp furniture built into some poor, tortured trees. This has an open air toilet down a path, too.

I dumped off some gear on the table to claim my site. Mine! And then decided I did need to go those last few feet to finish it off.

The "South Fork Trinity River Trail No 8E18" trailhead on Wildwood-Mad River Road (Forest Arterial 30) has plenty of parking and a sign turned to be seen from the road.

Then I had a wander on down to see South Fork Trinity River again. A good decision. It's a lovely little area.

There's a huge swimming hole at the confluence of the forks.

South Fork Trinity River from the bridge.

There's parking around the bridge and the old ford from before the bridge is still getting its trees cut out. I wandered around it, finding a nice little trail under the bridge to the rather large swimming hole at the confluence of the forks.

In the early afternoon light, this must be a brilliant place. Not quite so good in the late afternoon light.

Then I headed around the ford. Not like my shoes would be any drier if I didn't since there was still recrossing the first ford to be done. There's an eroded track off the end of the ford, so I wandered along it to find that it turns back and goes steeply up the hill. Still eroded, but even that had some cut trees on it.

Next, back to camp because there were still chores to do. The quilted Big Agnes mat was leaking again and the ford perfect for finding such things. It got dunked so I could find a new hole and that the Exped glue I'd used on the first hole wasn't holding. There's now four holes, all at the edges of a quilted spot. Current theory is I toss and turn too much for this weak design. They're all on the top in the chest area.

Same trip, next day ⇒

*photo album*




©2024 Valerie Norton
Written 21 Oct 2024