Hayfork Bally Lookout and High Point

Shasta-Trinity National Forest

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My plan for this day was to hike up the East Fork Divide Trail and probably along the closed spur road of China Gulch since the trail is only 2 miles long. It should be a good bet as this is a class 4 trail. That's highly developed. National Recreation Trails tend to be in this class. It does happen to pass through an Inventoried Roadless Area, so no bicycles allowed. There are turnouts not too far from the bottom end of the trail. I parked south of the trail where there's a cut in the hill for the road, but that cut ended by the time there was supposed to be trail. There wasn't any trail. I climbed up to what could have been a 40 foot section of trail once, but there were no clues where to go next. It looked more like it could have been trail after I'd walked up and down it, but that got me no closer to two miles of hiking. I looked around a little more, found nothing, then threw up my hands and headed off for a late start on tomorrow's plan.

Signed turnoff for Hayfork Bally.

My abruptly forwarded plan was another attempt at Hayfork Bally. Bally, sometimes transliterated Bolly, are high peaks in the Wintu language, the native language over much of the area. Thus many of the area points are not "Mountain" or "Peak" but "Bolly". Or "Bally".

Starting with quite a view to the north already.

As always, I'd rather hike up a mountain than drive it. Besides the numerous off trail possibilities that doubtless exist, there are four ways up on designated routes. The only one with trail is the one up Bear Creek Trail that I partly hiked a few days previous. I did 5 miles of reported 8.5 miles total, one way. Using somewhere on Miners Creek Road (FR 4N08, improved dirt suitable for passenger cars), one might come up from the saddle between Hayfork Bally and Thompson Peak on high clearance and Jeep roads. From further along the road, there is a shorter option of all Jeep roads until the last little bit on good gravel. I decided to start from Packers Creek Road (NF 16, paved) which I was passing along anyway. From there, I could follow Hayfork Bally Road (FR 33N52) all the way to the lookout and top. As this is an improved gravel road suitable for passenger cars, it is also a route I could technically drive up in my baby car. So, um, yeah.

The Trinity Alps are getting very near indeed. It probably isn't so hot there.

The road is generally wide enough for oncoming traffic to pass without much negotiation. Really good road.

No trouble finding it. No difficulty with trees across it. Pretty easy grade. Cars by once in a while, it's definitely a popular spot to go. I was zooming along, but I did take the time to survey the closed roads.

There's a lot of fire damage from the 2021 Monument Fire.

Spur A, which is closed and obviously well used.

The first of the closed roads looked well used. Perhaps I should have marked it as "motor_vehicles=permissive" rather than "no" on OpenStreetMap? That seems to be the "ground truth". I did, near the start of this trip, watch a pair of hunters turn off the good road and park dead center of a legally closed road. They walked up, inspected the very open gate, then kept on walking up leaving their lifted truck blocking anyone who might have driven up. So there are some risks.

Now 33N65 is closed and looks it. Also not getting the "custodial maintenance" of closed roads as there are trees down just past the gate.

The second closed road was very closed and holding that way. I encountered a Six Rivers National Forest page once that seemed to indicate that some closures are hard and some soft. This gate would be a hard one. They mean it. They don't want to see your car past it. Not your motorcycle either. Bumps on the road are soft ones. It's your own business and risk to be past it. The bigger the bump, the more they'd really rather you didn't cross it. So maybe it's not so bad that other one gets used?

And the views just keep getting longer.

Probably once spur B is a decommissioned road although it also sees use.

The third road was one I wasn't expecting. It's decommissioned, but clearly still used. I'm willing to bet the closure on a decommissioned road is never soft. Unlike the road the hunters blocked, no one has a legitimate excuse to be using this. Maybe it would give a little more rugged climb of the peak? It doesn't actually connect to anything. I went just a little further and sat beside the rushing stream that happens to cross under the road. A lovely cooling space.

Lovely cooling water. It's been set up to allow filling some tank.

It's nice for a bit. Even had a little seat. But then I moved on.

More westerly views opening up with a tiny bit of South Fork Mountain included.

And now with a bit more of South Fork Mountain's long stretch.

Another decommissioned road that apparently the public has recommissioned, like it or not.

Banksy was here. The OHVs are legal past this sign. (And not before.)

The "share the road" sign marks the start of OHVs being legal on this road. Presumably that's to let them get between the various routes that come to the top of the mountain. Officially, this is where Bear Creek Ridge Jeep Road gets to the good road. I pondered the little wiggles that seemed to be climbing up a nearly vertical hill and wondered why anyone would want an official public road there if there was a choice. No one is using it. They are using the removed ridge road that once extended out to connect with Corral Creek Road (FR 4N29, good gravel road suitable for passenger cars). Hey, another possible route up. Areal photo suggestions are it doesn't go all that way anymore, but one could certainly hike the whole way.

First view of the fire lookout too.

The legal, open upper end of Bear Creek Ridge Jeep Road looks only slightly more used than the lower end. Also less steep a climb in the picture than I remember.

For the final climb I got to see real burn devastation. It was probably standing dead from the 2008 fires that came over the mountain. Now it's standing stubble surrounded by more standing dead.

Quite a lot of South Fork Mountain visible over the burn, but rendered featureless by area smoke.

Ooh! The pointy bits against the sky left of center are the Lassics!

The decommissioned route that is the actual one in use as the upper end of Bear Creek Ridge Jeep Road. It continues for at least a mile as used road, or at least that's what it looks like from areal imagery.

But enough about closed and unused open roads. Back to the main objective!

Love Letter Jeep Road would have been a hot climb on that exposed ridge. The lower bump at right, way down there, is Thompson Peak.

And now seeing the fire lookout in all its glory.

I ignored the lookout at first and headed straight for the small pile of rocks that obviously made up the peak, or at least the high point left after buildings were placed here. I found a set of benchmarks.

Got that peak! There's a golden station marker that is probably older, but it's unstamped.

Then I pulled out my Peakbagger app to claim my new peak. That's 10% (when rounding) of the California fire lookouts! Yeah! It said, "You aren't there yet."

That peak is taller.

When the Plummer Peak lookout pointed out Hayfork Bally Lookout, the words were, "Over there, by the shining dome on the shorter of the two peaks." I figured it just looked shorter from that perspective. There was a nagging thought that the perspective shouldn't be that bad, though. It isn't. It's just shorter.

The lookout is open, though. Says so on the rock.

I went over and climbed the lookout tower. This lookout doesn't lock the grate so anyone can come up anytime. My timing was bad and the lookout was nowhere to be seen. I was feeling like I'd done a few view photos and headed down without any more. I headed over to a mystery flat rock with steps up the side.

I wonder if an older lookout tower was here.

I found more benchmarks on the rock. One from State of California Department of Water Resources and an azimuth mark from the Army Corp of Engineers. Fun, but not the peak. I headed the other way for Love Letter Jeep Road and the real peak.

Love Letter Jeep Road looking how legal roads are supposed to look, with a designation marker so you know which one you are on. This one even has a difficulty rating: very difficult (black diamond).

The first up didn't make the Peakbagger app happy. The second one didn't either, but that was too bad because everything further along was lower.

The slightly higher east bump from the barely separated middle bump.

I scrambled up to the top of the new rock pile to find the Army Corp of Engineers survey mark to go with the azimuth as well as another USGS benchmark.

Standing at 6262 feet.

Well, the little hump in the middle is probably shorter.

A look down toward Hayfork Valley. The cut of Miners Creek Road can be seen too.

The eye catching point of a peak to the east is apparently not the one with a wilderness, but Bully Choop Mountain.

I wandered over to the ever so slightly lower middle peak and sprawled in the sun with my lunch. It's warm, but not feeling too, too warm when not really moving. Then I headed back the way I'd come, almost. I took a surprise connector road between the Jeep road and the spur road just north of it. And then I took the surprisingly tree covered open and legal spur road back. It was just a short section, but it was clearly being left to decay, then new connection now serving the same basic function.

I recommend against taking the spur that used to serve as a bypass of the peaks. There's at least 4 big trees on it.

And then I found some flowers and the tracks of some confused drivers who had desperately turned around when they found the road wasn't a through road anymore.

Siskiyou beardtongue looking surprisingly good considering folks have been driving across it.

The rest of the road back to the main road is smooth and clean, if a bit narrow.

Once back to the main road, I didn't have other options, so retracing steps it was.

A bit of roadside geology roughening up the good road.

One magnificent conifer although it was once much taller.

There is a second stream running with water down the mountain, but it isn't quite so nice as the other.

And there are flowers along the road. Okay, most of this fireweed has gone a bit past flower.

No deer for this hike, but I did stop at the junction with Corral Bottom Road (NF 47) to decide where exactly I wanted to go next and had a little chat with a deer who strode by. She looked at me a bit and strode off again with no haste whatsoever.

*photo album*




©2024 Valerie Norton
Written 17 Nov 2024