Monument Peak and Eagle Rock Lookout

Shasta-Trinity National Forest

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Monument Peak was a whim to fill in the day of hiking lost to not finding East Fork Divide Trail. It happens to have 1000 feet of prominence and isn't reachable by car. Others can drive a lot closer than I can. I actually drove a little bit of road (that has been downgraded from improved gravel to unimproved) until an easy parking spot. The peak had not been saved on my Peakbagger app, but a nearby and much less prominent peak had been. If I was feeling it, I'd take the extra 1.5 mile walk to that one and find out why. The number of hunters past inspired me to pull out the biggest wad of orange I had: my long sleeve BFTA shirt. It's very bright.

The view out over Corral Creek. The Monument Fire was here in 2021 too.

I walked a rather smooth road although the last bit I'd driven had been mildly rough. There was evidence of once having a thin paving. Bituminous surface treatment, they call it. It is long gone in most spots now.

Closer by, there's some bare points on the ridge.

Had another chat with a deer about being so close to the road. The truck past a couple minutes later didn't make any loud noises.

There are some mildly rough spots. It gets a lot rougher as I turned onto Spur A. After the hairpin turn, it got so rough that someone had had to turn around, or at least kick on 4WD. They further roughened it by spinning a wheel first. The fact that there was a truck parked at the wide end of the hairpin suggested it might have been the first. Then again, there was an old route where they parked, so maybe they totally meant to do that.

Sometimes steep road climbing the mountain among burned trees.

Birds were swooping about in halfway predictable ways and I tried for some photos. Only one of a sitting bird came out halfway decently.

Violet-green swallow on one of the dead trees.

The climb quickly gained views, but only briefly to the north, and those interrupted by fire killed trees.

A look back at Hayfork Bally and a bit of the road up. North Yolla Bolly and neighbors looking grey in the far distance to the right.

Road leveling out along the side of Monument Peak off to the right.

Chaparral Peak right at center.

Something not entirely pleasant was whiffing off the road. Some hunter had hit their mark and left the stomach to the road.

A California sister collecting some moisture.

At the a saddle on the far side of Monument Peak, I gained the ridge and walked the last short bit to the top. There were little bits of something like trail through the low vegetation. Animals go up there some even if people don't seem to.

It's a quarter mile off trail to the top of Monument Peak.

The long ridge of Monument Peak to the north.

I went looking for the monuments on Monument. They were stamped Chaparral and I only found one reference. I dug a bit around the loose stones where it pointed, but no sign of the station.

Reference 1, which didn't take much searching.

The rest of the view around from that northern ridge line.

After attempting to take in the whole of the view from the top, I turned back to the short brush at the top to see my first rattlesnake of the year. It was about as thick as my finger and slithering in among the rocks I'd just been handling.

Just noticing the camo moving through the little bushes.

Right where the reference points. A noble effort, little northern Pacific rattlesnake.

I decided that I could go off to the other "peak". It's practically flat all the way, the only bit of work is a little elevation gain on the return. I finally remembered that I'd saved the locations of a lot of area fire lookouts in my Peakbagger app a few years ago. Some of them are in locations that aren't very impressive by the numbers. Maybe the mystery point was one of them?

The view down along the Trinity River certainly improves on the way.

The ruins of the Eagle Rock Fire Lookout.

Indeed it is an old fire lookout. And what a view! This edge of the mountain sticks way out into the Trinity River. You can look down it for miles in both directions. I suppose you can also hear the vehicles on the CA-299 for miles. None are close, but the audio is unobstructed.

The California Department of Transportation has left a shiny new station that's easy to find.

The whole river valley, not nearly so visible from the mountain top.

Twin Sisters Mountain with some bare granite Trinity Alps rising behind.

That bare one at the back is also called Monument Peak. It's a rather common name.

I poked around to the high point in the general area to tag it even though I'm suspicious the real Eagle Rock is back by the junction ½ a mile south. I found some bits of concrete that looked like they could have been anchors for a lookout too. A lookout (maybe not the first?) was built in 1934 after a telephone line was put in in 1933. It was abandoned by 1975. It has view of 14 miles of river and a few miles of Big French Creek. And that's what I can find out about that. Well, there's also a mule that didn't like being up there much.

And found a lovely mountain blue penstemon.

I returned to the old foundation to take in more of the expanse. The river winds so much although it's carved itself so deeply. The tall mountains gathered a few more clouds as I watched them. An ATV rider who came by was very difficult to convince that while the offer of water was kind, I did account for the temperature of the day when I packed and had enough already.

I suspect the rock up by the intersection is the actual Eagle Rock the spot is named for.

Eventually I headed off. It was rather hot in the sun. I headed back the way I came, pausing under the oaks near the junction and under pines that made a second patch of shade.

Clouds gathering over the Hayfork area too.

Up along the ridge, I had spotted a repeater, but that hadn't interested me much. On the way back, I spotted something the repeater was serving and that did. When I went past, I popped up the few feet to the ridge to have a closer look.

Scientific instrument measuring the slow movement of the land. The repeater is among the trees where the antenna is pointing.

It isn't labeled, but it certainly looks like a GPS receiver for the EarthScope project. They're easy enough to look up online, so I can confirm that suspicion. This is P331, and this is how it has moved since installation in 2007. It's moved 10cm west and 15cm north in the last 18 years and rises and falls by about 4cm with the seasons. The Earth moves!

This ridge has some very pointy spots.

Almost a view from the old quarry, which could be an alright dispersed camp spot away from those trees.

I finished with lots of light, so packed up and headed off to the next (last) thing, leaving behind all the traffic and hunters. Even with them (and it was a weekend, so what could I expect?) I was feeling pretty good about the result.

*photo album*




©2024 Valerie Norton
Written 20 Nov 2024