Wooley: Deer Lick Creek

Klamath National Forest

DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3

Dark blue for day 1. Click for interactive map

Daniil wanted to hike and have evening chats with the Bigfoot Trail Alliance supplied trail crew, which would be clearing the Wooley Creek Trail to the cabin once more. Would I like to go? Well, I seem to be failing to plan my own thing and it's been a while since I was up the trail. He kind of wanted to head up toward Black Mountain, which has also been on my agenda once. I warned there wasn't much there to follow. So we headed off with a plan of an evening hike into camp only 3 miles along, a day of wandering about, then a finishing hike out.

A little of the large parking and some trail, somewhere up there. We go off on the left, but we'll be back high up.

We neglected to factor in the time required to admire the wildflowers for our inbound journey.

Purple-pink bushes of western redbud burst from the hillsides.

Loads of yellow wingstem monkey flowers.

All those yellow spots running up the steep rocky gully are monkey flowers.

The monkey flowers came in a purple colorway, too! (Okay, these are actually Kellogg's monkey flowers, but they look a lot like ones that come in both purple and yellow.)

It was a very long time before we passed that first half mile, arriving at the grand view point as the trail turns to follow its namesake, Wooley Creek.

Overlooking the Salmon River, it's surrounding mountains, and some amazing wispy clouds.

Turning that corner changed the conditions, so we got new delights in bloom to slow down our progress.

Some lovely paintbrush.

Thick patches of fawn lilies were frequent.

While it was spring all around the canyon, off at the end was a lasting display of winter.

Medicine Mountain still wears a coat of snow.

Henderson's shooting stars.

Plenty of water besides the big creek flowing below.

Even more fawn lilies! California? Cream? Probably cream, but there's a few it might be.

Pacific hounds tongue is all this one could be.

One more moist crossing.

And so we rolled into camp with the light distinctly reduced in spite of the short distance to get there. There's even more space in that trail side camp just short of Deer Lick Creek than I thought.

Continue on to the next day ⇒

*photo album*




©2025 Valerie Norton
Written 6 Jun 2025