Humboldt Trail

Shasta-Trinity National Forest

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I signed up for two volunteer trips with the Bigfoot Trail Alliance, one at either end of the Bigfoot Trail as it crosses the Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness. At this north end of the wilderness, it follows the Humboldt Trail, one of the emigrant trails of the late 1800s, before a few miles of road and connecting with the South Fork Trinity River Trail. This first is a "frontcountry" trip that only lasts a long weekend and where we stay at the trailhead. Or, in this case, at a well established dispersed camp site a couple miles short of the trailhead that happens to have actual shade. The trailhead has a corral instead, which wasn't really a feature for us. It also still had a couple logs down on the road as we arrived Thursday evening.

Friday: 1 May 2025

There was a California Conservation Corps group coming in the morning to get those logs and then clean up what we had passed, which was to car passable standards and not yet to public road standards. There were a lot of them we had squeezed past on the drive in. I recorded a few of the local wildflowers while waiting.

We had some big lupine: silver bush lupine.

Our spring water coming down the hill just up the road.

Whiteleaf manzanita was stuffed full of overturned pink urns and bees were causing quite a buzz around them.

Much smaller miniature lupine was hiding among the meadow grasses.

A few well flowered Henderson's shooting stars.

A mix of burned and green trees around Hermit Rock.

And there were all kinds of California fawn lilies with more buds on the way.

Shelton's violet, one of a few of the yellow violets.

So many flowers to record. One might almost think it was spring!

The chipping sparrow sings high in a tree for the spring.

But eventually we got ourselves breakfasted and to the trailhead. The signs along the way suggest that this last part of the road may be being left to roughen, but it looked like I could probably drive my car to the trailhead. I didn't actually do the experiment because I carpooled, so I don't know for sure. There is one rough spot.

A snowy South Yolla Bolly peeks over the nearer mountains and a lot of flat area for parking at the trailhead.

It didn't take long to spot the fire lookout high on a nearby peak and decide I wanted to go there. Just got to convince the carpool they want to too.

Do you see it there, not quite placed at the peak? Black Rock Lookout sits to the right of the visible peak (and the real peak) from this vantage point.

The CCCs were boisterous as they got ready to hit the roads some more making it safe for all the visitors who would be sure to come. We were a little more mellow gathering up our tools and our safety talk and heading out in our direction on the Humboldt Trail.

The crew heads out in hard hats past the "West Low Gap T.H. 9W36" sign.

With so many trees needing to be removed from the road, one might think there would be plenty of logging to do on the trail. We wandered through the trees to the ridge line and the Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness edge encountering none. From there, the area opens up to meadows and brush. Not all of it used to be brush, but we were standing in the footprint of California's only million acre wildfire, the August Complex of 2020. But just at the edge. There was also the 2017 Buck Fire and 2008 Iron Fire edging into the area over time. Most of what we see has burned once, some has burned three times.

Past the grassy three times burned to some twice burned former forest along the trail.

What we would be facing was whitethorn ceanothus. Crews of past years have hacked back plenty of it and there's still plenty to go of stuff encroaching the trail. We had over a mile before anything was trying to stab us.

Someone had to log out one of the many water sources along this trail.

Then we got to annoying whitethorn. I stopped for a single bush before a stream, then much longer when I started to get stabbed in the shoulder on one side and in the legs on the other. It is slow going in the heat to win back foot after foot of trail from the ceanothus.

Midway through clearing a piece of trail. In front, the brush has been hacked back about four feet. Behind, it'll still reach out and stab you at shoulder on the right and leg on the left.

Each with a spot to clear, with a view.

Hours later, we stashed the tools for the next day working. The tough ceanothus had already made an impact on our hands, right through our gloves, and other bits that got too close to a sharp point.

The finish of the day.

Having no tools in my hands did mean I could record the wildflowers along the trail. There were a few different ones from around camp.

Pussy ears hiding in the grass.

These yellow violets are goosefoot violets. The flower may look the same, but the leaf is very different.

Leaving the wilderness again. Maybe the sign was on this post.

A patch of coastal larkspur by the trailhead was all only a couple inches high.

A spotted towhee angry about having some bird song played at him and showing he is ready to take on whoever it is.

Nursing our wounds, we headed back to camp to have a meal that couldn't be beat and eventually sleep until the next morning when we would do it again.

Saturday, 2 May 2025

Irises! There are irises in the grasses! How did I miss the irises the first morning? There was time enough to poke around a little more and I found more flowers. I maintain they had just opened in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

Just a few of many bowltube irises.

I also missed the stunning, but tiny, Kellogg's monkey flower.

The CCCs were back, but much less boisterous. They were a fairly new crew, so perhaps the previous day had been hard. Perhaps they just weren't as excited when not getting to handle power tools. They got to taking on a stretch of trail a little past what we were working on, battering and getting battered by whitethorn.

Once more into the Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness.

Making changes under changing weather. There's just a little extra energy up there in that sky.

As the day finished, we headed a little further along the trail to an "oasis" where we were promised water, except the water actually starts just a little below the trail. It took just a little more work, but this water, unlike the others along the way, came with shade.

The water starts and grows quickly in the grass under the trees.

Looking back to the trailhead just past the little hill of trees far away in the middle.

The trail after this section has short bad bits, but nothing nearly so long as we worked on.

It was decided the next day would be a hike, so we walked back with our tools this time. I took the time to walk and lop at all the bits that were trying to poke my shoes. I could do that without too much threat of even more thorns in my hands.

Scarlet fritillary also freshly opened since yesterday! (That might actually be true, but the buds were certainly here.)

Of course, I was sorting out how I would bag a peak and climb a fire lookout, just in case the carpool couldn't be persuaded to hang out after and do what is so obviously a good and sensible hike.

That Black Rock Mountain would be the peak.

With that lookout at the top.

Besides the hiking the next day, we had a little more excitement on the drive out on Monday when there seemed to be thick line of road up ahead that was simply missing. Stopping and having a closer look showed a cavernous tunnel of missing dirt, just the top making it to the top of the road, centered on Dark Canyon Creek. This is the road most of us drove in on. This is the road that the CCCs had traveled over several times. We would be traveling the long way on the Wild-Mad Road on the way out.

*photo album*




©2025 Valerie Norton
Written 30 June 2025