North Trinity Mountain, Waterdog Lake and Mill Creek Lakes
Six Rivers National Forest
I've had suggestions that maybe I should wander around the area east of the Hoopa Reservation, but apparently I had to be dragged to it. The road is long, but only a small section a little scary. Turn at Big Hill and then there's many junctions to guess. Some don't matter and some will get you to the Big Hill fire lookout instead. It gets rougher after the turn to the trailhead. Daniil brought his wife, myself, and another along for maybe a 7 mile loop, or maybe less? He's not sure what the northern trails are like and has been doing shorter loops cross country on the snow. I said that we better tag the mountain since it's easy, just an easy 1/4 mile off trail. And I think the trail across the north end is probably fine, but the joining stuff could be iffy, but that's from satellite and others suggest otherwise.
The whole area is severely burned by the 2020 Red Salmon Fire. The Salmon portion of it started a half mile from a trail I'd just walked out on, quite possibly on the day before I'd planned to actually do that walking. Then, I left two days early because of the overgrown nature of the trails and not because of the coming weather that kicked it all off. It was still warm and sunny and pleasant then. Maybe a little bit hot. And then this happened.
Water was flowing well where it is expected. That's only one place until the mountain top. There were a few other moist spots and the first of several patches of glacier lilies as we climbed the gentle side of the mountain. It wasn't too far from them to the first snow on trail.
It's also not far to the break off for the top of the mountain.
The wide top was half covered in snow. The map put the benchmark at the snow line. I didn't find it or any references. The top is large enough, we had to stroll a bit around for better views in all the directions.
After snacks, we headed down to the trail again, joining it just a little further on.
On trail again, we were descending to meadows, the way interrupted with snow and melting snow. I'd suspected there might be a lot of melt and after a few strides trying to dance around the water, changed my wool socks for waterproof ones. There was no more dancing around after that. My shoes were wet and my feet comfortable anyway and it made for a much better hike.
We weren't really able to stick to the trail on the way down and once to the lake, sort of ignored it.
We decided to leave the newts to themselves and headed out for a dry spot for lunch. It was hard to find. I was loving the dry socks and not having to care were my feet landed. Well, there was care at the stream crossing because they only go up so high.
Shasta was still out there to see, somehow. It was a little more distinct without the billowing clouds around it visible, but still a faint white point. We paid more attention to the nearer whites and greens.
We headed out across a bit more marshy stuff and found another stream to wander along briefly.
We seemed to be very decidedly headed toward the saddle between Waterdog Lake and Mill Creek Lakes with a leader who was far more interested in stopping by the upper Mill Creek Lake than following the larger loop. It seems a little counterproductive to try to find trail under so much snow.
It takes a bit of care to get down the west side, which is much rockier with ledges. There were class 2 moments, but nothing more than a quick scramble down a short boulder.
We found more newts in the pool as we made our way around the edge and then out to a ledge for more snacking.
We watched the clouds and the inflatable canoe that happened to be floating around the lake below.
And then we returned around the edge of the lake and committed to the rest of the class 2 descent to the lower lake. There is at least one more smaller pond on the way, but we didn't stop by it. It was above our route, but it looked like others do go past it in their route around these lakes.
We found ourselves on better and better established use trail as we neared the lake, especially once there were no more boulders to navigate along. It got less steep as we got closer.
The canoe paddlers were part of a larger party hanging out in and by the lake. Some were even exploring up the path we came down. Eventually we were on trail sort of as marked by the Forest Service on their topo.
Then it's back along a short lake spur to the main trail.
It's a fairly easy path back this way.
So that wasn't exactly the ~7 mile loop expected, but there was less trail than the usual not so much trail of the area with all the snow piled on top of things. And the burn... well, it's not so bad in some directions. But it's bad.
*photo album*
©2025 Valerie Norton
Written 26 Jul 2025
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Comments
I look at this map and I feel like it is missing a trail crossing Red Cap Creek north to Salmon Summit somewhere. The FS does mark an extra 6E08 ("Horse Ridge National Recreation Trail" number) going north and vanishing under the district boundary line (maybe it connect to 9N31A?) that is missing from the map above. I guess we should be keeping up the trails we've got before going after new ones.
Lookout Rock is somewhat north of Peak 6174. There's nothing on any of the topo maps to show the location. But again, look at my KML file. (There's an actual trail sign at the junction to the little spur.)