Trinity: Crogan Hole and Tish Tang A Tang

Six Rivers National Forest

DAY 1  |  DAY 2

Blue line for day 1. Click for interactive map

(Note that a free permit is required for backpacking in Trinity Alps Wilderness. They are available at Lower Trinity Ranger Station in Willow Creek.)

In the bright morning sun, we headed up Big Hill Road to the Mill Creek Lakes Trailhead (car passable except the last mile or two could be a challenge) once more, this time for an overnight. What will the trails be like? That's a bit of a mystery and we had a loop to try them out. (I actually had a bigger one, but Daniil nixxed reduced it to this minimal one saying something about a dense pile of trees for miles where it dropped low.) I've been tracing out trails in USGS's elevation profile, which isn't quite the gold standard of where trails go, but it's better than the lines the Forest Service provides much of the time. It gave me predictions for how this would go. The worst of it looked to be along the first half of Tish Tang, but surely that couldn't be so since there's another trailhead to feed it.

Crogan Hole follows an old road bed that is still resists vegetation growth.

We immediately hit a bunch of mature trees fallen across the trail. It wasn't looking good for my expectation that the first first ~3 miles would be pretty easy, but they were almost all of the trees on the trail for a bit. We got to admire the fog in the valleys as it burned off instead of sorting out the trail ahead.

The fog lifting from the soggy valleys.

An unnamed stream courses through willows that only look dead with the season.

Such a beautiful flow.

The fire scar may be severe, but the place is not empty. The area was noisy with birds from the moment we opened the doors although it was reducing as the hours got later.

The fog below is getting quite wispy.

We startled some sooty grouse along the way.

One plant is even heavy with berries already. Okay, so it's incense cedar mistletoe on the typical host.

A few chipmunks ran about.

A thin layer of snow remains on the north sides of the higher peaks.

Overlooking the drainage of Tish Tang a Tang (has also been spelled Djishtangading) Creek.

One seasonal feeder with a little waterfall above the burned log.

The one non-seasonal source for Tish Tang a Tang Creek this high up, according to the map.

And on its way down.

Tish Tang a Tang Creek itself.

There were more flowers as we passed the water and turned along the north facing slope. Still lots of bird sounds too. The audio of the water grew and grew until we simply had to look for the waterfalls.

There it is, the waterfall on Tish Tang a Tang Creek or a feeder.

It's quite far off.

But wait, there's more! That's just the lower falls of a pair.

A sort of parasitic wood wasp, I think?

Coming around the mountain to Crogan Creek.

A very close look at a very short larkspur.

This meadow was soggy on the inside and had a small signboard of the sort typically found holding a "pack it in, pack it out" poster at well used dispersed car camp sites.

We found Crogan Basin Trail where it starts climbing the short way to Crogan Hole itself. It was marked with a cairn and looked easy enough to follow. We didn't notice the downhill side, which should have been before the meadow with the car camp from the days when this was a road. We could see the line of it plenty well as we continued along past the creek.

Crogan Basin Trail heads up.

I expected the trail to start to get brushier at this intersection, but it waited until rounding the ridge to get bad.

Crogan Creek wasn't big enough to keep its nearby trees through the fire.

Stream violets beside the creek.

There are trees below.

And even more green trees beyond.

Just short of a seasonal stream (currently running), we found a mystery wall and a little camping area. This one came complete with abandoned tent, which we weren't really prepared to pack out as we continued on.

Around the corner and there's a bit of burn again.

The fire effects are again much worse on the south facing slopes.

Bret Creek was the largest we encountered and it looked like it had blown out the road at one point, but this had been repaired as road and blown out again. It wasn't much of a challenge as trail, although I found some very slick rocks while trying to keep my feet dry.

Bret Creek pounding over its boulders. Still not big enough to save all its trees.

Shelton's violet among the flowers.

Glacier lilies are starting to feel less special.

Ragged California tortoiseshell among the spreading Phlox.

It looked like bear was keeping the tread trod as we finished with our section of Crogan Hole Trail. There was a very nice tread with deer bush arching over it pushing taller creatures like humans off onto less established tread areas. As we turned onto McKay Meadows Trail, it all seemed to wander off in different directions. In a few steps we came to the edge of the meadow and wandered off ourselves, right down the middle.

The largest of the McKay Meadows.

At the western edge of the meadow, we found another camp. This one came complete with abandoned tarp. Other than that, we felt it was quite a pleasant seeming camp and it was suggested we might utilize it. However, with my expectation that the next part would be much less good trail, I figured stopping there would be the end of the loop. Finding our way would be a casual wander in this afternoon, but too much for the start of a big day that would be left.

A camp with a southern blind of big trees and possibly a removed corral.

The meadow from the camp.

We started our wandering immediately. We weren't sure where the trail was, but we were sure there was a small pond in the middle of the meadow that we wanted to check out. Waterproof shoes came in handy for those who were wearing.

A hole in the meadow full of water.

The pond was full of tadpoles, probably Pacific chorus frogs.

A tiny common garter snake slid away through the grass.

There were many hookedspur violets in the meadow.

After checking out the pond, we wound our way out the end of the meadow and then west to meet the presumed location of the trail. Over a pile of fallen trees, we found it looking in good shape, at least briefly. There were more meadows coming to lose it in.

Into more meadow.

With a prettier pond, but less interesting.

The map claimed we needed to cross Corral Creek a few times, which is really just silly. There it sat, flowing slow and easy and just as deep as it was wide. No rocks to help us across, so we found a place we could step across.

Corral Creek as it leaves the meadow for a patch of swamp alders.

We noted the trout in this supposedly seasonal stream as we crossed. Unfortunately, once across, we just felt trapped and not really willing to step in the deep stream to cross back, so we returned to our crossing to circle a long way around the swamp alders spreading on the eastern side of the meadow.

Corral Creel in a different light on the return.

Another view of McKay Meadows from among the blueberries.

Above the swamp alder, we found a well used game trail that was going our way. Sometimes it split, but it made an easy route around and along Corral Creek. We made it harder by trying to connect with the expected trail location again on the far side, crossing on a large downed tree. I ended up circling back again while the others stuck it out briefly and found a different crossing.

Down into Patterson Meadows.

More of Corral Creek. The animals found/created a nice path for us without so much debris on it.

A nice and easy to use bridge across Corral Creek at a particularly large pool.

We found a post that could be mistaken for a burned sign post with bolt to hold a destroyed sign, but the second one a short way away suggested it was fence. It was short of the junction anyway. We didn't find the junction, but it's supposed to be on the other side of the creek from where we went. We didn't really find trail until after entering the biggest of the Patterson Meadows.

Entering the largest of the Patterson Meadows.

We found another camp in the trees beside the meadow. This one also came complete with an abandoned tarp, but this time a fancy, expensive one with "wing" in the name from Kelty, not just an ordinary blue one. Also a tempting camping area, but no one suggested it this time. We found remnants of possible trail just inside the woods until a fallen tree pushed hikers back out into the easy walking along the meadow.

On up the meadow.

I got distracted by the various unnamed lines, thinking we're meant to be looping that way, not this way, until realizing that it's Calf Swag Trail, which I'm not entirely certain is a real thing. Something to explore while feeling more adventurous. We were to climb the hill, which turned out to be over a very severe burn and there was little trail to see on the climb.

Climbing brings views.

Trees still exist!

As we flattened out, there was something that could be trail. However, it wasn't enough to keep us from getting onto Oregon Creek Trail instead as we crossed. Oregon Creek was only slightly more obvious. We wound back over once more to find some maybe tread going our way.

Looking back down Patterson Meadows.

Trail along the ground on the far left?

Just as we were starting to be confident we were on trail, and not only that but the trail would even start to be better defined as we got into rockier terrain, I suggested that a meadow below where running water was clearly audible might be camp for the night. We were aiming at a ridge top camp with suspected water a short walk down the side, but winds were kicking up and the weather report had suggested the night would be a little windy, so this spot that seemed a little more sheltered, with definite water, looked attractive. I was pretty sure there were flat spots too. After much dithering, we descended to this meadow for camp, roughly halfway along the loop.

We had to supply our own tent and tarp for this camp and managed not to abandon anything afterward.

The stop time gave plenty of time to set up and cook and all the things.

The sun sets into the marine layer on the ocean as seen from our high camp.

Continue on to the next day ⇒


*photo album*




©2026 Valerie Norton
Published 20 May 2026