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Day 4 was for returning, but there was enough time for one more peak and a visit to the triple point. Water from there variously goes into the Smith River (via middle fork), the Illinois River (via east fork), and Klamath River (via Clear Creek).

The details: https://valhikes.blogspot.com/2025/06/preston-youngs-peak.html

#California #KlamathNationalForest #SiskiyouWilderness #SiskiyouNationalForest #RogueRiverSiskiyouNationalForest #SiskiyouCounty #DelNorteCounty #SmithRiverNationalRecreationArea

#hiking #nature #landscape #travel #hike #outside #backpacking #peakBagging #peakbagger

Youngs Meadow with El Capitan rising behind.

Looking down on a large patch of green, sparse trees in front and thicker beyond it. Past the trees, a mountain seems to rise near vertically with some trees at first, then just snow and rock. Clouds are traveling through the meadow from the left.

Snow on the north side of Youngs Peak makes a less brushy traverse to the peak and triple point for a time.

Footsteps along the flat part of a bit of snow that piles onto the north side of a ridge that is all dark rock to the right. Trees poke out of the snow on the left and from the rocks at the right. The maker of the footprints is striding off making more.

Looking back to the triple point and Youngs Peak from a further peaklet.

Brushy ridge with some flowers yields to rocky and cliffed, then brushy again with some trees then rocky as it extends into the distance and to the right. The last visible is a pointy high point just reaching out of the green brush. More peaks in the distance, some with snow on them. This one also has a blanket of snow decidedly on the right side.

Siskiyou Iris

Bright yellow flower with three long fat petals lined in a deep purple and three narrower petals offset. Another set of three petals closes in on the first, larger set.

Day 2 didn't go quite to plan, but it did touch 3 different national forests while wandering a canyon and eventually ending up at Raspberry Lake.

The details: https://valhikes.blogspot.com/2025/05/preston-raspberry-lake.html

#California #DelNorteCounty #SiskiyouCounty #SiskiyouWilderness #SixRiversNationalForest #KlamathNationalForest #SiskiyouNationalForest #RogueRiverSiskiyouNationalForest

#hiking #nature #landscape #travel #hike #outside #backpacking #lake #burn

Black Butte in Siskiyou National Forest (Rogue River-Siskiyou NF)

Looking down into a gentle green valley of trees. One edge rises to a flattish topped back peak that stands out from all the trees. A few clouds decorate the sky.

Youngs Meadow in Klamath National Forest.

A small creek winds in a sandy depression through a green meadow. Green pines edge it on both sides and a couple grow next to the creek just ahead. Distant and a little to the right, a peak stands above the trees. The sky is just blue.

Checker lily.

Two green leaves stick up from the bottom, a thin stalk between them stretching higher. The stalk seems to have one more small leaf before bending over and spreading into a yellow and brown small checked flower dangling downward. Behind, a scruffy forest of pines.

Cliff maids at Raspberry Lake.

Grey and rough rocks provide a spot for plants to grow. Some are tufts of green, but most are a bunch of thin stalks supporting the spreading pink petals of the cliff maid flowers. All are silhouetted against dark water below.

I headed out on a backpacking trip to the Preston Peak (high point of Siskiyou Wilderness) area. Day 1, well, that turned out to be a hiking day. The seasonal road closure 5.25 miles from the trailhead was still in effect.

All the details: https://valhikes.blogspot.com/2025/05/preston-sanger-lake.html

#California #DelNorteCounty #SixRiversNationalForest #SangerLake

#hiking #nature #landscape #travel #hike #outside #backpaking

Western star flowers.

Flowers poke out between the broken halves of a rock, green leaves radiating below a few white flowers like six pointed stars.

Sage brush lizard.

A lizard on a rock, mostly in shade, looks back at the camera. It's not a fancy lizard, but there's a little color between the light underside and fairly grey top.

Middle Fork Smith River below Broken Rib Mountain.

A green valley winding to an end at a ridge. To the right, the sides rise to a mountain with a little dusting of snow.

Sanger Lake

Small lake with pine trees right down to the edge. Snow pokes out between the trunks on the right side.

#RedFire #DelNorteCounty #CAwx

Justin Roberts, Reporter
Jul 11 at 12:09 PM EDT

The fire is 116.4 acres per the perimeter uploaded to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), which is visible on the Watch Duty map under the Active Fire Perimeters map layer.

Note: Fire perimeters are preliminary and indicate general burn area but do not reflect structure protection efforts by firefighters. A structure within a fire perimeter may not be damaged or destroyed.

https://share.watchduty.org/i/54736?ts=1752250187000

#RedFire #DelNorteCounty #CAwx

ACRES 45 CONTAINMENT Unknown

Cole Euken, Staff Reporter
Jul 8 at 11:56 PM EDT

Red Fire Update from Six Rivers National Forest

Firefighters are working on suppressing the Red Fire burning in a remote area of the Siskiyou Wilderness on the Six Rivers National Forest Orleans Ranger District.

The Red Fire is located approximately 1.5 miles north of Nickowitz Peak near Blue Creek. Cause is under investigation and there is no containment. There are no structures or communities threatened.

Tonight, the fire is estimated by firefighters on the ground to be approximately 45 acres, growing approximately 17 acres over the past 24 hours due to terrain and heavy fuels. An infrared flight has been ordered tonight to inform accurate mapping of the fire perimeter.

Today, the Alpine, Inyo and Shasta Lake Interagency Hotshot Crews worked on fighting the fire with the assistance of air resources. Additional resources are currently on order.

Firefighters reported this evening that fire behavior is still moderate, despite increased acreage and fuels conditions. Work will continue tomorrow establishing containment lines, with a focus on firefighter safety.

Tomorrow at 7 a.m., the Red Fire will be complexed with the Butler Fire under the management of the North Coast Interagency Incident Management Team.

#RedFire #DelNorteCounty #CAwx

Cole Euken, Staff Reporter
Jul 7 at 6:03 PM EDT

The fire has been mapped at 27.8 acres by Intel aircraft. Their perimeter is visible on the Watch Duty map under the Active Fire Perimeters map layer.

Note: Fire perimeters are preliminary and indicate general burn area but do not reflect structure protection efforts by firefighters. A structure within a fire perimeter may not be damaged or destroyed.

Jul 7 at 1:10 AM EDT
Tonight around 7 p.m. the Red Fire was reported on the Six Rivers National Forest. It is burning in the Siskiyou Wilderness Area approximately 1 mile north of Blue Creek. Air Attack estimates the fire is approximately 2 acres. It is burning in a challenging and remote area - per Six Rivers National Forest

https://share.watchduty.org/i/54736?ts=1751925785000

The second day was heading up the mountain and into the snow. Lots of snow. A bit annoying, that snow.

All the details are here: https://valhikes.blogspot.com/2025/03/smith-to-summit-summit-valley.html

#California #DelNorteCounty #SixRiversNationalForest #SmithRiverNRA #SiskiyouWilderness #SouthKelseyTrail

#hiking #backpacking #nature #blog #wilderness #landscape #outside #forest #hike #travel

Blue sky arrives for our one sunny day!

Clouds clearing to a blue sky above, mist follows the river valley below. A thick covering of green trees hides the rising slopes around the river. A mountain in the distance has a thin dusting of snow.

At the turn around after trudging through snow a little.

Looking back across footprints in a blanket of snow. Green conifers poke out of it brightly under a bright sun and sky with thin veil of clouds. In the distance, more mountains with snow covered tops and dark bottoms.

Patchy snow and a striking tree on the way down.

Snow covers the open trail, but not much around the brushy sides. In the near distance, a tree sticks up from above the others nearby showing a bulge of green near the top and then dead sticks right at the top. In the far distance, folds of dark green mountains reach up to snowy tops. The sky has thin streaks of cloud in otherwise blue.

Pseudotrillium, not trillium. It's the only one of the genus.

A white flower with purple spots radiating from the center on its three petals. Below, three sepals and then three bracts that any sane person would take for leaves. The stem is dark red and the leaves dark green with a pattern of white along the veins. It pops out of a ground with much moss.

With a little encouragement, I got out to a short backpacking trip on an old trail. The first day was damp set up, but with plenty of trillium! Er, make that pseudotrillium!

All the info is here: https://valhikes.blogspot.com/2025/03/smith-to-summit-smith-river.html

#California #SixRiversNationalForest #SiskiyouWilderness #DelNorteCounty #SmithRiverNRA #SouthKelseyTrail

#hiking #backpacking #nature #landscape #wilderness #forest#river #SouthForkSmithRiver #travel #hike #outside

The big creek crossing along the way.

A trail of dark earth through mossy green and fern covered land is cut by a wide creek with rushing white water tumbling over boulders. An apparently small hiker balances on a pair of thin logs with the aid of a long walking stick in the water, crossing the main flow. Thickly green trees stand around.

Del Norte Salamander

A small, wet salamander curls and scrambles on fingers much larger than it. It is dark brown with striping of lighter brown from head to tail.

Soggy brook wakerobing, the only Pseudotrillium species.

A dark purple stem pokes up from three big green leaves with a bricklike pattern. A flower weighted down by large water drops curves to the side. It's three petals are white and partly protected by light green sepals.

Buck Creek entering South Fork Smith River

A large flowing creek with water turning from white to calmer looking enters into a second large flowing water body. Bare rocks with plants a few feet above the water surround. From this angle, either could be the largest. It's actually the further that's largest.

Are you a Star Wars fan? Do you have the means and inclination to be in Northern California this weekend?
🌲The Forest Moon Festival is on! 🌕
So much fun to be had now through June 2nd.
https://forestmoonfestival.org/index.html
#StarWars
#HumboldtCounty
#DelNorteCounty