The day after his epic trip to Truckee, Chester, and Chico, Philip Reedy and his friend John headed up I-5 to the Mt Shasta area.
“As always, our first stop was Simms Flat campground south of Dunsmuir,” Reedy said. “At only 1600 ft elevation, it usually peaks later, but there were already some nice colors. Up the road to Castella we found that a lot of trees had already lost some leaves, yet the Darmera was mostly green yet.”
“As always there was nice color and beautiful views of Castle Crags. This year we decided to forego our usual hike to Mossbrae Falls and the box canyon below Siskiyou dam, but my past 10 years visiting those spots strongly suggest beautiful colors during the next week. Instead, we headed to McCloud for lunch and then south to Yet Atwam (formerly Squaw Valley) Creek and the Lower McCloud river at Ash Camp. Interestingly, while the trees along Yet Atwam still had a way to go to reach peak color, the Darmera there had all died off. Yet down the road at Ash Camp a lot of the trees had yet to change and that was true of the Darmera as well. There were some beautiful colors at Ash Camp near the Pacific Crest Trail which crosses the river there.
The upcoming couple of weeks will be nice for the abundant bigleaf maples and oak trees that cover the mountainsides around Dunsmuir and Mt Shasta.
Siskiyou and Shasta areas – Near Peak to Peak (50-100%) Go Now!
