Elizabeth and I stayed in Weaverville last night, still awestruck from the huge flocks of geese we saw in the Central Valley. Weaverville is a town of a few thousand people nestled in the Klamath Mountains, just south of the half-million acre Trinity Alps Wilderness. We stopped for an excellent dinner at La Grange, where local artists’ paintings of the Trinity Alps hung from the interior brick walls and the table centerpieces were filled with pine cones.
This morning we woke up at sunrise. Weaverville’s empty streets were filled with fog. Temperatures were below freezing, and cars, houses, and trees were covered in a layer of frost. How long had it been since I last scraped ice off my car windows?
I knew I wanted to hike in the Trinity Alps, but I didn’t know where to go. There was already snow on the mountain tops, and the roads to the trails were steep, winding, single-lane Forest Service roads, often unpaved: harrowing enough without snow and ice on them. We stopped at the Weaverville Ranger Station for some suggestions.
The ranger recommended the popular Stuart Fork Trail while his yellow Labrador, Scion, broke free of his leash and ran around the station. Elizabeth played with the dog while I talked to the ranger about the area. He gave me a topographic map of the trail and directions to the trailhead. Scion was rolling on the ground, and I gave him a good belly-rub on our way out.
The Stuart Fork trailhead was at the end of a narrow and potholed dirt road, but we got there without a problem. Our car was the only one in the parking lot. I expected not to see anyone on our hike.
Outside it was shady, cold, and damp. Immediately I spotted some very large incense-cedar and Douglas-fir.
The Stuart Fork was a deep blue-green river with a little whitewater. Its sound filled the thickly forested canyon. Streams trickled downhill to meet it. In fact, we heard running water throughout today’s hike. What a contrast to the High Sierra, where we’d sometimes walk for hours without seeing water.
The forest, meanwhile, reminded me of the middle-elevations on the west side of the Sierra Nevada. Incense-cedar and Douglas-fir, the trees I’d seen near the car, were most abundant. There were also sugar pine and ponderosa pine. I even saw an unexpected lodgepole pine. Broadleaf trees included black oak and bigleaf maple. In a way, the forest reminded me of an outsized version of the riverside forests I’d spent so many days hiking through in Pennsylvania and New York. I felt at home.
After an hour and a half on the trail, it was almost time for us to turn around. I heard something, like a tree or rock, fall down by the river. A minute later, a big, furry black animal crossed the trail 15 yards ahead of me. I’d seen dark objects out of the corner of my eye hundreds of times will hiking and wondered what they were, but this time I knew instantly that I was looking at a bear. “Uh-oh,” I said. We stopped. The bear seemed oblivious. Did it not know we were there? Or did it know, but just not care? The bear stopped and turned toward me. Recognizing a human, it ran away, bounding up the hill. I turned around and Elizabeth was wide-eyed and starting to walk backward. Now the bear’s cub crossed the trail. Then the cub, too, saw us and ran up the hill.
Elizabeth had turned around and was walking away at a quick pace. Well, I thought, it’s time to head back, and now would be a perfectly good time to turn around. I followed her.
We were still tingling with excitement from seeing the bears when around a turn in the trail ahead came a wolf. “Not again,” I thought. He was walking right toward us. He looked oddly happy—as if he wanted to be pet. Then I saw his collar: he was just someone’s dog. I rubbed his head and he brushed up against my leg. He turned around and led us down the trail to his owners. They were all backpacking up to Morris Meadow. Their dog was Diesel Henry, a wolf-malamute hybrid. We chatted a while, then we went on our ways.
I kept looking around as we walked back, taking in as much as I could: the huge conifers, the moss-covered maples and oaks, the snow-covered peaks, the dark green canyons that went on without end. Everything held the promise of more adventure. It felt like the beginning of a crush. I’d have to arrange a way to see the Trinity Alps again.
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That was close. Glad you made it back safe.
Enjoyed your trip report — beautiful area. If you get a chance — try the Swift Creek Trail sometime. (Trinity Alps — Swift Creek Trailhead) — it’s only a short hike from the trailhead to the scenic Swift Creek Gorge. Continue along the trail a bit and you’ll soon be doing easy rock hops across numerous small creeks — many of the creeks overgrown with wild azaleas. Sometimes in June and July — wild azaleas scent the shady trail for miles.
Thanks for the tip Gary. I’ve been planning to visit the Swift Creek / Bear Creek area this summer. Now I know when to go!