CARIBOU MADNESS
Backpacking trip #4 of the spring. One more to go before the waterfalls all dry up for this dismal year. This one did not turn out so successful. I made it to just two waterfalls, and only one good photo (this one). I had hoped for much more. Let me explain!
It was my 22nd wedding anniversary. My wife and I were in Red Bluff for the weekend at her mom’s house. We went out to lunch and then got some ice cream and went down to the river for a pleasant afternoon. In the evening I drove up north to the Trinity Alps Wilderness at the end of Coffee Creek Road.
I had read horror stories about this road and they all turned out to be fairly accurate (much to my chagrin). It is a very rough road littered with sharp rocks for the entire length of it. I tried my best to avoid getting a flat tire on these rocks (I have had that happen before on a similar road). 20 miles of slow driving at about 20mph. You do the math.
I finally reached the end of the road at the campground. There was still enough light so I went down to the first waterfall: South Fork Salmon River Falls (pictured here). It is about 60 ft. high so that is quite a bit bigger than I expected. It was a bit too steep to get all the way down to the river but I found a great viewpoint on a rock at the edge of the cliff. One waterfall in the bag. It was a great start to the trip.
I slept in my car at the trailhead. I slept in until 7:30! That is very late for me and a bit later than I wanted to sleep. Oh well, I guess I needed it. My plan was to hike up to Caribou Lakes and beyond. It did not exactly turn out that way.
There were an enormous number of deer at the trailhead (and also up at Caribou Lakes). They were all over the place, wandering around the campground, hanging out in the meadows, it was crazy. There were more deer here than I have seen in the last three years combined or more (no exaggeration).
There were also quite a few cars at the trailhead for Caribou Lakes. This was a surprise. This trail in the Trinity Alps has become rather popular in the last few years. Too popular. I think the Trinity Alps needs to start implementing quota on some trails (including this one) because they are becoming over used. Nonetheless, I was not expecting to see anyone this weekend because it is very early season. It was definitely not even possible to hike up to the lakes just two weeks ago so I was hitting this trail in the first one or two weeks of the season.
The trail is 9 miles long with 2000 ft. elevation gain. The grade is fairly gentle with no big steep sections. It is a steady climb the entire way. Nevertheless, it took a long time to hike up to the lakes and I was beat by the time I got there. I totally underestimated this hike. I had plans to continue past the lakes and down the other side. It did not matter anyway. There was still way too much snow on the other side and it was impassable. I knew there would be snow (and I brought my spikes) but it looked far too treacherous to attempt it. I did not have any energy to continue regardless.
There were two big groups camped at the lakes that I saw. One of them was camping in the spot where I had hoped to camp. Argh. Well, I found a different spot beside the outlet stream from Snowslide Lake opposite a pretty little waterfall dropping into the lake from the cliffs on the other side. Snowslide Lake is well named I suspect, it looked like there would be plenty of avalanches into the lake in the winter. My camping spot was away from the other groups and I did not see them at all for the rest of the day. The only bad thing is there was almost no shade. It was very hot in the sun. But it was very cold in the shade (what little shade there was). It was a tale of two extremes. I could not find a happy medium.
After dinner I hiked up to the Upper Caribou Lake. There was still plenty of snow up there, and still ice in the lake. It was incredibly gorgeous.
I had one more waterfall to see. There is a huge waterfall below Lower Caribou Lake. Getting down to it is a big problem because it is far below the lake. One thousand feet below the lake, to be precise. I was expecting that the descent would be extremely sketchy the whole way down. Actually, it was not too bad (a few tricky spots) but it took a full hour to get down. I made it all the way down to the precise spot where I had planned. There “should be” a terrific view of the waterfall from this spot. There “would be” a terrific view of the waterfall from this spot. EXCEPT for a bunch of trees beside the falls that were obscuring the view of it. ARGH! I would have been very happy if there was a clear view of the waterfall from here, however it was pretty much a wasted effort. I won’t be sharing the photo on this blog but it will be loaded on my website. There was no way to continue further to the bottom. It is just cliff and more cliff below me. Nothing more I could do but climb back up to the top and to my campsite.
The next morning I packed up and retreated down the mountain to my car. Along the way I had a cool sighting. There was a long traverse which I thought would make a good video clip so I setup my camera as I do and walked back along the traverse. As I was doing this a pine marten came down to my camera walking right in front of it as it was recording video. When he noticed me walking back up the trail he scooted up into the bushes above the trail. So cool! And I got it on video! Well anyway, it took a long time to hike the 9 miles down and I was exhausted by the end of it. It was a good and very tiring trip in the Trinity Alps Wilderness.
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