I’m getting calls and e-mails from hikers in and around Independence who are debating where to go next. A lot are under the impression that there is easy going after Old Station…not true! While it’s been very hot here this last week and snow is melting fast, we had way more snow than usual really late (3 1/2 feet in O.S. Easter A.M.)this year. While more parts of the trail become more passable each day,the fast melt is creating horrendous conditions at water crossings that are pretty dicey this time of year anyway. In the last week & 1/2 we have retrieved a hiker who left Belden and couldn’t get past Chester, and picked him up again up around Bartle (on Hywy 89, between Burney Falls and the McCloud River area after he left here headed north. We’ve had hikers headed south thru Lassen N. P. turn back because of impassable trails, four hikers have been scooped off a mt. by air after leaving Ash Creek headed for Burney Falls, and altho it’s been three weeks since an experienced snow and PCT hiker from Redding got found after leaving Burney Falls for Castle Crags S.P. (she hit impassable snow just no. of the southern base of Red Mt. and hairy creek crossings even before this hot spell began), a group of 3 nobos left Old Station for Castle Crags w/i the last week and ran into ‘solid snow @ 6000 ft.’. No features available to navigate by had them backtracking to a highway and hitching to Dunsmuir, so it’s still bad up there. They report that another hiker was collected up by the Forest Service in that same area.
The F.S. at Ft. Jones said on 6/19 that their stretch of the trail (Castle Crags to Seiad Valley) won’t be clear for roughly 3 weeks. Jim Duffy (motorhome next to the church in Sierra City) said on the same day that while the town itself is snow-free, his favorite camping spot next to the PCT is still buried and the water crossings are lethal. The Braatens of Little Haven (Belden) doubt that the trail south of them is passable yet, but that’s just a guess.
The hot weather here (117 f. in Redding on Sunday 6/25) has spawned T-storms w/ dry lightning. Big fire outside of Reno and yesterday a dozen or so smaller ones were started around Susanville, CA . Our volunteer F.D. plus ‘all available’ CDF, prison fire teams and volunteer F.D. units plus air support were called to Lassen County for those yesterday afternoon. Nothing is burning that I know of near the trail in that area, but no one is hiking there so don’t know for sure. We’ve had one hiker who arrived here from Ashland saying he more or less hiked the trail, tho he didn’t think he was actually on it a lot of the time, but by the time he reached here, he was sick to death of snow and risking his life at crossings and got off trail at least for a while. I’m advising folks I talk with that for probably another week, hiking up here seems to be limited to roughly four days in any direction, and in many cases that leaves folks in the middle of nowhere-to-go with short supplies and a long hike back. Wherever you’re going, it seems you can’t get there from here, at least for a while yet and when you do try, bring water wings!
I’d love to hear from anyone who can add to the info I have on conditions through this stretch as they are changing rapidly and I’d like to be able to give hikers the latest news possible.
Thanks…stay safe, this year’s sad statistics are bad enough already!
Georgi Heitman