As the summer goes by quickly, we’re now at the penultimate MSTA Trail Challenge Treasure Hunt.
To begin your search for the seventh trail treasure, start at a high mountain lake that reminds you of sticky shoes. Continue past the campground and kiosk and cross a small rock dam. Hike a short distance around the lake until you find two large pines and a small circle of carnivorous plants. Trek up the trail for approximately 15- 20 minutes. You will the will find the smaller namesake of the lower lake. This is the trail treasure.
Here are the rules of the hunt. Each time you locate a treasure, send us a photo or description of the treasure along with your contact information to: mtshastatrail@gmail.com. Then, your name will be entered into a drawing for the grand prize. In addition, the first person to locate each new treasure will receive their choice of a prize, and their name will be placed into the grand prize drawing. For example, if you find 5 treasures your name will be added five times to the grand prize drawing.
If you’d like to have a say in the naming of the new Gateway Trails, go to this website created by Bike Shasta and vote. There are several options for each trail.
To begin your search for the sixth trail treasure, travel up the mountain looking for a the trailhead that is named for a large wild feline. The treasure will be found in a tract of moist low lying land. This plant is a favorite of the voles living there.
Here are the rules of the hunt. Each time you locate a treasure, send us a photo or description of the treasure along with your contact information to: mtshastatrail@gmail.com. Then, your name will be entered into a drawing for the grand prize. In addition, the first person to locate each new treasure will receive their choice of a prize, and their name will be placed into the grand prize drawing. For example, if you find 5 treasures your name will be added five times to the grand prize drawing.
We’re having one more trail work day before a little break. We need to clear the St. Barnabas Trail using weed whackers and brush hogs. We’ll plan to start at 8 am and finish before 10. We have six, powered weed-eating machines. We’ll need some raking done too.
Meet in the St. Barnabas parking lot around 8 (although you can come anytime afterward and leave when you wish). That’s tomorrow, Thursday, July 21.
This is what you’ve all been waiting for! The annual Spring Hill Trailhead cleanup with Boy Scout Troop 97!
To avoid the heat, we’ll start at 6 pm. It usually takes an hour or two. Bring weed whackers and rakes, although we’ll have a number of them, as well as two, walk-behind string trimmers. This is a fun event and an opportunity to see the Boy Scouts show off their work ethic.
To begin your search for the fifth trail treasure, start at the trailhead that is at the one mile marker of the highway named after a forest supervisor who died fighting the Bear Springs Fire. Travel along the main trail. After crossing a newly build causeway you will see your first glance a basaltic andesite outcropping that looks like a prow of a ship. Find the formation that is remnants of the Sand Flat Cone. This was one of the first of the Mount Shasta flows, which occurred around 600,000 years ago.
Here are the rules of the hunt. Each time you locate a treasure, send us a photo or description of the treasure along with your contact information to: mtshastatrail@gmail.com. Then, your name will be entered into a drawing for the grand prize. In addition, the first person to locate each new treasure will receive their choice of a prize, and their name will be placed into the grand prize drawing. For example, if you find 5 treasures your name will be added five times to the grand prize drawing.
Last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the Trail Center crew from the Bay Area worked with our local volunteers to greatly improve the upper portion of Sisson’s Trail near McBride Springs. A short reroute was created to avoid a ditch, brushing and trail widening was accomplished, and professional-grade water bars were created in some areas where erosion problems demanded them. Everyone worked their tails off. Many thanks to this group of visitors, as well as our local volunteers, some of whom assisted Glenn Harvey with food, drink, and dishes at the KOA campground all weekend.
To begin your search for the fourth trail treasure, you will start your search in a park named after a building in a fairy tale. Find the trail that is named for an artificial channel conveying water. Continue along the trail looking a historical artifact. The structure that was used to help mine gold is the trail treasure. A map to help you is below.
Here are the rules of the hunt. Each time you locate a treasure, send us a photo or description of the treasure along with your contact information to: mtshastatrail@gmail.com. Then, your name will be entered into a drawing for the grand prize. In addition, the first person to locate each new treasure will receive their choice of a prize, and their name will be placed into the grand prize drawing. For example, if you find 5 treasures your name will be added five times to the grand prize drawing.
If you haven’t met me yet, or heard about this, there is a new position on the SMMU! It is for a seasonal interpretive ranger, who will be in charge of developing various educational programs about our forest, monitoring Panther Meadows, coordinating the Trailhead Host program, planning a National Public Lands Day event, etc.
So far this season, I have mainly focused on outreach to let the community know to expect to see programs, and hopefully get an audience for them, meanwhile working to get those programs actually developed. By July 2nd, I will have an entire program on Panther Meadows, Geology, and hopefully the Legends and Lore of the area as well. As time permits, hopefully by the end of July, I will also have a program on Forest Health Management. I attached the advertising flyer for these programs, which you might have seen up around town and the forest, as well as on social media!
I attached the program schedule here as well. I’ve only put up the one for July as of now, because it’s a new position, and I might find that the times or locations should change. For next month, I will be giving programs at 11am, 3pm, and 7pm every Saturday, and 11am and 3pm every Sunday. The daytime ones will rotate between Panther Meadows, McCloud Falls, and Castle Lake, and the evening program will go between Fowlers and Castle Crags State Park (they have an amphitheater). Eventually, the idea is to have each location have it’s own topic- Panther Meadows: the meadows, McCloud Falls: Forest Health Management, Castle Lake: Geology, Castle Crags and Fowlers: Legends and Lore. However, for the beginning of July, McCloud Falls will also have the geology talk, and the first weekend, Fowlers might have geology as well. Each of the programs will be around 30-40 minutes.
If anyone is interested in learning some more about the forest you work on, come on out to a program this summer, and pass it on to your friends too! If you have any recommendations on other ways to get the news out to the community, any ideas for a National Public Lands Day event topic, or any other input, feel free to reach out! And last but not least, thanks to all the folks that have helped me out with developing this new position so far this year. I look forward to working with all of you throughout the season!
Haley WilkenInterpretive Park Ranger Forest Service Shasta-Trinity National ForestShasta McCloud Management Unitp: 530-926-9653haley.wilken@usda.gov204 West Alma Street Mt. Shasta, CA 96067 www.fs.fed.us Caring for the land and serving people
Thursday evening, 17 trail work volunteers from the Bay Area (known as Trail Center) will be arriving in MS to assist in constructing part of Gateway II. Friday, we’ll be working on “Sisson’s Trail,” which connects McBride Springs Campground to the first segment of Gateway I. A number of locals have put significant time into this trail, which is likely to be the only “hikers-only” trail in the new system. Part of the trail has to be rerouted in a drainage area, some brush removed, water bars constructed, all to US Forest Service standards. At least one USFS employee will be on site to guide our work.
Saturday, we’re likely to continue work on the same trail, then we move on Sunday morning to a nearby site on the already-constructed CZ-5 to armor the trail where it passes through a drainage.
This is a chance to have our local trail volunteers meet and work side by side with these folks who are donating their entire weekend to help us build trail. Yes, it will be hot, but much of this trail is shaded or partially shaded. As is usual, you can come for as long as you want, or just come to say hello. Lunch will be served for volunteers around noon by Glenn Harvey.
I will be parked about a hundred yards up Everitt Memorial Hwy from McBride Campground with the tool trailer by about 8:30 on Friday and Saturday mornings; you can’t miss me unless you want to (which I would understand). We have all the tools and hard hats. If it gets too hot, we’ll quit and go jump in the lake.
Attached is a photo of the trail. Hope to see you.
