San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Remote getaway so distant, huge, you don’t need wilderness permit
In the summer of COVID19, seclusion in the outdoors could become the state’s most valuable commodity.
To get it, the Marble Mountain Wilderness in the remote north state is one of the best options. It spans 241,000 acres, 235 times the size of Golden Gate Park, with 24 trailheads, 89 lakes and 600 miles of trails.
Access is free with a required campfire permit, which you obtain online. Marble Mountain is so distant and huge that you don’t even need a wilderness permit.
California has roughly 150 designated wilderness areas that cover about 15% of the state. Most require challenging hikes with backpacks to explore.
The most famous and crowded are in the central Sierra Nevada, between Mount Whitney and Lake Tahoe. This summer, reservations are required and quotas are enforced at Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia national parks, Desolation Wilderness above Lake Tahoe, and the Mount Whitney Wil
derness near Lone Pine. At Mount Whitney this past week, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake set off a rockslide and the Forest Service closed the staging area and trailheads at Whitney Portal, as well as the road around the flank of Whitney to the 10,000foot Horseshoe Meadow Trailhead for the Pacific Crest Trail and Golden Trout Wilderness.
Garden of Eden: A key element that sets the Klamath and Siskiyou mountains apart from the High Sierra is the elevation.
The Marble Mountain Wilderness, for instance, tends to range from 5,000 to 7,000foot elevations. In comparison, the Sierra Nevada wilderness areas feature many trailheads in the 8,000foot range, with climbs that rise up to 10,000 to 12,000foot elevations. Many can get gutpunched from the high altitude and perhaps “outofshapeitude.”
With the lower elevations that is the Klamath Mountains, the landscapes give rise to more sediment, trees and vegetation and terrestrial activity than the barren, alpine landscapes of the High Sierra.
In the High Sierra, like at Wilma Lake, set in a basin at 7,946 feet in the Yosemite Wilderness, we’ve seen the mosquitoes swarm so thick that passing hikers on the PCT were wearing rain gear as a defense on hot, sunny afternoons. Yet in the Marble Mountains, at 5,700foot Meteor Lake, we watched in comfort when swarms of dragonflies devoured the mosquitoes, and were joined by emerging stoneflies and butterflies.
In addition, thighhigh ferns and waistdeep wildflowers in many valleys can feel like you have entered a Garden of Eden. In the oldgrowth forests, you’ll never forget how the air smells, the omnipresent pine duff, which often imprints wilderness hikers for life.
Distant, beautiful: The first thing to get into focus is how far away this is. One of our favorite trailheads, Haypress
Meadows, is 390 miles from San Francisco, with the last 17 miles on an old logging road. Depending on your route, once you reach Eureka, it’s another three hours of driving, and from Redding, another four hours. Many of the great trailheads that provide access to the Marbles, including trailheads for the Pacific Crest Trail, are even farther. Most people aren’t built for that kind of travel.
Once on the trail, the hiking is rhythmic, and for most, sustainable for many hours. The biggest climbs tend to be 1,500to 2,000foot elevation gains. That’s quite a break compared with some of the 4,000foot buttkicker climbs of the Sierra, like at Shepherd Pass, Taboose Pass, Muir Pass on the John Muir Trail, and others.
Gemlike lakes are sprinkled in pockets across the land where you can pick a different one each night for camp. The crown jewel, nestled deep in the heart of the wilderness, is Spirit Lake. Some of the other prettiest lakes include Cuddihy and Ukonom lakes, and across the wilderness, it seems the only lake that isn’t pristine is named, ironically, Paradise Lake (it’s far from paradise).
Yet the best mountain climb in the wilderness is out of Paradise Lake Trailhead, the trek to 7,405foot Kings Castle. Once on top, you get a sweeping panorama across the north face of 8,255foot Marble Mountain and nearby Black Marble Mountain. From Meteor Lake (Roosevelt elk common), you can also freelance a route (no trail) to the ridge for a spectacular 360. The south face of Marble Mountain looms to the north, with the Marble Rim and Kings Castle nearby. To your left, Preston Peak in the Siskiyou Wilderness near Oregon rises up on the horizon, fronted by miles of national forest.
The goal might be
If you go
Where:
Marble Mountain Wilderness, Klamath National Forest
Cost:
Parking, access, permits are free
Permits:
A campfire permit (free) for backpacking stoves is required for overnight use and available online at www.fs.usda. gov/klamath, and at district offices when they reopen. Before departing, update for most current fire conditions and campfire restrictions.
Campfires:
Campfires permitted early in summer. As summer progresses, rangers will post restrictions on campfires, smoking and open flames outside of campsites. Bring a camp stove.
Mountain bikes:
No mountain bikes permitted past wilderness boundary or on Pacific Crest Trail.
Maps:
Klamath National Forest, $20 at the U.S. Geologic Survey Store at https://store.usgs.gov; when Klamath National Forest district offices reopen to public (now closed), $14 in person.
Contact:
Klamath National Forest, headquarters, 530-598-3781; Happy Camp District, 530-5989310; www.fs.usda.gov/ klamath safety from the pandemic in the outdoors, but the quality of beauty, seclusion and adventure in the Marble Mountains is a reward that goes far beyond.
Tom Stienstra is The San Francisco Chronicle’s outdoor writer. Email: tstienstra@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @StienstraTom