San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Getting there: Lewiston Lake
Mary Smith Campground:
Tent cabins, $119 per night; tent campsites $23 per night.
Restroom with running water, flush toilets available within short walk; shore-launch kayaks, canoes; power boats can be parked on shore at nearby campground, bow first, roped to tree.
Facilities:
Good to know:
Cabin 5A is the closest to the water (about 30 feet); Cabin 3 is also close to shore, quiet and also has a great water view; Cabin 9 is ADA compliant; avoid tent site 8 (tent pad is not level, trail runs nearby to restroom, and it’s located close to parking).
Reserve campsite or tent cabin at www.recreation. gov — type in “Mary Smith,” (not Lewiston Lake); for tent cabins, click on “Tent Glamping Units.” Reservations available four days
Reservations:
in advance of dates; up to six months in advance.
Canoe or kayaks, $15 for first hour, $5 for each additional hour, $30 for half day; aluminum boat, motor (with fuel), $75 for four hours, $100 for eight hours; four-hour minimum; patio boat, $105 for four hours, $195 for eight hours.
Not available at Mary Smith Campground; $7.50 at Pine Cove Marina.
Boat rentals:
Showers:
Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, the park devoured in the Carr Fire in 2018, is gradually reopening.
The centerpiece is Whiskeytown Lake, full again with clear, clean water and sprinkled with boats. On the west shore, leafedout oaks and other fresh vegetation have brought the Brandy Creek Peninsula to life. At Oak Bottom, campgrounds and dayuse parking are popular again, and can fill on weekends. The lake, and the shoreline recreation
areas that surround it, are open to hiking, swimming, boating, water sports and camping. West of the lake, the burned slopes leading up to the ridge remain closed.
From Redding, it’s less than a 10-mile drive on Highway 299 to the gateway for Whiskeytown. Most turn left on JFK Memorial Drive, where a panoramic lake view is available from the edge of the parking lot. A full lake and shoreline greenery can make it difficult to imagine the grim scene in 2018 when a fire tornado ravaged the land. Whiskeytown Lake spans 3,200 acres with 36 miles of shoreline. Of the big lakes in the north state, Whiskeytown has the best clarity, verified at 30 feet, which makes it a far deeper blue on clear days than most reservoirs in Northern California.
Six of nine campgrounds are open, including Oak Bottom, the park’s largest camp, with 94 tent sites and 22 sites for self-contained RVs. Boat ramps at Brandy Creek, Whiskey Creek and Oak Bottom are all open this summer.
At Oak Bottom, all types of boats launch and venture out, from powerboats to patio boats, from kayaks to SUPs. The boat launches are free with the parkentrance fee or national-park passes.
On warm mornings when the wind is down, the lake is a favorite for water sports, fishing, kayaking and SUPs. On summer afternoons, when the wind often is up, conditions are excellent for sailing and windsurfing.
Just past the visitor center on John F. Kennedy Drive, the parking lot has been packed on weekends this summer for the short walk down to East Beach, the prime destination for picnics and water play. Another open trail is the Shasta Divide Nature Trail, which starts near the visitor center and provides pretty lake views. To help put Whiskeytown back on the map, the organization Kokanee Power has hosted fishing derbies for kokanee salmon. The lake also has good fishing for bass, known for size, not numbers.
The least-used picnic facilities are near the Carr Powerhouse, with shaded sites, a grassy area and lake views. That is about a mile from where the Carr Fire started.
In the park’s interior, several roads and all the trails remain closed. That includes the hikes to the park’s waterfalls, including to Whiskeytown Falls, Boulder Creek Falls and Brandy Creek Falls, as well as to trail camps and access to renowned mountain biking trails. Those will not be reopened until hazard trees are removed and the routes are safe, the park said.
By Tom Stienstra
With one small addition to your life — a kayak, canoe or inflatable or stand-up paddleboard, you can salvage your summer in Mendocino and its coast, secluded freshwater lagoon and series of protected coves.
Whatever floats your boat, literally: Several of the best launch points on the coast for flat-water and saltwater paddle sports are close to Mendocino.
At the same time, Mendocino provides relief from the heat that is so pervasive across much of Northern California for the third straight summer, and from another season of smoke. In Mendocino, the air is clean and smoke free, and the come-andgo coastal fog has yielded to many clear days.
As schools head back in session, lodging and campsite availability starts to open up. As fall arrives, midweek opportunities may be wide open, though weekends remain popular until the rains arrive.
The region is about a three-hour drive for most in the Bay Area. Once you break off Highway 101 past Cloverdale at Highway 128, you drive the curvy two-laner through forest to the coast, where the air gets cleaner every mile you go.
Big River Lagoon:
On Highway 1, a half mile south of Mendocino, turn east on Big River Road and drive 0.4 miles to a parking area and access for car-top boats near the north shore of Big River. You can walk your boat to the water. If you paddle upstream, you will enter the Big River Estuary State Marine Conservation Area. You get great paddling on flat water, often with no wind in the morning, a feeling of seclusion and lots of shorebirds.
Mendocino Bay:
From Highway 1, turn east on Big River Road and drive about 0.1 mile to a spur on your right that leads a short distance to the parking area for Big River Beach. Adjacent and below the Highway 1 bridge, there is a parking area for access for paddle sports. You can then handlaunch a kayak and paddle through a gentle break and into Mendocino Bay. The best destination: the protected coves on the inside of the headlands, where you can play amid the surges and eddy currents in the coves.
Van Damme Beach:
From Mendocino, drive south
on Highway 1 for 2.9 miles to a large parking area for Van Damme Beach on your right. You get access to a wide, arcing beach that is set in a deep cove. The protected inshore waters lead out to kelp beds, and on the north side of the bay, a series of rocky inlets. A kayak-rental service is often available on the beach. On calm mornings, you can paddle toward the headlands and along the kelp beds. In minutes, you will feel transformed.
Russian Gulch Beach:
From Mendocino, drive north on Highway 1 for 2 miles to the signed turnoff for Russian Gulch State Park on the left. Follow the signs, a fun, circuitous 1.7-mile route where you drive to the bottom of a canyon and pass under the Russian Gulch Bridge, then take a spur road to Russian Gulch Beach parking. You hand-carry your boat across the beach (and back under the Highway 1 Bridge) to the shore. The beach is one of the smaller in the area, set in a deep cove, often ideal for launching kayaks. You then can venture out into the small, protected bay. Most poke around the rocky bluffs on the northern shore. It extends into the Russian Gulch State Marine Conservation Area, and to the immediate south, a larger cove and secluded beach with a rocksand mix.
Canoe, kayak rentals, tours
Big River Road, Mendocino, 707-937-0273, https://catchacanoe.com
Catch a Canoe,