Vacation salvation can be had with a long drive on wild side
Finding paradise in California this summer isn’t a given like it usually is. You have to earn it.
Campsites are booked solid everywhere. Yosemite requires online reservations in advance to enter the park. Planning a trip is more complicated during the coronavirus pandemic.
To prove it’s possible to find a gorgeous lakeside campsite — on a Friday evening, with no reservation, in peak summer — we ventured deep in the north state and into the Trinity
Divide last weekend.
The trip in was long, rocky and hard, but we saw only two tents at our first stop, pretty Toad Lake, and two more nearby at pristine Porcupine Lake, on a spur off the Pacific
Crest Trail. On weekdays at Toad, Porcupine and hundreds of other lakes at distant, challengingtoreach areas, you can still find your own slice of paradise and salvage a summer vacation.
The lesson: Avoid the 95% of vacationers who crowd easiertoreach destinations. Instead join what I call “The 5 Percent Club.”
The 5Percenter is willing to drive farther and venture deeper into the wild, hike into
wildlands, perhaps even off the trail, and make camp at small mountain lakes. One goal, for instance, is to find places where cell phones don’t work. That is often what it takes to find paradise this summer.
Due to the pandemic, many rural areas have never seen so many vacationers as they are this summer. People are packing parks, campgrounds and easily accessible lakes — just about any recreation site that can be reached with your typical 2wheeldrive vehicle. Many drive too fast and seem to look for some kind of short cut at wellknown parks.
On a recent weekend, outside the entrance to McArthurBurney Falls Memorial State Park in Shasta County, dozens of travelers parked cars illegally on the shoulder of Highway 89 despite a series of “No Parking” signs on both sides of the road, and then walked into the park to see Burney Falls. After being stuck on the soft shoulder, many cars had to be towed, park rangers said.
“McArthurBurney Memorial Falls State Park is experiencing record visitation this summer,” said Adeline Yee, information officer for state parks. “Camping has been recently temporarily closed until further notice in an effort to reduce visitation and travel from outside the local area.
“The park has been reaching full capacity by midmorning on most days of the week, causing the need to turn visitors away,” Yee said. “Illegal parking outside the park is creating a hazardous traffic situation on Highway 89 and vehicles are being cited for illegal parking. The number of citations is appearing to be triple of what was issued last year. Vehicles are also parking in areas away from the roadway with heavy vegetation, creating a fire risk.”
With that many people, a 5Percenter wouldn’t go near the place.
Where to look
There are nearly 20 million acres of national forests, with hundreds of lakes near trailheads in remote wildlands, across the Sierra Nevada, Cascade and KlamathSiskiyou ranges.
The Trinity Divide, located west of I5 north of Redding, is one of five major regions with dozens of lakes that can be reached with adventurestyle driving in deep forest, where you then extend your trip with a hike into wildlands. The others are the Lakes Basin Recreation Area in Plumas National Forest, Bowman Lakes Recreation Area in Tahoe National Forest and Crystal Basin and Carson Pass regions in Eldorado National Forest.
These places are far from cities, and for this summer, that’s a big plus. The Trinity Divide — named for its ridge that divides watersheds, the Trinity River to the west and Sacramento River to the east — has 49 lakes and is roughly 300 miles from San Francisco.
To get started, you have a long drive, 5 hours, mindbending for some, up I5 past Redding. From Lake Siskiyou, drive up South Fork Road past a bridge called “first crossing” in ShastaTrinity National Forest, then turn right at an Forest Road 41N53 (signed only on a post up the road). The next 200 yards are rough and rocky, passable only for 4wheeldrives with clearance, and they provide an idea of what’s ahead the next 10 miles. You then turn left on Forest Road 40N64 and in the next hour will find out what your vehicle can handle. The average car has no chance.
Setting up camp
If you make it, you eventually arrive at the Toad Lake Trailhead. From here, you strap on your boots and backpack and venture about 20 minutes up a short ridge to pretty Toad Lake, nestled at 6,400 feet. The lake is 23 acres, 40 feet deep and ringed by forest with campsites sprinkled around the lake. The swimming is euphoric by day with occasional decent trout fishing at dusk.
As you arrive to Toad, a trail breaks off to your right and routes around the lake counterclockwise. Near the lake’s feeder creek (now dry), the trail bears right on a signed route that climbs about 500 feet in 0.7 of a mile to a junction with the Pacific Crest Trail. You turn left on the PCT, rise over a ridge and then sail about a half mile to a spur to Porcupine Lake. A new metal sign, posted on a boulder, now signals the turn.
It’s then less than 10 minutes to Porcupine, set at 7,250 feet in a rock basin. The lake is only 81⁄2 acres yet 50 feet deep with high peaks and a ridge towering overhead. While much of the shore is rocky, several gorgeous campsites are available, including a flat perch on a terrace overlooking the lake on the far side.
At places like this, you learn to depend only on yourself. Cell phones don’t work. You carry everything you need in a backpack. Pack out all your trash. Bring a water purifier for drinking, of course.
Check in with the local district office of the U.S. Forest Service, and if campfires at designated rings are allowed, get a campfire permit; plan to cook on a portable backpacking stove.
Your reward is a campsite nestled along a pristine lake, often with other lakes nearby for day hikes.
The challenge to reach these sites — with hundreds available across national forests — is a key to their appeal. They are the answer for those who wonder if paradise is still out there.