Читать книгу Trinity Alps & Vicinity: Including Whiskeytown, Russian Wilderness, and Castle Crags Areas. A Hiking and Backpacking Guide онлайн

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Once you’ve fully admired the view from Kanaka Peak, prepare yourself for the knee-wrenching descent down the mountain’s northeast ridge, with Whiskeytown Lake in nearly constant view. Park officials have recently shown interest in realigning this section of trail to follow a less severe grade, but private property nearby limits their alternatives. After a mile or so of steep descent, the trail bends northwest and continues the sharp drop until easing just before a junction with the closed Martha’s Ditch Trail on the right. A short distance farther, you reach another junction with the Paige Boulder Trail, also closed to public use.

Gently graded trail leads away from the junction, crossing a usually dry drainage and then dropping down to a boulder hop of Paige Boulder Creek. From the crossing, a steady ascent leads well above the creek through open forest and continues upstream through the canyon. Where the path moves a good distance away from the creek, you come to a pair of junctions, the first with the unmarked Ridge Trail and the second with the Logging Camp Trail to Peltier Bridge Campground. Now heading southwest, the trail ascends back toward the creek, reaching the north junction of the Kanaka Cutoff Trail on the way. The sound of the creek returns shortly after the junction, as the trail proceeds upstream beneath the welcome shade from the riparian vegetation lining the banks to an easy boulder-hop. Once across the creek, continue along the south bank, soon passing around a closed steel gate and then closing the loop at the junction with the old roadbed. From there, retrace your steps back across Paige Boulder Creek and shortly to the trailhead.