In my last post I talked about coping with the heavy smoke blanketing Northern California. Well, I took my own advice and scooted down Interstate 5 to Sims Flat Campground. There I hooked up with my oldest brother Eric Soares (a famous sea kayaker with the Tsunami Rangers) and his fun, beautiful, and highly coordinated wife Nancy.
We headed downstream to a stunning swimming hole on the Upper Sacramento River. The cold-but-not-too-cold water was the perfect complement to the 95 degree sunshine. We dipped in the coolness, we sunned on rocks, we floated downstream, we hopped on rocks, we took in the green of the streamside vegetation and the thick forests rising up the ridges. And the bit of smoke in the air didn’t bother us at all.
This is a truly magical place. Yes, there’s the cheap $12 campsites, but you can also hike the level perimeter of the path that circumscribes the campground and learn a lot about the history of this area, including its sawmill period and details on the historic bridge built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. For more information, see this article from the Redding Record Searchlight. And here’s the US Forest Service info on the campground itself. And if you love to fish, you definitely want to probe this stretch of the river. (For details on fishing the Upper Sacramento, peruse the wealth of information and stories at The Trout Underground Fly Fishing Blog run by fellow Mount Shasta region resident Tom Chandler.)
Finally, here’s a photo of me at Mears Creek last summer. (Yes, it’s the same one from the author page of www.NorthernCaliforniaHikingTrails.com.)
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