So we didn't go to Lake Tahoe this weekend. Instead we went somewhere we had yet to explore - Klamath National Forest, home of Marble Mountain. I should explain that my husband inherited a love of rocks from his grandfather, an avid rock collector, and was very excited to get to see a mountain that is basically composed of marble. (He has tired of the granite containing Sierra). KNF is located north of Shasta/Trinity NF and between Eureka and Yreka in Northern California. We left Thursday night and made it to the edge of KNF around 11pm. It was a long drive, especially after working all day. After a horrible night's sleep on rocky ground in a campground located just adjacent to the highway, we continued on our way Friday morning to reach our destination - Sulphur Springs Campground. Sulphur Springs is located about 10 miles south of the town of Happy Camp.
It was a cool little campground and other than a few locals coming for a swim in the nearby creek, we had the place to ourselves. It was a walk-in campground, there was no water in the camp, but we're used to filtering water from streams when we're hiking so that wasn't a big deal to us. As the name implies, there is a sulphur spring near the camp where the water has been dammed and is quite warm although kind of smelly. It was a really hot weekend and we ended spending more time in the snow-melt fed Elk Creek than we did in the warm spring. There was a nice (but very cold) swimming hole just a stone's throw from our camp. We spent Friday making camp, playing with Lichen in the creek and relaxing. We took a drive up one of the many unmarked dirt roads to the top of a nearby mountain to get the lay of the land. We were disappointed that we were unable to see Marble Mountain and upon studying our map, realized we weren't going to be able to get a view of the mountaing very easily. In fact it would require a 10 mile hike, 20 mile roundtrip, to get close. So we decided to drive to the other end of the park Saturday and take a shorter hike into the Marble Mtn Wilderness to see the mountain.
Early Saturday morning we drove to Lover's Camp which is located east of Marble Mtn. It is also a walk-in and undeveloped campground and pretty nice. Although not as secluded as the Sulphur Springs spot, which I thought was just about perfect. We still had our pick of campsites and made camp Saturday morning before heading out for hike to Marble Mountain. From the map, we thought it would be about 4 miles of moderate terrain to get a look at Marble Mountain. It turned out to be about 5.5 miles in and we got only a peek of Marble Mountain (11 miles roundtrip). 11 miles is a pretty ambitious day hike for us, and really it was about 2 miles too much. It was a really nice hike, the first 4 miles had only about a 200 ft elevation change and the forest was really beautiful. It was very green, there were wildflowers and a lot of little streams to cool off in along the way, but all small enough that crossing wasn't a problem. The next 1.5 miles was what I would classify as difficult. There was a 1000ft elevation gain in about a mile and it was basically just switchbacks full of large marble steps. It's only redeeming feature of this portion of the hike was that about halfway through the marble staircase there was a beautiful waterfall. After the waterfall the trail continued up and came to two small meadows. From the top of a ridge between the two meadows we caught a peek of the Marble Mtn peak. It was cool, but not the payoff we were hoping for. At this point we were pretty tired and because we had underestimated both the distance and difficulty of the trail, we were running low on daylight and water and still had the 5.5 mile trek back to camp. We made good time on the way back to camp, but the last 2 miles were really difficult. We ran out of water, were hungry and tired. Upon returning to camp and guzzling down some gatorade we drove a few miles down to a beach at the river we had passed on the drive in to clean off and cool off. We passed on the campfire Saturday night and instead just made our traditional campfire chili on the campstove and went to bed.
Lichen loved the hike. He really liked the streams and would run ahead when he heard the sound of a creek. The hike really wore him out. He slept on night Saturday outside the tent, the entire car ride home (5+ hours) and all night Sunday and still didn't have his normal energy level back this morning. I think he's a little sore, like Chris and I, from the long hike.
We also stopped at Lake Berryessa on the way home to get a break from driving. We were hoping to get Lichen to come out and go swimming with us, after seeing how much he enjoyed playing in the streams during our hike, but he was still very hesitant to venture out past where his feet could touch bottom. He would swim a few feet out towards us, but then change is mind and turn back. It's good to know he can swim, but I don't think he's going to be one of those dogs that loves to swim.
All in all it was a good trip and really nice to get away. I'm becoming a big fan of National Forests over the National and State Parks. The scenery is beautiful, although perhaps not quite a breathtaking as some of the NPs and SPs, but still really great. And there are far less people, it's much easier to get a campsite and there's even a good chance you'll have the place to yourself. And probably most importantly to us right now, National Forests let you take your dog on the trails, whereas National and most State Parks don't.
Chris has more pics of our trip on his blog.
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