Dunsmuir, California

I take route 5 north over the immense Lake Shasta and climb uphill almost the entire drive to Dunsmuir, California.  I am on my way to Klamath Falls Oregon but Dunsmuir sounds like a cool town to hang for a while and I decide to stop there.  It’s part of my new motto, “No Worry, No Hurry”.  Signs of last summers forest fires are evident on the distant slopes, hopefully this year won’t be so bad.  The view of Mount Shasta is impressive, it really stands out as the top half remains snow covered and we have a blue sky today.  It is a volcano that erupted a few centuries ago and will surely do its again some day, I wouldn't want to be nearby when this occurs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Shasta

View from highway 5 approaching Dunsmuir

The town of Dunsmuir is just off route 5 and it has a rather nice old downtown with nice looking restaurants, cafes, bars, a bakery and various shops.  It’s a near perfect tourist stop.  They also claim to be the “Home of the Best Drinking Water on Earth” and there are water fountains around town where you can fill bottles.  As there is a water bottling plant in town, there might be some truth to these claims, I will have to try it.  Dunsmuir is also a town near the Pacific Crest Hiking Trail that runs from Mexico to Canada.  It’s a popular resting and resupply spot for the through hikers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunsmuir,_California

Map on the visitors center building

One of the public water fountains in Dunsmuir where you
can get the "Best water on Earth"

Typical downtown scene

Freight trains and fishing are important here  

Do not open the door !

Seems to be friendly warning

The California Theater is the dominant building in downtown

Dunsmuir is on the Sacramento River with great fishing and many waterfalls.  I went to the Hedge Creek Falls on the edge of town and immediately remembered that I had been there before.  We traveled through this area a few years previous on our way to ? and stopped to see this same waterfall.

There is almost always some one in the pool at the bottom

Nearby is an old steam Locomotive and a caboose that I remember taking a photo off.  Dunsmuir is a railroad town with a small station / museum and freight trains still run frequently on this line.

By chance, I am here for the Thursday afternoon farmers market starting about 4 PM, not a big one, but with one vendor selling great fruit, the fresh peaches and tomatoes look especially good and I get a few.  People are buying flats of them, woman in front of me in the line said she was making peach cobbler, that made my mouth water.  There was a local musician playing who was very good, I sat at the adjacent brew pub outside patio in the sun, had a beer and listened, it doesn’t get much better !

In the morning I check out the Train Depot when I see the train crew walking across the tracks with the usual stuff, packs, metal crew box and then I hear the horn of an approaching freight train.  It’s a crew change and It affords me some good photo ops.  The Amtrak depot is open although no one seems to be around and inside is a really folksy train mural on one wall. This town has done a good job at saving their old railroad stuff.  All over downtown they have taken old railroad semaphore train signals and used them to decorate the street corners.  I also noticed that the original glass insulators are still on the poles on the street adjacent to the tracks.

Just like in New Jersey, the train crew carries all sorts of baggage 

Some graffiti can be great, but that may be a lie ? 

The train depot has is painted to look like a locomotive is inside

A great old Southern Pacific Lines sign 

Nice train mural inside depot

Patriotic bunting on depot 

Up the street from the rail yard is a long mural painted on a retaining wall and a woman is working on the mural.  I go up and talk to her, she is the artist, Pat Devereaux, who is a local art teacher who started this mural as a school project 20 some years ago and continues to maintain it.  She told me how she came here 25 years ago when this town was virtually unknown.  Her husband was a musician who started a band when there were none around which caught on and started a local music scene.  They are portraying in the mural which is a microcosm of the town, it’s truly a beautiful thing.

Pat is an inspiration

The band

Base Ball game, Babe Ruth played an exhibition game
at the old Dunsmuir ball field

She said that she usually puts a flying saucer in her paintings

The Dunsmuir school mural project projects "Be nice to each other" 

Before I forget, this town also has a great historic hardware store, it’s a town attraction in itself, not to be missed.

The best small hardware store I've ever seen, they even sell record albums 

I travel a few miles away to Castle Crags State Park and drive to the trailhead for the short 1/4 mile trail to the Vista Point.  Vista Point is pretty great as you get a clear view of both Mt. Shasta and the Castle Crag Peaks.  I then go a more serious hike on the Castle Crag Trail which is about 2 1/2 miles of strenuous uphill mostly through forest.  I also take a side trail to the Indian Spring which is more like a creek coming out around a huge bolder.  There is a sign saying “Don’t Pollute” as it is the water supply for the Castle Crag State Park campground.  I reached a point on the trail with good views of the Castle Crags, but did not go to the very end of the trail.  I hated stopping so close to the end, but stopped when it started to become more of a rock scrambling thing than a hike.  The 2 1/2 mile steep downhill back to the parking lot was easier on the lungs but more of a strain on other muscles.  Back at the van, I drove out the Park main entrance and to another park area across the road where where you can park on the river and wade in the fast flowing ice cold water. I rinsed by sweaty tee shirt in the cold stream and gave myself a partial sponge bath, it was most refreshing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Crags

Castle Crags from the trail

Mt. Shasta from the trail

It was mostly a shaded forest hike

Another closer view of Castle Crags

The Indian Spring Trail took me to the base of the peaks

Lots of water flowing out of the rocks here form an oasis

Entering Castle Crags wildnerness

This was relief !

  

I though there might be something interesting in one of the local Dunsmuir bars in the evening as it was Saturday night, but they were dead, the town mostly closes after dark.  I then made the mistake of parking overnight adjacent to the railroad tracks and about every two hours was awoken by the train horn, the crossing bells and the scretching of the freight car wheels as they negotiated the curve.

I hung around in the the morning to go to the rail depot museum at 10 AM.  There were two volunteers manning the museum who perked up when I told them I am an ex railroad employee.  They didn’t think they have ever had anyone from New Jersey before.  The museum is very well done, they have lots of historic photos  of the rail yard in its boom steam train days.  They also have much on town history and a sizable collection of Indian baskets and arrowheads.  The rail yard back in the steam days had a maintenance shop, a roundhouse that held many Locomotives, a turntable and a much larger two story depot building.  The advent of the diesel locomotive reduced the labor workforce dramatically and with time and decay most of the old buildings including the train depot were demolished.  Currently there is one Amtrak passenger train a day, everything else is freight trains.

A model of the original turntable and roundhouse

Old Amtrak poster

Indian baskets were impressive

Indian tribes were everywhere in California

Interior view of the museum

Next stop is Klamath Falls, Oregon

Redding, California

I was excited as I read a Redding, California web page; it sounded as if downtown Redding was a mecca of entertainment and cuisine, but when I arrived in the Market Street area I didn’t find nearly as much. A one block section is now closed off and under a complete redevelopment, when this is done perhaps there will be more to brag about.  I then looked up local attractions and it was mostly city parks, the Sundial Bridge and the River Trail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redding,_California

The Cascade Theater is nicely restored, a good start

The ticket window

An original Bell Telephone office

Major redevelopment in progress

I found it interesting how they are financing this with
California climate investment funding, doesn't seem right ?

Great old photos of Redding were displayed but in bad condition

Old Lorenz Hotel was totally  renovated and is now open for senior housing

I started off at City Hall, I should say the huge new City Hall, not sure why such a huge building is necessary.  I went to see the sculpture garden (another attraction) on the city Hall grounds along with a water fountain.  The Water fountain is attractive, but the sculpture garden not so much, I hesitate to list it as an big attraction.

This wooden sculpture to appear as a breaking wave was
the most prominent sculpture in the park

The water fountain with city Hall in background

Next I went to the Turtle Bay Arboretum and Botanical Garden which is a huge wooded area adjacent to the Sacramento River that has been developed with many trails and mediterranean climate zone plants and shrubs.  They seem to be very into the fact that this area has a similar climate to the Mediterranean.  It was very hot and I planned to go only a short way but then I saw the Sundial Bridge up ahead and continued on.  I was planing to do the bridge next, I thought it was a road bridge over the Sacramento River and was surprised by what I saw.  It is a walking or biking bridge, a very cool design and way better than expected.  The Sacramento River is a fast flowing and wide body of water and a very scenic view from the bridge  The bridge crosses the river and connects to the River Trail network on the other side.  There is also a museum, mainly for children, a gift shop and parking lot for the the River Trail.  The gift shop had all sorts of souvenir objects and cold drinks, the cold ice tea was really appreciated !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundial_Bridge_at_Turtle_Bay

Map of the extensive park

The Sundial Bridge is an amazing structure 

An interesting walk

Looking out at the river from the bridge 

Looking back from the opposite shoreline

Many pretty flowers along the botanical garden path

Such as this

There were many

A few miles away I happened upon another parking lot for the River Trail on the opposite side of the river with an historical marker for a former car campground and a restaurant and dance club, now long gone.  Across the road was another small parking spot that is directly under a highway bridge popular with fishermen and with a great view of this enormous railroad bridge, must be at least a mile in length.  As I was looking a train crossed the bridge and I had the camera, almost perfect timing through the branches of the tree

I imagine its a bit of a thrill ride for the train crew

These are long freight trains

After sweating half the night in the van, I decided a motel would be nice so I made a reservation for a modern looking Motel 6.  It was a clean, attractive, but very basic.  In fact in the morning when turning in my key, a man was complaining to the management about the lack of small bottles of shampoo and conditioner in the rooms.  The motel was located in an area that seems to be the new Redding downtown with many new chain hotels, restaurants and service businesses.

Prior to my hotel stay I went for a good hike, knowing a shower would feel especially good afterwards.  I went on the FlanaganTrail with a side trail to the top of Chamise Peak.  A lot of the trail was wooded, thankfully shaded and was predominately Oak and Manzanita forest with a scattering of older pine trees.  There was evidence of recent forest fires, but it hadn’t hurt the trees much.  The Manzanita trees were exceptionally beautiful with their colorful stripping.  The hike to the peak was a spiral climb that wound around the peak several times, I thought it would never end, but it was only a 2.5 miles round trip.  The view from the top was worth it, you could easily see snow covered Mt Shasta far in the distance and the Shasta Dam. There is a lot of good hiking in this area, there was much mining activity here and the old trails and roads remain. It became rather heated by noon and I wasn’t prepared well with only a few crackers and a small bottle of water so I was in a conservation mode.  It was then that I thought, what an idiot, what happened to my planning ?  It was fine due to the shade of the forest, but the hike was about 8 miles long and I was plenty hot and tired at trails end.

Oak leaves against slightly fire singed bark

The Manzanita Trees bark was peeling,
I think it's norma, need to look into this ?l 

This one is a beautiful reddish color

Trail view

Manzanita roots penetrate right through solid rock

View from the peak of Mt Shasta, Shasta Dam and Lake

In other direction the river

I think I lost a few pounds so no problem going for dinner at Shamless O'Leery'S Irish pub which is a popular local dining spot.  I had their Guinness beef pie with soda bread which was excellent, highly recommended.

I also sampled a burger a few blocks away at Woody's Brewing which is a very popular spot.  It was the usual overly stacked burger that is all the rage these days, sloppy and difficult to eat without disassembly but this was in fact very good.

Next stop is Dunsmuir, California